BENGAL STRIPES

Ginghams; a kind of cotton cloth woven with coloured stripes. BENJAMIN or BENZOIN. ( Benjoin , Fr.; Benzöe , Germ.) A species of resin used chiefly in perfumery. It is extracted by incision from the trunk and branches of the styrax benzoin , which grows in Java, Sumatra, Santa Fé, and in the kingdom of Siam. The plant belongs to the dec and ria monogynia of Linnæus, and the natural family of the ebenaceæ. It hardens readily in the air, and comes to us in brittle ma es, whose fracture presents a mixture of red, brown, and white grains of various sizes, which, when white, and of a certain shape, have been called amygdaloid , from their resemblance to almonds. The sorted benzoin is, on the other hand, very impure. The fracture of benzoin is conchoidal, and its lustre greasy: its specific gravity varies from 1·063 to 1·092. It has an agreeable smell, somewhat like vanilla, which is most manifest when it is ground. It enters into fusion at a gentle heat, and then exhales a white smoke, which may be condensed into the acicular crystals of benzoic acid, of which it contains 18 parts in the hundred. Stoltze recommends the following proce for extracting the acid. The resin is to be di olved in 3 parts of alcohol, the solution is to be introduced into a retort, and a solution of carbonate of soda di olved in dilute alcohol is to be gradually added to it, till the free acid be neutralised; and then a bulk of water equal to double the weight of the benzoin is to be poured in. The alcohol being drawn off by distillation, the remaining liquor contains the acid, and the resin floating upon it may be skimmed off and washed, when its weight will be found to amount to about 80 per cent. of the raw material. The benzoin contains traces of a volatile oil, and a substance soluble in water, at least through the agency of carbonate of potash. Ether does not di olve benzoin completely. The fat and volatile oils di olve very little of it. Unverdorben has found in benzoin, besides benzoic acid, and a little volatile oil, no le than three different kinds of resin, none of which has, however, been turned as yet to any use in the arts. Benzoin is of great use in perfumery, as it enters into a number of preparations; among which may be mentioned fumigating pastilles, fumigating cloves (called also nails), poudre à la maréchale , . The alcoholic tincture, mixed with water, forms virginal milk. Benzoin enters also into the composition of certain varnishes employed for snuff-boxes and walkingsticks, in order to give these objects an agreeable smell when they become heated in the hand. It is likewise added to the spirituous solution of isingla with which the best court plaster is made.