I find by reference to _The Grocer_ of November 8th, that the total deliveries of tea into the port of London during the first ten months of 1872 were 142,429,337 lbs., and during the corresponding period of 1873, 139,092,409 lbs. Of this about 8½ millions of pounds in 1873, and 10 millions of pounds in 1872, were green, the rest black. This gives in round numbers about 160 millions of pounds of black tea per annum, of which above 140 millions come from China. As the Russians are greater tea-drinkers than ourselves—the Americans and British colonists are at least equally addicted to the beverage, and other nations consume some quantity—the total exports from China may be safely estimated to reach 400 or 500 millions of pounds. Let us take the smaller figure, and suppose that only one fourth of this is adulterated, to the extent of 5 per cent, with iron filings. How much would be required? Just five millions of pounds per annum. It must be remembered that _coarse_ filings could not possibly be used; they would show themselves at once to the naked eye as rusty lamps, and would shake down to the bottom of the chest; neither could borings, nor turnings, nor plane-shavings be used. Nothing but _fine_ filings would answer the supposed purpose. I venture to assert that if the China tea-growers were to put the whole world under contribution for their supposed supply of fine iron filings, this quantity could not be obtained. Let anyone who doubts this borrow a blacksmith’s vice, a fine file, and a piece of soft iron, then take off his coat and try how much labor will be required to produce a single ounce of filings, and also bear in mind that fine files are but very little used in the manufacture of iron. As the price of a commodity rises when the demand exceeds the supply the Chinaman would have to pay far more for his adulterant than for the leaves to be adulterated. As Chinese tea-growers are not public analysts, we have no right to suppose that they would perpetrate any such foolishness. The investigations recently made by Mr. Alfred Bird, of Birmingham, show that the iron found in tea-leaves is not in the metallic state, but in the condition of oxide; and he confirms the conclusions of Zöller, quoted by Mr. J. A. Wanklyn in the _Chemical News_ of October 10th—viz., that compounds of iron naturally exist in genuine tea. It appears, however, that the ash of many samples of _black_ tea contains more iron than naturally belongs to the plant; and, accepting Mr. Bird’s statement, that this exists in the leaf as oxide mixed with small siliceous and micaceous particles I think we may find a reasonable explanation of its presence without adopting the puerile theory of the adulteration maniac, who, in his endeavor to prove that everybody who buys or sells anything is a swindler, has at once assumed the impossible addition of iron filings as a makeweight.