AmAP°rUn;Srm }         Commercial  Varieties  of  Cacao.  207 
substance  for  a  great  length  of  time,  as  the  bulk  stock  samples, 
which  were  presumably  fresh,  were  higher  in  percentage  than  those 
in  the  pasteboard  boxes,  which  had  no  doubt  been  kept  in  stock  for 
some  time. 
305  Cherry  Street,  Philadelphia. 
CHEMICAL  EXAMINATION  OF  SOME  COMMERCIAL  - 
VARIETIES  OF  CACAO. 
By  Wiwjam  B.  Ridknour. 
Contribution  for  the  Chemical  Laboratory  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of 
Pharmacy.    No.  138. 
This  paper  is  confined  exclusively  to  the  chemical  examination  of 
some  commercial  varieties  of  Cacao  and  is  intended  to  supplement 
Professor  Edson  S.  Bastin's  publication,  "  Starches  in  Commercial 
Varieties  of  Cacao,"  Am.  Jour.  Pharm.,  1894,  page  369. 
The  present  work  was  carried  out  in  the  Chemical  Laboratory  of 
the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy,  under  the  direction  of  Pro- 
fessor Henry  Trimble. 
The  following  are  the  varieties  of  Cacao  examined  :  Bahia,  Suri- 
nam, Java,  Trinidad,  Roasted  Trinidad,  Ariba,  Caracas,  Roasted 
Caracas,  Granada,  Tobasco,  Machalle,  Maracaybo. 
The  process  will  first  be  given  and  the  results  then  tabulated. 
Estimation  of  Fat. — Three  grammes  of  the  beans  were  finely 
comminuted  with  an  equal  bulk  of  purified  sand  and  this  mixture 
extracted  with  petroleum  ether  in  a  Soxhlet  apparatus  for  10  hours, 
although  afterwards  a  shorter  time  was  found  sufficient  for  complete 
exhaustion. 
The  percolate  was  transferred  to  a  tared  beaker,  evaporated  and 
dried  under  a  desiccator  until  of  a  constant  weight  (when  dried  at 
ioo°  C.  the  character  of  the  butter  appeared  to  be  changed,  as  it 
remained  liquid  at  normal  temperatures  for  several  days). 
Estimation  of  Alkaloid,  Theobromine. — P.  Suss's  process  {Ztschr.f. 
Anal.  Chem.,  Apotheker  Ztg.,  1893,78;  Am.  Jour.  Pharm.,  1893, 
170)  was  used  for  the  estimation  of  the  alkaloid.  The  residue,  after 
separating  the  fat,  was  boiled  for  one-half  hour  with  200  c.c.  of  dis- 
tilled water  and  six  grammes  of  freshly-prepared  pure  lead  hydrate, 
strained,  expressed  and  filtered  ;  the  insoluble  portion  was  boiled 
twice  with  100  c.c.  of  distilled  water  and  the  united  filtrate  evapor- 
