adulteration is, without doubt, syrup made of cheap sugar. There is, indeed, a commercial American artificial honey, which is entirely composed of glucose syrup, while the comb is also artificial, and made of paraffin. The appearance of both comb and syrup is said to be superior to that of natural honey. In examining honey for adulteration, it will be necessary to make a quantitative analysis of the sugar it contains, and a microscopical examination; if neither by the microscope nor by saccharimetry any marked deviation from normal honey is observed, a further analysis will scarcely be necessary. If, on the contrary, by the absence of grains of pollen, by the presence of a large percentage of cane sugar, or by any other deviation from normal honey, a fraud is suspected, it may be necessary to make a very complete analysis. With regard to the artificial American honey, the presence of paraffin in the comb may be easily ascertained. Pure bees'-wax melts at 62° to 65°. Its specific gravity is 962; it contains cerotic acid, myricine, as well as ceroleine; and, like other fatty matters, it is attacked and blackened by warm sulphuric acid. Paraffin, on the contrary, remains unacted upon, so that this test alone will suffice either to detect paraffin when pure, or to separate it from other matters, such as waxes and fats, which are carbonised by sulphuric acid. TREACLE, MOLASSES. § 77. Treacle, molasses, golden-syrup, and similar terms, are used to denote a sweet syrup which is produced in the manufacture of sugar, and contains a mixture of sugar, partly cane and partly fruit; but the cane sugar, owing to certain salts and impurities, is uncrystallisable. The composition of these brown syrups varies according to the manufacture from which they are derived. The cheapness of treacle, &c., is such that there is no very great temptation to adulteration, and no conviction under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act has hitherto been obtained for adulterated molasses or treacle. The probable mode of adulterating the treacles would be by diluting with water. Cane-sugar molasses is alone used as an article of food, beet-root sugar molasses having an unpleasant taste. Some analyses, made a few years ago by Dr. Wallace,* of molasses, treacle, and golden-syrup, are as follows: * "The Sugar Cane." 1869. The ash of beet molasses has the following composition : $78. Jam consists of various species of fruit preserved by boiling in strong syrup. Most jams are very readily adulterated, since any tasteless vegetable tissue, such as vegetable marrow, turnips, &c., when mixed in jam cannot be readily detected by the palate. The chemical composition of the various jams is simply the chemical composition of the fruit juice and fruit itself, with the loss of a few volatile constituents and the addition of cane sugar. The latter may be in part inverted by the action of the organic acids or ferments so constantly found in fruit. The detection of adulterations of jam is mainly microscopic; but, at the same time, in many cases a careful observation of the absorption-spectrum will assist the diagnosis. In order to carry out this successfully, in addition to the precautions before described, it will be safest in all cases to use comparison liquids; and those who devote themselves to this study, should have at hand a variety of genuine jams of different ages. The mean composition of the more common kinds of fruits is detailed in the following table [König]: TABLE X.-100 PARTS OF THE SEED FRUIT. Brief Notes of the Microscopical Structure of Certain Fruits. § 79. Apples and Pears.-Both apples and pears contain numerous dotted ducts and spiral vessels. There is no very distinctive peculiarity about these ducts, but in the core will be found a strong horny membrane with spiculated cells, crossing one another at right angles, forming altogether a very singular tissue, and one which, once seen, can always be recognised. Damson. The skin of the damson is composed of at least two distinct species of cells underlying the transparent epidermis. One kind is a double row of reddish-purple oblong or oval cells, having, when seen in section, an average length of 00232 inch, and an average breadth of about 000928 inch; seen from above (as in tearing off a shred of the tissue) they form a beautiful fiveand six-sided mosaic pattern, the size of the cells being from about 000928 to 00116 inch. The blue cells are very similar in shape and size to the reddish-purple; below the blue there are some loose cells containing chlorophyll. Hence the beautiful colour of the damson is the combined effect of the blue, the red, and the green shining through the transparent epidermis. The pulp contains the usual large colourless globes or cells, of '0116 inch average diameter (b, fig. 15). Spiral vessels are numerous; Ash. stomata are occasionally to be seen on the surface of the dark b a coloured epidermis. The breadth or thickness of the skin is 00814 inch. By the use of bleaching powder, a small portion of the skin may be deprived of its colour, either partially or wholly, according to the judgment of the operator, and then will be seen a mapping out of the whole surface into Fig. 15.-a, Epidermis of damson; b, lobes by cells so placed that pulp cells, x 115. they form a network. Plum.-There are at least three distinct structures to be seen in the boiled and preserved plum:-1. The epidermis, consisting for the most part of a pavement-like layer of little square or irregularly oblong cells, filled with a granular matter (c, fig. 16), the size of the cells averaging from about 000696 to 00116 inch; the general distribution of these cells is somewhat circular. Scattered tolerably uniformly are patches of a deeper colour with larger cells, the patches being irregularly circular, and the centre of the patch an empty space, which possibly is a much deformed stoma. The pulp consists of the very common large globular cells (a, fig. 16), of about 12 to 14 inch diameter, almost perfectly transparent, with a shrivelled mass within. Lastly, there are some beautiful masses of compound cells, varying in size from 016 to 48 inch (b, b, fig. 16), the length usually being from one Fig. 16.-Structures found in the plum, x 115. a, Pulp cells; b, b, compound cells; c, a portion of epidermis. and a half to three times the breadth. These compounds are either prismatic in shape or oval, while a few resemble long tubes. The number of cells thus bound together is very variable, since from seven up to twenty-seven may be counted on one side. The little cellular members of the composite are five-sided cells of an average length of '06 inch. Oranges-Lemons; Marmalade.-Marmalade is made by preserving sliced up oranges or lemons, or both combined, in a strong syrup. Orange marmalade is properly made from Seville oranges only, lemon marmalade from lemons only. It is not practicable to distinguish by the microscopic structure alone whether the substance is orange or lemon, or to what species the orange or the lemon belongs. It is, however, most easy in marmalades to recognise substances foreign to marmalade, because the structure of the vegetable tissues used is very distinctive. Good marmalade is wholly composed of fine sections of the fruit on selecting the thinnest of these sections, or (what amounts to the same thing) cutting and preparing a section, there will be three structures to notice. It will be observed that the colour layer is very thin, and composed of layers of yellow cells (a, fig. 17), many filled with oil, and here and there large cavities, covered with a thin transparent epidermal layer. The size of the cells is small, about 000147 inch in diameter. Beneath the Fig. 17.-Section of rind of orange, x 20. a, Layer white cortex, showing a of yellow cells; b, inner cavity and vascular twigs. The Strawberry may be readily distinguished under the microscope by the great number of very small seeds which are scattered on the exterior of the fruit. These seeds are pyriform and very regular in size, being about 038 inch wide at the broadest end, and 07 inch in length. The coat of the seed is almost smooth; under a high magnifying power it may, however, be seen to be slightly tuberculated. Each seed is attached to the central part of the fruit by means of a vascular bundle formed of delicate fibres and spiral vessels; and the consequence of this structure is, that the strawberry is full of spiral vessels, all of minute size and very transparent. The cells seen when jam is examined are, for the most part, collapsed and shrivelled; those that are not so |