( 33 )
An examination of the same powder was also made to estimate the per-
centage of ash.
The results of this examination for the various samples are tabulated
below; the details, along with the details of the examinations of the alcoholic
extract, are contained in the second part of the present report, which deals with
the excise, as opposed to the commercial, aspect of gánjá.
TABLE XI.—Results of fractional estimation of composition of various samples
of gánjá.
1892-93.
1891-92.
1890-91.
1889-90.
Garjat
(1891-92)
Round.
Flat.
Round. Flat. Round. Flat • Round. Flat.
Ethereal oil (volatile matter extracted
by petroleum-ether) . . . 6.19
6.36
6.12
5.71
6.20
6.20
6.28
6.20
3.46
Fixed oil, etc. (non-volatile petroleum-
ether extract) . . . 19.06
19.08
17.03
17.16
18.06
18.25
14.82
18.63
17.34
Resins (ether extract) . . . 1.12
1.05
2.10
0.97
1.41
2.69
3 .30
3.29
0.86
Alcoholic extract (resins, etc.) . . .
1.74
1.72
1.78
1.68
1.90
1.80
1.64
1.88
1.64
Watery extract (gum mucilage, etc.). . . 13.60
15.60
16.68
13.28
16.28
13.68
12.24
13.08
15.50
Ash ... Soluble . . . 2.58
2.08
2.41
3.18
2.65
2.96
2.39
2.47
3.45
Insoluble . . . 17.93
17.91
19.52
19.66
21.27
19.01
20.78
18.98
20.26
Residue . . . 37.78
36.20
31.36
38.36
32.23
35.41
38 .55
35.47
37.49
An examination of this table confirms the evidence already advanced of
the necessity for conducting a series of examinations on samples of the same
crop at different ages. If, for example, the non-volatile petroleum-ether extract,
which is the most important, be considered, it will be noticed that while there
is—with the exception of the samples of 1889-90, where there is a wide discre-
pancy in the result, and a discrepancy for which I am unable to suggest any
explanation—a marked uniformity between the samples of the same season,
there is some difference between the samples of different seasons.
The volatile petroleum-ether extract consists of all the substances extracted
from the gánjá by this solvent which are not driven off by heat. In order
to estimate these, a measured. quantity of the petroleum-ether filtrate was
placed in a tared evaporating dish with vertical sides, and a current of
dried air made to pass over it. The attempt to ascertain the co-efficient of eva-
poration proved impossible because the substance in the tared dish did not reach
a stage when its evaporation rate per minute became constant when it ceased
to lose petroleum-ether it ceased to lose weight. It may, however, be that, in
the case of the fresh gá njá, an essential oil passes off which does not pass off
from the older samples; indeed, without believing that this is the case, it is
impossible to explain why, when new gánjá is dried by heat instead of by
dessication, it loses more weight, or why new gánjá yields a greater amount of
alcoholic extract than older samples. I failed, however, in my attempts to
devise a method of testing the truth of this surmise.
The weight lost by the total petroleum-ether extract after aspiration
by being heated in an air-bath at 110°C., which represents what is in the ordi-
nary sense an essential oil,' and which we should have expected to be greater
in the case of new gánjá is, on the contrary, remarkably uniform in all but one of
the samples. The exception is the flat ganjá sample of 1891-92: but as this
sample came from Naogaon, where it had been stored under conditions that
exposed it more to adverse atmospheric influences than the remaining samples,
this exception rather confirms than invalidates the other results. The conditions
of storage have probably less to do with the marked deficiency in this constituent
exhibited by Gurjat gánjá than have the modes of cultivation and manufacture.
The residue after having been dried at 110°C. was again treated with
petroleum-ether to ascertain the amount of resin taken into solution with the
assistance of the essential oil. The amount left undissolved at the second treat-
ment with petroleum was added to the weight of the ether extract. The
petroleum-ether was a second time evaporated off and examined. The details of
this examination are given in Part II of the report. It may be here remarked that
it is this, the second petroleum-ether extract, that contains the physiologically active
portion of gánjá. Examined for alkaloids re-actions indicating the presence of
such, but only in minute traces, were obtained. These re-actions were, however, as
F