Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 69 



It follows from these facts that sulphuric acid has the property not 

 only of dissolving compound bodies without oxidizing them, as Ber- 

 zelius has shown with respect to the metallic cyanurets, but it dis- 

 solves some simple bodies, such as sulphur and selenium, for the 

 oxides of which it has no affinity, and also tellurium, with the oxide 

 of which it forms a crystallizable compound. — Ibid. 



_ • 



VEGETABLE ALBUMEN AND GELATINE. 



Beccaria discovered, as is well known, a peculiar glutinous prin- 

 ciple in wheat, which is obtained by working the flour in water, and " 

 which he called gluten. Taddei has given an account of two new pe- 

 culiar principles which he supposes he has found in gluten, and which 

 he has named gliadine and zymome. The other kinds of grain yield no 

 principle similar to the gluten of Beccaria. But Einhof, in his remark- 

 able analysis of rye, barley and pease, has shown that these seeds 

 contain a substance analogous to the gluten of wheat, but which dis- 

 solves in water during the manipulation. Having had occasion to 

 make some experiments on the gluten of Beccaria, 1 found that Tad- 

 dei had only given two new names to the known and common prin- 

 ciples of plants, particularly the seeds of the graminece. 



If the gluten of Beccaria be boiled with alcohol, as long as this 

 fluid grows turbid on cooling, a considerable portion of the mass is 

 separated j if water be added to this spirituous solution, and the mix- 

 ture be distilled, the watery fluid remaining in the retort deposits on 

 cooling a coherent glutinous matter, perfectly resembling gluten. 

 This is vegetable gelatin, the gluten, of the same nature as the mat- 

 ter separated, according to Einhof s method, from rye and barley. 

 The matter insoluble in alcohol, whilst moist is semitransparent, and 

 so much like animal albumen, that it is impossible to distinguish by 

 its appearance only, that it is vegetable albumen, or, as Wahlenberg 

 calls it, with good reason, the white of grain. Caustic alkali, when 

 the solution is weak and cold, dissolves vegetable albumen, and 

 leaves the filaments of starch which it has retained. The following 

 are the principal properties of vegetable albumen. This matter, ob- 

 tained after the evaporation of the alcohol from the remaining liquor, 

 is of a yellowish gray colour, adhesive, glutinous, and very elastic ; it 

 has no taste, but it has a peculiar smell. In a dry atmosphere it be- 

 comes shining on the surface, and gradually dries into a mass of a 

 deep yellow colour, and is perfectly transparent, resembling dry ani- 

 mal matter. It dissolves in alcohol, and the solution is of a pale 

 yellow colour, and remains after the evaporation of the spirit, in the 

 form of transparent yellow varnish. When vegetable gelatine is 

 treated with cold alcohol, a milky fluid is obtained, and a viscid 

 white matter remains. This matter is not vegetable gelatine ; it is 

 dissolved by boiling, but the liquor becomes milky on cooling. If 

 the vegetable gelatine be dissolved with heat in weak spirit of wine, 

 it precipitates on cooling, retaining its glutinous property j it dis- 

 solves in vinegar, leaving a white viscid matter, which the acid does 

 not dissolve even when boiling, but which partly passes through the 

 filter. When precipitated from its solution in vinegar by an alkali, 



it 



