"^"j^ne'is^sa""-}         SiveTal  Varieties  of  Wax.  303 
of  the  water-bath,  on  distillino-  them  with  water  afforded  a  small  amount 
of  the  said  acid. 
I  am  informed  that  in  December  and  January  past  Prunus  lauro- 
€erasus  has  been  injured  throughout  northern  Italy  as  far  as  Bologna  and 
Florence  in  the  same  way  as  with  us.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know 
a  little  more  exactly  the  are^  of  this  action  of  cold  on  the  shrub,  which 
is  so  widely  spread  also  in^the  south  of  the  British  Isles. — Pharm.  Jour, 
and  Trans. ^  March  20,  p.  749. 
CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  THE  CHEMISTRY  OF  SEVERAL 
VARIETIES  OF  WAX. 
By  Eduard  Hirschsohn,  Mag.  Pharm. 
The  reactions  1  obtained  with  the  different  resins,  etc.,  described  in 
the  ''Archiv  der  Pharmacie,"  can  be  made  use  of  as  a  good  means  not 
only  of  distinguishing  the  various  resins,  gum  resins,  and  balsams  from 
one  another,  but  also  of  recognizing  the  more  important  commercial 
varieties  of  the  same  by  means  of  chemical  reactions.  It  did  not, 
therefore,  appear  without  interest  to  subject  the  varieties  of  wax  more 
commonly  met  with  in  the  market  to  a  similar  examination. 
For  this  purpose  I  made  use  of  the  samples  in  the  collection  of 
the  Pharmaceutical  Institute  of  this  town,  kindly  placed  at  my  disposal 
l)y  Professor  Dragendorff,  to  whom  I  take  this  opportunity  of  expres- 
sing my  sincere  thanks.  The  experiments  with  the  same  described  in 
the  following  lines  were  carried  out,  with  but  few  exceptions,  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  way  and  with  the  same  reagents  as  in  my  previous 
■investigations. 
I  was  able  to  avail  myself  of  the  following  samples  : 
1.  Cera  Jiava  ;  from  a  chemist  in  Dorpat  ;  fine  pure  sample. 
2.  Cera  flava ;  produced  in  1877  Rappin  in  Livonia.  Also  a  very 
iine  sample. 
3.  Cera  alba  ;  in  the  collection  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Institute  ;  fine 
white  pieces. 
4.  Cera  alba  :  from  a  chemist  in  Dorpat  ;  good  sample. 
5.  Cera  alba  ;  from  the  Martiny  collection  ;  similar  to  No.  4. 
6.  Cera  africana  ;  also  from  the  Martiny  collection  ;  very  similar  to 
European  beeswax,  but  softer  and  of  a  greyish  yellow. 
7.  Cera  mexicana  ;  from  the  Martiny  collection  ;  is  a  white  beeswax. 
