INDUSTRIAL PKOGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1876. Ixxxiii 



Prescott has given the results of his determinations of the solu- 

 bilities of the alkaloids, in the crystalline, amorphous, and nascent 

 conditions, in ether, chloroform, amyl alcohol, and benzine respect- 

 ively, these solvents having been washed witli water before use. 



Hesse has communicated a preliminary note, in which he says he 

 has found in a rare cusco bark an alkaloid which appears to agree 

 with the cusconine of Leverkohu, and to be closely allied to the ari- 

 cine of Howard. 



Glenard has investigated the alkaloid of i23ecacuanha, emetine. 

 It was obtained in small hemispherical warty crystalline masses, 

 which, on purification, gave milk-white crystals. From the analysis 

 of the alkaloid itself and of its chlorhydrate, the formula C^JI^^'NO^ 

 is assigned to it. 



Schmidt has investigated the action of hydrogen suli^hide on the 

 alkaloids, and has produced comjDounds of it with strychnine and 

 brucine. 



Hess has examined minutely the character of opianine, an alka- 

 loid, derived from Egyptian opium, and concludes that it is nothing 

 but pure narcotine. 



Mallet has published a theoretical paper on tlie rational formula 

 of urea, uric acid, and their derivatives. 



Hill has communicated from the organic laboratory of Harvard 

 College a paper on the ethers of uric acid. 



Ritthausen has further examined a nitrogenous substance found 

 by him in the juice of the vetch (Vicia sativa), and, finding it to be 

 new, gives to it the name vicin. It has ^^I'operties analogous to 

 those of asparagin. 



Struve has confirmed the opinion of Lechartier and Bellamy that 

 fruits in the absence of oxygen ferment, evolving carbonic gas and 

 producing alcohol, though there can not be discerned any yeast 

 cells in them by the microscope. 



Paper and cardboard made from peat were recently presented at 

 a meeting of the Berlin Polytechnic Society, and a factory for its 

 manufacture is about to be erected in Prussia. The paper resem- 

 bles in quality that made from wood or straw. 



In Physiological Chemistry^ Schutzenberger has continued his valu- 

 able researches on albumin and the albuminates. 



Gautier and his pupil Scolosuboff have made an extended exam- 

 ination on arsenic in the tissues, and have shown that it principally 

 localizes itself in the nervous tissues. They also describe an im- 

 proved method of separating it from organic matters. 



Commaille has given a means of separating cholesterin from the 

 fatty matters with which it is generally accompanied, and which are 

 often mistaken for it, by taking advantage of the property which 

 cholesterin has of resisting the action of concentrated alkalies, even 

 when boiling. 



