24-4 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



cerated during twelve hours in sulphuric aether, the action of which 

 was assisted by repeatedly shaking the vessel, and eventually heating 

 it to about 90° Fahr. 



After this reaction the aether was filtered and had acquired a 

 slight golden-yellow colour ; it was introduced into a retort with a 

 small quantity of water, and distilled with a gentle heat. After the 

 distillation of the aether there remained a fluid resin of an amber- 

 yellow colour, possessing the consistence and viscidity of common 

 turpentine, and part of it solidified on cooling. The water in which 

 this resin floated was poured off, it was colourless and reddened lit- 

 mus paper strongly ; it was slowly evaporated at the usual tempe- 

 rature, by placing under a glass with a vessel containing concentrated 

 sulphuric acid. The product of this evaporation was an inodorous 

 colourless mass, crystallized in small laminae, possessing first a bitter 

 and afterwards an acrid taste. 



This crystallized residue reddened litmus paper strongly, its aque- 

 ous solution yielded no precipitate with barytes water, but gave a 

 white flocculent precipitate with acetate of lead, readily soluble in 

 excess of the acetate. A small quantity of this acid, saturated with 

 ammonia, yielded a crystallizable salt, the solution of which preci- 

 pitated persulphate of iron in yellowish- coloured flocculi. Lastly, a 

 portion of the same acid, heated in a small tube, first fused, afterwards 

 partially decomposed and sublimed in needles at a little distance 

 from the heated portion of the tube. 



The portion of the resin dissolved by the aether, again submitted 

 to distillation with a little water, yielded traces of volatile oil, which 

 were deposited on the surface of the water contained in the receiver 

 in the state of a light pellicle. This resin, after cooling, had the 

 form of a yellow transparent mass, which was so friable that it was 

 pulverizable by slight pressure between the fingers. Digested in 

 cold alcohol a part only of it was dissolved, and there remained a 

 whitish insoluble resinous matter. 



The residue upon which the aether had first acted, was treated first 

 with cold and afterwards with hot alcohol, and it remained insoluble. 

 This property resembles that of some fossil resins, and among others 

 the insoluble resin stated by M. Berzelius to exist in amber, and 

 which he has described as the bitumen of amber. 



On recapitulating the facts arising during this examination, it will 

 be observed that this fossil resin found in the vicinity of Eu, resem- 

 bles amber in physical characters, in density, and in the different 

 organic principles which have been separated from it. 



MM. Lassaigne and Chevallier obtained the following substances, 

 and in the annexed proportions, from 100 parts of the fossil resin : — 



Resin insoluble in aether and alcohol 83*3 



Resin soluble in aether and alcohol 14 - 2 



Resin soluble in aether and insoluble in alcohol . . 2 # 



Succinic acid 0"5 



Traces of volatile oil. 



1000 

 Journ. de Chim. M4d., Juillet 1846. 



