Alexandria Daily Advertiser

Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Europe, to his correspondent in Philadelphia.

"Your request on the three different kinds of Peruvian Bark, shall be satisfied. Red bark, you may rest assured is the best of the three, because it is more resinous than the other kinds. It is my opinion, that half of the red bark, contains as much astringent quality as the others do in double the quantity; I would therefore advise you to use it in preference to any other. It is not so easily adulterated as the other kinds. Red is a colour the most nice and difficult to imitate in nature; if anything foreign is mixed with it, it is immediately discovered by the taste. The difference of shade, is no proof of adulteration, this is entirely owing to a selection of the bark; the small and middling sized pieces give a brighter colour than the thick pieces. The yellow and pale is more easily adulterated with [the extract from the] lign wood [from which] quassia is extracted. [This can be done] by boiling a little [of] the wood, dried and powdered, [which] may be mixed with the yellow and pale bark, in considerable [quantities] without a possibility of discovering [it]. [In] being the case, the red bark is most safe and certain to use; [as I have] observed it is impossible to adulterate this [bark in any] quantity without [its] being discovered by the taste.— Quassia has lately risen considerably in price, owing to the scarcity."