d they run on rails. Immediately after sunrise, these carriages,
with their pans, covered with white gauze to exclude dust and insects,
are run out into the open air, but if rain be apprehended they are run
back under the glazed roof. In about four days the fecula is
thoroughly dry and ready to be packed, with German silver shovels,
into tins or American flour barrels, lined with paper, attached with
arrowroot paste. The packages are never sent to this country in the
hold of the ship, as their contents are easily tainted by noisome
effluvia, of sugar, &c.

Arrowroot is much more nourishing than the starch of wheat or
potatoes, and the flavor is purer. The fresh, root consists, according
to Benzon, of 0.07 of volatile oil; 26 of starch (23 of which are
obtained in the form of powder, while the other 3 must be extracted
from the parenchyma in a paste, by boiling water); 1.48 of vegetable
albumen; 0.6 of a gummy extract; 0.25 of chloride of calcium; 6 of
insoluble fibrine; and 65.6 of water.

Arrowroot is often adulterated in this country with potato flour and
other ingredients.

Dr. Lankester asserts that the value of arrowroot starch, as an
article of diet, is not greater than that of potato starch, and that
the yield of starch is not greater from the arrowroot than from
potatoes; but this I must decidedly deny. Chemical analysis and
experience are proofs to the contrary.

The analogy arrowroot has to potato starch, has induced many persons
to adulterate the former substance with it; and not only has this been
done, but I have known instances in which potato starch alone has been
sold for the genuine foreign article. There is no harm in this, to a
certain extent; but it certainly is a very great fraud upon the public
(and one for which the perpetrators ought to be most severely
punished), to sell so cheap an article at the same price as one which
is comparatively costly. There is, moreover, in potato starch, a
peculiar taste, bringing to mind that of raw potatoes, from which the
genuine arrowroot is entirely free. This fraud, however, can be
readily detected; arrowroot is not quite so white as potato starch,
and its grains are smaller, and have a pearly and very brilliant
lustre; and further, it always contains peculiar clotted masses, more
or less large, which have been formed by the adhesion of a multitude
of grains during the drying. These masses crush very readily when
pressed between the fingers, and as before