202 
NOTE UPON INDIA OPIUM. 
70 of dry opium powder, we could produce a combination 
possessing the consistence and other physical characters of 
fresh standard opium, but the compound has little consist- 
ence, and will be found to contain insoluble portions, which 
have lost their power of forming hydrates with water; yet 
its spissitude remains exactly that of standing opium, the 
precise quantity of dry opium employed on making it, being 
recovered from it, but in a darkened and deteriorated condi- 
tion. 
When the juice of the poppy has been properly dried, 
that is rapidly, in a cool shade, and protected from dust, it 
possesses, at the spissitude of 70 per cent, (this is 30 of 
water) the following properties : "It has in the mass a red- 
dish-brown color resembling copper, (the metallic lustre ob- 
tuse :) and when spread thin on a white plate, shows con- 
siderable translucency, with a gallstone yellow color, and 
a slightly granular texture. When cut into flakes with a 
knife, it exhibits sharp edges, without drawing out into 
threads ; and is tremulous-like jelly, or rather strawberry 
jam, to which it has been aptly compared. It has consi- 
derably adhesiveness, a handful of it not dropping from the 
hand inverted for some seconds. Its smell is the pure pecu- 
liar smell of opium, heavy and not unpleasant. In this 
condition it is said to be standard, or awwal opium." 
When the juice again, instead of being thus exposed to 
the air, has, after collection, been kept in deep vessels, 
which prevent evaportion, it presents the following appear- 
ances. A specimen of it which has the spissitude of only 
60 per cent., has the apparent consistence or substantiality 
of standard opium at 70 per cent. But on minuter exami- 
nation, it will be found that the apparent firmness of tex- 
ture is a deception, resulting from the mechanical constitu- 
tion of the mass, it being made up with but little alteration 
of the irregular drops collected from the capsule, soft with- 
in and more inspissated without : this outer portion, as long 
as it remains entire, giving the general character of consis- 
