Litelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 48 1 



evolved. The chlorine compound, crystallized in four-sided prisms, 

 yields by distillation with iodide, cyanide, and sulphuret of potassium, 

 corresponding compounds. The sulphur compound is a yellow dis- 

 agreeable-smelling oil, which becomes crystalline after a time. Hot 

 nitric acid gives with the oil a crystallizable product, possessing acid 

 properties ; its combinations with bases detonate by heat. Con- 

 centrated sulphuric acid causes the formation of salicylic acid. 



Gualtherine. — If the powdered dry bark be treated with alcohol 

 of 0'805, the exhausted residue gives off no more odour on treat- 

 ment with water; but when the tincture was evaporated, and a por- 

 tion of the extract mixed with the exhausted bark, the odour was 

 immediately produced, and by distillation, a product which reddened 

 the protosalts of iron was obtained. 



When the alcoholic extract is treated with water, tannic acid, 

 sugar and colouring matter removed by digestion with hydrated 

 oxide of lead, the filtered, almost colourless solution evaporated, the 

 gummy residue treated with alcohol (O'SOO), and the solution allowed 

 to evaporate spontaneously, a syrupy liquid was obtained, which 

 could not be crystallized. lEther does not remove anything from it. 

 This liquid, which evidently contains the gualtherine combined with 

 a body which prevents its crystallization, is inodorous and of a 

 slightly bitter taste ; it may be obtained as a gummy mass when 

 evaporated to dryness. The gualtherine remains undecomposed at 

 300°, at 400° it becomes perfectly black ; it is combustible, leaving 

 a copious carbonaceous residue. On destructive distillation, it yields 

 a yellow oil, which resembles gualtheria oil contaminated M'ith an 

 empyreumatic matter, and leaves a carbonaceous residue. 



In concentrated sulphuric acid the gualtherine dissolves, with the 

 production of a red colour and the evolution of the odour of gual- 

 theria oil. By distillation with dilute muriatic and sulphuric acid, oil 

 of gualtheria is likewise formed. But if the gualtherine is dissolved 

 in dilute nitric acid and distilled, instead of the oil, needles soluble 

 in alcohol are found in the receiver, probably formed from the action 

 of the vapours of the acid on those of the oil. Funung nitric acid 

 produces a yellow solution, from which water separates yellowish 

 crystals. Ammonia has scarcely any action on gualtherine ; by 

 boiling with hydrated oxide of lead, a small quantity of a lead com- 

 pound is obtained, which however contains no gualtherine. If an 

 ammoniacal solution of gualtherine is precipitated with basic acetate 

 of lead, a lead compound is obtained, from which no oil is evolved 

 when treated with sulphuric acid, and which therefore contains no 

 undecomposed gualtherine. Probably in this instance the same acid 

 is formed, as is obtained when gualtherine is treated with the fixed 

 alkalies and earths. 



Gualtheric acid is best obtained when gualtherine is boiled 

 with barytic water, the excess of baryta removed by carbonic acid, 

 the solution filtered and carefully decomposed by dilute sulphuric 

 acid. The solution filtered from the sulphate of baryta leaves a 

 gummy mass on evaporation. If this be boiled with carbonate of 

 lead, the solution filtered and decomposed by sulphuretted hydrogen, 



Phil. Mag, S. 3. Vol. 25. No. 168. Dec. 1844. 2 I 



