LONDON -- Two prominent Britons received packages believed similar to parcels containing dangerous chemicals disguised as aromatherapy samples that were mailed to Prime Minister Tony Blair's home and a Scottish lawmaker's assistant, police said Saturday.

But the packages were thrown out unopened when the recipients became suspicious, and police may never know what was inside, a Scotland Yard official said. He refused to identify the recipients.

On Friday night, Scotland Yard announced that two packages -- one received in the mail at Blair's 10 Downing Street residence and the other by a female assistant of Scottish legislator Mike Rumble -- contained sodium hydroxide, also known as caustic soda.

The extremely corrosive substance, which can cause blindness or scarring, was disguised as eucalyptus oil and came with directions for its use and a leaflet calling it a complimentary sample.

Anti-terrorist officers said they continued to focus their investigation Saturday on a claim of responsibility by a man who said he had mailed 16 such packages in Britain as part of a campaign by a Scottish nationalist group.

For Blair's wife

Press Association, Britain's national news agency, quoted an unidentified sources as saying the parcel received at 10 Downing Street was addressed to Blair's wife, Cherie. The Blairs are in Australia for a Commonwealth summit.

Scotland Yard and Blair's office refused to comment on the report but confirmed that no one was injured by the parcels.

Rumbles, a Liberal Democrat member of the Scottish Parliament, said Saturday that an assistant opened the parcel that was sent to her home, but did not open the bottle inside and was not harmed.

In a telephone call to a British newspaper Friday before the police announcement, a man said he had mailed 16 packages and identified himself as a member of the Scottish National Liberation Army, an extremist Scottish nationalist group formed in 1980.

The group, which demands an independent Scottish republic with Gaelic as its national language, made several hoax bomb and death threats to Britain's royal family in the 1980s. It also was linked to an anthrax hoax involving letters sent last summer to St. Andrews University in Scotland, where Prince William is studying.

A Scotland Yard official said the prominent people who received packages that could be like the dangerous ones had notified police about them after hearing media reports indicating theirs looked similar. He said they had thrown the packages out before they realized the similarity.