AMERICAN  PHARMACEUTICAL  ASSOCIATION. 
489 
The  value  and  extensive  demand  at  present  for  oils  for  lubri- 
cating and  other  purposes,  should  attract  attention  to  the  pro- 
duction of  oil  from  this  nut,  thousands  of  bushels  of  which  are 
allowed  yearly  to  fall  to  the  ground  and  rot,  which  if  collected 
and  the  oil  extracted,  would  cut  off  the  necessary  importation  of 
a  large  amount  of  oils,  such  as  the  rape,  olive,  &c,  and  pay  a 
handsome  remunerative  profit  to  the  maker.  I  have  been  in- 
formed by  those  who  make  it  in  Ohio,  that  the  yield  per  bushel 
is  one  and  a  half  gallons,  and  that  they  purchase  the  nuts, 
through  the  country,  of  the  store-keepers  for  50  cents  the  bushel. 
Mr.  Wayne  exhibited  nitre  earth  from  the  neighborhood  of 
Nashville,  Tennessee,  which  yields  15  per  cent  of  saltpetre,  and 
is  said  to  be  in  sufficient  abundance  to  supply  the  demand  of  the 
United  States. 
The  same  gentleman  exhibited  paraffine  from  the  cannel  coal 
of  Western  Virginia,  and  stated  that  a  ton  of  the  coal,  when 
distilled  at  a  moderate  temperature,  yielded  from  700  to  800  lbs. 
of  liquid  products,  which  by  subsequent  treatment  afforded  50  lbs. 
of  paraffine.  *  Mr.  Wayne  suggested  that  paraffine  properly 
purified  will  answer  as  a  substitute  for  wax,  and  that  a  bland  oil 
may  be  extracted  from  the  liquid  products  obtained  by  super- 
heated steam,  so  mild  in  qualities  as  to  be  substituted  for  olive  oil 
and  lard  in  ointments,  thus  obtaining  both  wax  and  oil  from  coal. 
Mr.  Dupuy  also  exhibited  specimens  of  paraffine. 
Mr.  Wayne  presented  for  examination  a  specimen  of  the  Mexi- 
can soap  root,  which  appears  to  be  a  different  root  from  that  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  Simmons  (Amer.  Jour.  Pharm.  vol.  26,  page 
482)  as  so  common  in  California.  The  most  remarkable  charac- 
teristic of  this  root  is  the  peculiar  spiral  arrangement  of  the  fibres 
of  its  cortex,  which  gives  to  the  cylindrical  root  the  appearance 
of  a  small  bundle  of  Para  sarsaparilla.  It  appears  to  contain  a 
saponinoid  principle.  Its  infusion  froths  powerfully  by  agita- 
tion, and  is  used  in  Mexico  as  a  substitute  for  soap. 
Mr.  Wayne  next  read  a  paper  on  Leptandra  Virginica,  in 
which  he  describes  a  bitter  principle  upon  which  the  activity  of 
the  root  depends,  and  which  is  quite  different  from  the  so-called 
Leptandrin  described  in  the  Eclectic  Dispensatory,  see  vol.  26, 
page,  505,  of  this  Journal. 
Prof.  Guthrie  announced  the  decease  of  our  late  member, 
