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PERFUMES AS PREVENTIVES OF MOULDINESS.

An interesting paper on this subject has been published by Dr. Macculloch.  We presume our readers are aware that mouldiness is occasioned by the growth of minute vegetables.  Ink, paste, leather, and seeds, are the substances that most frequently suffer from it.  The effect of cloves in preserving ink is well known; any of the essential oils answer equally well.  Leather may be kept free from mould by the same substances.  Thus Russian leather, which is perfumed with the tar of birch, never becomes mouldy; indeed it prevents it from occurring in other bodies.  A few drops of any essential oil are sufficient also to keep books entirely free from it.  For harness, oil of turpentine is recommended.  Bookbinders, in general, employ alum for preserving their paste; but mould frequently forms on it.  Shoemakers’ resin is sometimes also used for the same purpose; but it is less effectual than oil of turpentine.  The best preventives, however, are the essential oils, even in small quantity, as those of peppermint, anise, or cassia, by which paste may be kept almost any length of time; indeed, it has, in this way, been preserved for years.  The paste recommended by Dr. Macculloch is made in the usual way, with flour, some brown sugar, and a little corrosive sublimate; the sugar keeping it flexible when dry, and the sublimate preventing it from fermenting, and from being attacked by insects.  After it is made, a few drops of any of the essential oils are added.  Paste made in this way dries when exposed to the air, and may be used merely by wetting it.  If required to be kept always ready for use, it ought to be put into covered pots.  Seeds may also be preserved by the essential oils; and this is of great consequence, when they are to be sent to a distance.  Of course moisture must be excluded as much as possible, as the oils or ottos prevent only the bad effects of mould.

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FUSEL OIL.

BY W. BASTICK.

This organic compound was first discovered by Scheele, as one of the distillation products of the wort obtained from the fermentation of potatoes.  It has been subsequently examined by Pelletier, Dumas, Cahours, and others.  It is generally now termed the hydrate of the oxide of amyl, from amyl being supposed to be its base or radical, as cyanogen is regarded to be the radical of another series of compounds.

It passes over towards the termination of the distillation process in a white turbid fluid, which consists of a watery and alcoholic solution of the fusel oil.  The crude oil, consisting of about one-half of its weight of alcohol and water, may be purified, being shaken with water and redistilled, with the previous addition of chloride of calcium.  When the temperature of the contents of retort reaches 296 deg.  Fahr., pure fusel oil distils over.