228 
NOTE ON CHERRY LAUREL WATER. 
tear of vessel, at one dollar twelve and a half cents per day. 
They think the process can yet be modified so as to make 
it much cheaper. 
MM. Larocque and Huraut, suggest that bichloride of 
tin is a contamination of chloroform, made in tinned vessels, 
and attribute to that substance a part of the irritating pro- 
perties of some specimens of chloroform. 
ART. XLV.— NOTE ON CHERRY LAUREL WATER 
By M. Deschamps (D'Avillon.) 
Cherry laurel water being placed amongst those distilled 
waters which it is necessary to preserve with care, because 
it contains a certain amount of hydrocyanic acid, which has 
a tendency to decomposition by light and age, I have 
thought that it perhaps would not be useless to determine 
whether it is indispensable to cut and bruise the cherry 
laurel leaves destined for the distillation, which is not re- 
commended by all the formulae known, and also to ascertain 
if any advantage would arise from the employment of sul- 
phuric acid in the preservation of this water, as it enjoys 
the property of giving stability to hydrocyanic acid. 
With the view of resolving these two questions, I pre- 
pared on the 3d of July, 1846, cherry laurel water with the 
entire leaves, and with those that were cut and bruised. 
The water prepared with the entire leaves, notwithstand- 
ing a previous maceration of eighteen hours, contained 
thirty-one per cent, less hydrocyanic acid than that obtained 
from the bruised leaves. 
, The water prepared with cut and bruised leaves was di- 
