of perseverance in the undertaking which is in progress, and that during the ensuing session of parliament these exertions will be crowned with success.

THE SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE OF THE
PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY.

In another part of this number, our readers will find four papers* which emanated from this Committee, and we are happy to state, that there is a prospect of much useful information being obtained from the same source during the ensuing year. Correspondents are appointed in several places in Europe and America, as well as in this country. It is the object of the Committee to establish a communication with all parts of the world, from which any products used in medicine or the arts are derived; and to obtain in this undertaking the assistance of any scientific men, merchants, and others, who may have the opportunity of extending the knowledge already possessed on these subjects. The encouragement already received affords every reason to anticipate a successful result, and we have no doubt that, as the objects of the Committee become generally known, the number of volunteers will increase in proportion.

In addition to the papers above alluded to, and others not yet published, numerous specimens have been received and contributions have been promised, which will be a valuable addition to the Museum. While these proceedings are promoting the success of the Committee, there is reason to believe that the advantage will in many cases be mutual, as by this means articles of commerce may be introduced into notice in this country, and thus become a source of revenue to the parties who enrich our list of Materia Medica, by bringing them before our notice.

Among the subjects which have engaged the attention of the Committee, we may mention kino, several rare varieties of rhubarb, the cultivation of rhubarb, the greenheart tree, Indian barilla from Calcutta, rose-coloured Dammar from Singapore, isinglass, the optical properties of some of the turpentines, a variety of substances from New Zealand, palm sugar, several rare varieties of cinchona bark; some of which form the subjects of the papers in this number.

The proceedings of the Committee for the present season are closed, and will be resumed in October. In the mean time we make this allusion to what has been done, in order to induce any of our members who may happen to have correspondents abroad, to place themselves in communication with the Committee, and thus to extend the sphere of its operations.

*Page 64 et seq.
E 2

THE DUTIES OF CUSTOMS.

THE New Act (which is printed entire, pages 87-94), contains a provision, in the fourth clause, for obtaining a statistical return of the amount and value of goods imported. On a former occasion we alluded to the official entries in the books at the Custom-house, as furnishing this information, which we considered to be one of the few advantages of the system; but we are glad to find that this return will be continued, although many of the duties are abolished. The machinery employed in keeping these accounts might beneficially be made available for another purpose; namely, that of exercising some control over the quality of articles imported for medicinal use. If a parcel of damaged meat, or other article of food unfit for use, were to find its way into the market, it would be condemned; and we think a similar check should exist in the case of drugs. While the duties were in force, they acted, to a certain extent, as a protection to the public, since any drug which was so much damaged or adulterated as to be worth less than the duty, was not likely to be cleared. But in the absence of this check, some other supervision ought to be enforced, and this would very properly come under the jurisdiction of a Council of Health, as proposed to be established in the Medical Bill.

We are informed that some manufacturing Chemists have remonstrated against the repeal of the duty on morphia, while that on opium is retained. This regulation would give an advantage to foreign makers over those in this country, and, we understand that the case having been fairly represented to the Treasury, the duty on morphia and its salts will be reimposed.-(See Appendix.)

Our readers must not suppose that the market price of the several articles in the list has varied in all cases in proportion to the changes in the duty, this being affected by a variety of other circumstances.

The repeal of the auction duty is an important benefit to wholesale Druggists. Formerly, the importers of goods might sell them, in the first instance, free of auction duty; but those who purchased them at such sales, could not afterwards sell them by auction without being liable to the tax of five per cent. on the amount realized. Consequently, the importer enjoyed an advantage of five per cent. over the merchant or druggist. By the repeal of the auction duty all parties are now placed on an equality in this respect.

EXCISE TRICKERY.

A short time ago, two persons, disguised in the garb of gentlemen, entered the shop of Mr. Bullen, surgeon, and one of them, showing the sleeve of his coat, which had been extensively greased, asked for a shillingsworth of spirit to remove the same. The young

man recommended spirit of turpentine, but the gentleman had a particular objection to the smell of turpentine; æther was suggested, but in vain, he would have nothing but spirit of wine, and of that he must have one shillingsworth. While he was

being informed of the fact, that it was illegal to sell spirit of wine without a licence for such a purpose, a young man from Mr. Hutchinson, of Farringdon Street, entered the shop, and recognised the two gentlemen as being excise-officers who had on the same morning endeavoured to entrap him by an artifice of a similar description. As soon as they discovered that they were detected, they fled.

We feel persuaded that the Board of Excise would not countenance trickery of this kind, and that the two excise officers would have been reprimanded by the Board, if the charge could have been proved against them. Unfortunately, they escaped without leaving any clue by which they could be identified. If the young man had administered to the greasy coat the shillingsworth of spirit of wine in the form of tincture of asafoetida, this would have furnished a means of identifying the individual without any infraction of the excise laws.

ENGLISH PRESCRIPTIONS.

(MR. MUNTZ'S ACT OF PARLIAMENT.)

MR. MUNTZ, a short time ago, gave notice of motion in the House of Commons respecting a Bill to compel Medical Men to write prescriptions in English, and to oblige Chemists to affix English labels on all their shop-bottles and pots. Mr. Muntz appears to think that too much mystery prevails in Medical matters, and that the public ought to be in possession of full information as to the nature of all substances used in Medicine. In order to make this information available, the public should receive a medical education; and extending the same principle to Surgery, the Bill should enact that every Surgeon, before performing an operation, should write in English, for the information of his patient, the name of every muscle, vein, or tendon which he proposes to divide, so as to remove all mystery on the subject. Every Act of Parliament has exceptive clauses, and in the above act there ought to be an exception in favour of patients who travel on the Continent, where the English language is not generally understood, and who ought to be allowed to have their prescriptions translated into Latin, which language is universally intelligible among persons connected with the Medical profession. Foreigners, also, when resident or travelling in this country, should be allowed to enjoy a similar privilege. When the Bill is discussed in the House of Commons, the reporters should have orders to take down the speech of Mr. Muntz on the occasion in roman capitals, instead of short-hand.

TRANSACTIONS

OP

THE PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY.

ABSTRACT OF A LECTURE ON

THE NATURE AND PHYSICAL HISTORY OF GLASS, And on its Applications in Pharmacy and Practical Chemistry.

BY E. W. BRAYLEY, JUN., F.G.S.,

Member of the Chemical Society of London; Corresponding Member of the Philosophical Society of Basle, &c.;

Lecturer on Mineralogy applied to the Arts, &c.

[Delivered June 25, 1845.]

In the commencement of this lecture it was proposed, agreeably to a method which the lecturer had pursued for some years past, to consider Glass as an artificial mineral substance, and to illustrate its composition and properties in the same manner as that which would be adopted with respect to those of any natural mineral, with reference especially to its applications to practical purposes in Chemistry and Pharmacy, and in certain branches of the arts and manufactures. The propriety of this method of treating the various combinations of inorganic substances and mineral elements which are employed in the arts of life in the place of natural minerals, as forming, in fact, departments in the science of Mineralogy applied to the Arts, had been confirmed, it was remarked, by its having also been followed by Sir Henry T. De la Beche, in the Museum of Economic Geology, in which specimens of enamel, porcelain, earthenware, bricks, and tiles, &c. were exhibited under the same classification.

It was then noticed, that many compound bodies (and possibly some elementary substances also) exist under two general forms or conditions-the vitreous or glassy, and the crystalline or stony. This was illustrated, in the first instance, from the history of natural glass, as a frequent product of volcanic action. Specimens were exhibited of the various forms of volcanic glass, or glassy lava, which have received the names of obsidian, pitchstone, pearlstone, pumice, &c. Their properties and chemical composition were briefly explained, and it was shown that they were merely the glassy form of ordinary lavas, basaltic, as well as trachytic. Like natural glass, it was observed, the artificial glass of the arts (using that term in its widest acceptation), includes a variety of chemical combinations of silica with bases, whether alkalies, alkaline earths, or the oxides of the common metals, in the vitreous or glassy condition; their utility and appli

cability being uniformly impaired or destroyed by their passage into the crystalline state. A series of specimens exhibiting the transition of several kinds of ordinary glass from the vitreous to the perfectly stony or crystalline state was explained, including a common green wine-bottle, which had been completely devitrified, and converted into what has been termed Reaumur's porcelain, by continued exposure to a softening but not a fusing heat in the great fire at Hamburgh.

The history of the progress of science, with respect to the theory of this devitrification of glass was next adverted to, as exemplifying, in a remarkable manner, the reciprocal illustration of distinct and widely different subjects of philosophical investigation by each other; in the present instance, the theory of the crystalline rocks in chemical geology, and the history of vegetable juices in organic chemistry. Mr. Gregory Watt, in 1804, suggested the emission of heat previously in the latent state, as the intimate cause of the passage of the glass resulting from the artificial fusion of basaltic rock into a stony substance by slow cooling, and its final return to its original crystalline texture; and he appears to have extended this theory, by implication, to the conversion of common glass into Reaumur's porcelain. But the theory of devitrification seems afterwards to have been neglected, until Professor Graham, nearly forty years afterwards, first discussed the subject in a comprehensive manner, in his Elements of Chemistry. He showed, experimentally, that the passage of sugar and certain saline bodies from the vitreous to the granular-crystalline state is attended by a remarkable evolution of heat; producing in the case of sugar an elevation of temperature of 70° Fahr. Professor Graham infers "that glass itself, like transparent barleysugar, owes its constitution and properties to the permanent retention of a certain quantity of latent heat;" and generally, "that all bodies differ when in the vitreous and in the crystalline forms, in the proportion of combined heat which they possess."

Mr. Brayley, however, while adopting these views, differed from Professor Graham, in ascribing the devitrification of glass, not to the separate crystallization of the simple silicates, or combinations of silica with alkalies or metallic oxides (of which glass, in its ordinary state, may be conceived to be a mixture), but to the crystallization of the entire mass of the glass, as one compound silicate, analogous to the compound silicates constituting many siliceous minerals in nature. The further prosecution of this part of the Chemistry of glass was reserved for a second. lecture.

What may be termed the philosophy of the subject having been thus considered, the nature and physical history of the