20 i Mil. E. SCHtltfCK ON THE" 



a property by which it may be at once distinguished from fn- 

 diretine, which it resembles in its outward appearance. Even 

 when grape sugar or protochloride of tin is added to the 

 alkaline liquids not a trace of it dissolves even on boiling, 

 and in this respect it differs widely from indirubine. When 

 it is treated with strong caustic soda lye only a trace of 

 ammonia is given off, but on heating the dry substance with 

 soda-lime there is a very perceptible evolution of ammonia. 

 When heated on platinum it melts and then burns with a 

 bright flame, leaving much charcoal which burns away with 

 difficulty. On being heated in a tube it melts and gives off 

 fumes having a strong smell resembling that of crude indigo 

 when heated. These fumes condense on the colder parts of 

 the tube to a brown oil which on cooling becomes almost 

 solid without exhibiting a trace of anything crystalline. It 

 dissolves in concentrated sulphuric acid in the cold forming 

 a solution of a greenish-brown colour, which when heated 

 becomes black and disengages sulphurous acid. It is not 

 much affected by nitric acid of ordinary strength even on 

 boiling, but fuming nitric acid dissolves it readily, even in 

 the cold, giving a dark reddish-yellow solution, which on the 

 addition of water deposits orange-coloured flocks. If the 

 solution in fuming nitric acid be boiled it gives off nitrous 

 acid, and on evaporation it leaves a reddish-yellow resinous 

 mass, the greatest part of which on being treated with boil- 

 ing water remains undissolved in the shape of a yellowish-red 

 resin, resembling indifulvine itself in appearance, but differ- 

 ing from it in being easily soluble in alkaline liquids and 

 soluble with difficulty in boiling alcohol. The watery liquid 

 filtered from this resin yields on evaporation white needle- 

 shaped crystals which are not oxalic acid. A boiling solution 

 of bichromate of potash to which sulphuric acid is added de- 

 composes indifulvine very slowly, the solution becoming green 

 from the reduction of the chromic acid. Chlorine converts 

 indifulvine when suspended in water into a body which does 



