Adulteration is a term not only applied in its proper sense to the fraudulent mixture of articles of commerce, food, drink, drugs, seeds, etc, with noxious or inferior ingredients, but also by magistrates and analysts to accidental impurity, and even in some cases to actual substitution.
The chief objects of adulteration are to increase the weight or volume of the article, to give a colour which either makes a good article more pleasing to the eye or else disguises an inferior one, to substitute a cheaper form of the article, or the same substance from which the strength has been extracted, or to give it a false strength.
Among the adulterations which were commonly practised around 1905 for the purpose of fraudulently increasing the weight or volume of an article are the following: Bread was adulterated with alum or sulphate of copper, which gives solidity to the gluten of damaged or inferior flour; with chalk or carbonate of soda to correct the acidity of such flour; and with boiled rice or potatoes, which enables the bread to carry more water, and thus to produce a larger number of loaves from a given quantity of flour. Wheatflour is adulterated with other inferior flours, as the flour from rice, bean, Indian-corn, potato, and with sulphate of lime, alum, etc. Milk was usually adulterated with water. The adulterations generally present in butter consisted of an undue proportion of salt and water, lard, tallow, and other fats; when of poor quality it was frequently coloured with a little annatto, and, at times, with the juice of carrots. Genuine butter should not contain less than 80 percent of butter-fat. Cheese was also coloured with annatto and other substances. Tea was adulterated chiefly in China with sand, iron-filings, chalk, gypsum, Chinaclay, exhausted tea leaves, and the leaves of the sycamore, horse-chestnut, and plum, whilst colour and weight were added by black-lead, indigo, Prussian-blue (one of the deleterious ingredients used by the Chinese in converting the lowest qualities of black into green teas), gum, turmeric, soapstone, catechu, and other substances.
Confections were adulterated with flour and sulphate of lime. Preserved vegetables were kept green and poisoned by salts of copper. The acridity of mustard is commonly reduced by flour, and the colour of the compound is improved by turmeric. Pepper was adulterated with linseed-meal, flour, mustard husks, etc. Colour was given to pickles by salts of copper, acetate of copper, etc. Ale was adulterated with common salt, Cocculus Indicus, grains of paradise, quassia, and other bitters, sulphate of iron, alum, etc. Porter and stout were mixed with sugar, treacle, salt, and an excess of water. Brandy was diluted with water, and burned sugar was added to improve the colour; sometimes bad whisky was flavoured and coloured so as to resemble brandy, and sold under its name.
Gin was mixed with excess of water, and flavouring matters of various kinds, with alum and tartar, were added. Rum was diluted with water, and the flavour and colour kept up by the addition of cayenne and burned sugar. For champagnegooseberry and other inferior wines were often substituted. Port was manufactured from red Cape and other inferior wines, the body, flavour, strength, and colour being produced by gum-dragon, the washings of brandy casks, and a preparation of German bilberries. Cheap brown sherry was mixed with Cape and other low-priced brandies, and was flavoured with the washings of brandy casks, sugar-candy, and bitter almonds. Pale sherries were produced by gypsum, by a process called plastering, which removes the natural acids as well as the colour of the wine. Other wines were adulterated with elderberry, logwood, Brazil-wood, cudbear, red beetroot, etc, for colour; with lime or carbonate of lime, carbonate of soda, carbonate of potash, and litharge, to correct acidity; with catechu, sloe-leaves, and oak-bark for astringency; with sulphate of lime and alum for removing colour; with cane-sugar for giving sweetness and body; with alcohol for fortifying; and with ether, especially acetic ether, for giving bouquet and flavour.
Medicines, such as jalap, opium, rhubarb, cinchonabark, scammony, aloes, sarsaparilla, squills, etc, were mixed with various foreign substances. Castor-oil has been adulterated with other oils; and inferior oils were often. mixed with cod-liver oil. Cantharides were often mixed with golden-beetle and also artificially-coloured glass.
The adulteration of seeds was largely practised also, the seed which forms the adulterant being of course of the most worthless kind that can be had. Thus turnip-seed was mixed with rape, wild mustard, or charlock, which are steamed and kiln-dried to destroy their vitality, so as to evade detection in the progress of growth; old and useless turnip-seed was also used fraudulently mixed with fresh seeds. Clover was also much mixed with plantain and mere weeds.
Acts against adulteration have been passed in various countries and at various times. In Britain there was a law against it as early as 1267. Research Adulteration
Bog is the name given to a piece of wet, soft, and spongy ground, where the soil is composed mainly of decaying and decayed vegetable matter. Such ground is valueless for agriculture until reclaimed, but often yields abundance of peat for fuel.
A bog seems usually to be formed as follows: A shallow pool induces the formation of aquatic plants, which gradually creep in from the borders to the deeper centre. Mud accumulates round their roots and stalks, and a semi-fluid mass is formed, well suited for the growth of moss, particularly Sphagnum, which now begins to luxuriate, continually absorbing water, and shooting out new plants above as the old decay beneath; these are consequently rotted, and compressed into a solid substance, gradually replacing the water by a mass of vegetable matter. A layer of clay, frequently found over gravel, assists the formation of bog by its power of retaining moisture. When the subsoil is very retentive, and the quantity of water becomes excessive, the superincumbent peat sometimes bursts forth and floats over adjacent lands.
Bogs are generally divided into two classes: red bogs, or peat-mosses, and black bogs, or mountain mosses. The former class are found in extensive plains frequently running through several counties, such as the Chatmoss in Lancashire, and the Bog of Alien in Ireland, the depth varying from 3.6 to 13 metres. Their texture is light and full of filaments, and is formed by the slow decay of mosses and plants of different kinds. The lower parts, being more entirely decayed, approach nearer to the nature of the humus than the upper portion, and, as being more carbonaceous, are more valuable for fuel. Black bog is formed by a more rapid decomposition of plants. It is heavier and more homogeneous in quality, but is usually found in limited and detached portions, and at high elevations where its reclamation is difficult.
In Ireland bogs frequently rest on a calcareous subsoil, which is of great value in reclaiming them. In the reclamation of bog land a permanent system of drainage must be established; the loose and spongy soil must be mixed with a sufficient quantity of mineral matter to give firmness to its texture and fertilize its superabundant humus; proper manures must be provided to facilitate the extraction of nutriment from the new soil, and a rotation of crops adopted suitable for bringing it into permanent condition. The materials best adapted for reclaiming peat are calcareousearths, limestonegravel, shell-marl, and shell-sand. Thoroughly reclaimed bogs are not liable to revert to their former condition. Trunks of trees are often found in bogs as are also bones of extinct animals. Research Bog
Sir Humphry Davy was an English chemist. He was born in 1778 at Penzance and died in 1829.
After having received the rudiments of a classical education he was placed with a surgeon and apothecary, and early developed a taste for scientific experiments. He studied under Lavoisier and Nicholson and became superintendent of the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol. There he studied the properties of nitrous oxide, and as a result was made assistant lecturer and was appointed professor of chemistry in the Royal Institution at the age of twenty-four.
In 1803 he was chosen a member of the Royal Society. His discoveries with the galvanic battery, his decomposition of the earths and alkalies and ascertaining their metallic bases, his demonstration of the simple nature of the oxymuriatic acid (to which he gave the name of chlorine), etc, obtained him an extensive reputation; and in 1810 he received the prize of the French Institute. In 1814 he was elected a corresponding member of that body. Having been elected professor of chemistry to the Board of Agriculture he delivered lectures on agricultural chemistry during ten successive years. The numerous accidents arising from fire-damp in mines led him to enter upon a series of experiments on the nature of the explosive gas, the result of which was the invention of his safety-lamp.
He was knighted in 1812, and created a baronet in 1818. In 1820 he succeeded Sir J Banks as president of the Royal Society, and at the time of his death he was a member of most of the scientific societies of Europe. His health had been failing for some time, and in his last year he had gone abroad for his health. His most important works are: Philosophical Researches;
Elements of Agricultural Chemistry; Electro-Chemical Researches; Elements of Chemical Philosophy; Researches on the Oxymuriatic Acid; On Fire-damp. He also contributed some valuable papers to the Philosophical Transactions, and was author of Salmonia, or Days of Fly-fishing; and Consolations in Travel, or the Last Days of a Philosopher. Research Humphry Davy
Compost is a mixture of manures, or earths and manures, varying in proportions and quality to suit different plants and used by gardeners to feed their plants and improve soil quality. Research Compost
Earths is a term applied to certain tasteless, inodorous, dry, uninflammable, nonvolatile, insoluble substances, difficultly fusible, and of a moderate specific gravity, which constitute by far the greatest part of the gravel and soil that go to make up the mountains, valleys, and plains of our globe. They include lime, baryta, strontia, magnesia, alumina, etc. The earths were regarded as simple bodies until Sir Humphry Davy proved them to be compounds of oxygen with metals. Research Earths
The Nernst lamp was an early electric light bulb (circa 1905) which made use of a thread of yttriumoxide or zirconiumoxide or similar earths. These wires do not conduct electricity until they are heated to a red heat, and so the Nernst lamp used a subsidiary heating arrangement consisting of a very fine platinum wire wound on a thin rod of porcelain. The lamp took roughly 30 seconds to light up. Research Nernst Lamp
Clay is the name of various earths, which consist of hydrated silicate of aluminium, with small proportions of the silicates of iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium. All the varieties are characterized by being firmly coherent, weighty, compact, and hard when dry, but plastic when moist and comprising very fine-grained materials (less than 0.004 mm in diameter), smooth to touch, not readily diffusible in water, but when mixed not readily subsiding in it. Their tenacity and ductility when moist and their hardness when dry has made them from the earliest times the materials of bricks, tiles, pottery, etc.
Of the chief varieties porcelain-clay, kaolin, or china-clay, a white clay with occasional gray and yellow tones, is the purest. Potter's-clay and pipe-clay, which are similar but less pure, are generally of a yellowish or grayish colour, from the presence of iron. Fire-clay is a very refractory variety, always found lying immediately below the coal; it is used for making fire-bricks, crucibles, etc. Loam is the same substance mixed with sand, oxide of iron, and various other foreign ingredients. The boles, which are of a red or yellow colour from the presence of oxide of iron, are distinguished by their conchoidal fracture. The ochres are similar to the boles, containing only more oxide of iron. Other varieties are f'uller's-earth, Tripoli, and boulder-clay, the last a hard clay of a dark-brown colour, with rounded masses of rock of all sizes embedded in it, the result of glacial action.
The distinctive property of clays as ingredients of the soil is their power of absorbing ammonia and other gases and vapours generated on fertile and manured lands; indeed no soil will long remain fertile unless it has a fair proportion of clay in its composition. The best wheats both in Britain and the European continent are grown on calcareous clays. Research Clay
Gadolinite, named after the Russian chemist Gadolin, or ytterbite is a naturally occurring complex silicate containing beryllium, iron and many of the rare earth metals, of which the latter is an important source. The principal rare earths that occur in gadolinite are yttrium and erbium, together with smaller amounts of cerium and lanthanum.It is usually found in dull, amorphous masses disseminated through granite; is black, or very dark green in colour, with a resinouslustre. *Gahnite
Gahnite (zinc spinel) is a dark green mineral of the spinel group consisting of zincaluminiumoxide. It is named after J G Gahn the Swedish chemist. Research Gadolinite
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Adulteration
