MISCELLANY. 
175 
carbonate of soda are in Little Cumania, especially in the neighborhood of 
the town of Shegedin, where there already exists five establishments for 
its extraction ; and in the county of Bicharer, in the neighborhood of Ma- 
ria Theresiapel. This salt, which is called szekso in the language of that 
country, effloresces from the ground in damp places, where it covers the 
surface with a crust as white as snow. The season most advantageous 
for its collection is the spring, after the clear nights which have produced 
much frost and before sunrise. The soil is considered to be less rich after 
the rise of that luminary. The collection may also be made in summer 
and fall under the same circumstances. 
The soil, which is of a grayish white, being swept into heaps, is bought 
by the manufacturer. Its value is tested solely by its taste. It is then 
washed in square tubs, until the taste no longer indicates the presence of 
saline matter; these weak solutions are then turned anew on fresh por- 
tions of soil. The liquor, which is of a deep brown, contains, besides the 
carbonate, both sulphate and muriate of soda, with ulmates and other im- 
purities ; it is evaporated to a syrupy consistence in a large vessel made of 
strong iron plates; it is then conveyed to another evaporating vessel, like- 
wise of iron plates, placed near the first, and in this it is evaporated to dry- 
ness. ' The resulting mass is calcined in a large furnace until empyreuma- 
tic vapors cease to be given off, and then fused at a red heat; when half 
cooled, it is withdrawn from the vessel. When completely cold, the soda 
is white, and is now broken in pieces ; it is employed in that country for 
the manufacture of soup, and likewise exported as crude soda. 
A. G. V. 
Journ. de Pharm. 
An examination of an animal coloring powder called Syria. By J. J. Vi- 
rey. — There is imported from London a powder of a very deep violet 
reddish-brown color, pretty heavy, inodorous and insipid, but tinging the 
saliva of a beautiful carmine red. This pow r der is dense, and little volatile ; 
it communicates, almost instantly, either to water or alcohol, a beautiful 
purple tint, deep and solid. Nitric, acetic acids, &c, brighten it, by giv- 
ing to it a reddish shade, which resumes, however, in the air, a more vio- 
laceous tint. 
It was a question with us to determine the nature of this product ; plac- 
ed upon a sheet of red hot iron, this powder gave off thick white vapors, 
of an animal character, and only left a puffy charcoal, difficult to incine- 
rate. This character thus evinces the essential animal nature of the sub- 
stance. It was then proper to inquire in what order of animal substances 
could be found the source of this carmine red powder. 
We had thought that, as there was collected in the East, especially in 
Asia Minor and the whole of the Levant, a large quantity of the Kermes 
animal, Coccus ilicis, all that had been done was to separate the purple 
