244 Dr Hamilton on a Plant used as a Green Vegetable, 



which I concur with my friends Neumann and Zippe, is par- 

 ticularly appropriate, as the species to which it applies was 

 first observed in a public collection, belonging to an establish- 

 ment chiefly formed by the exertions of that learned and pa- 

 triotic nobleman, Count Caspar Sternberg. 



3. No chemical analysis has yet been given of this substance. 

 When treated with the blowpipe it gives in the glass tube a 

 strong odour of sulphurous acid, loses its lustre, and becomes 

 dark-grey and friable. Alone on charcoal it burns with a blue 

 flame and sulphurous odour, and melts into a globule, gene- 

 rally hollow, with a crystalline surface, and covered with me- 

 tallic silver. The globule acts strongly on the magnetic needle, 

 and before the blowpipe has all the properties of sulphuret of 

 iron. It communicates to fluxes the ordinary colours produced 

 by iron, red while hot, and yellow on cooling, in the oxidating 

 flame, greenish in the reducing flame. Borax very readily 

 takes away the iron, and leaves a button of metallic silver. It 

 appears therefore to consist of sulphuret of silver, combined 

 with a large quantity of sulphuret of iron. 



4. The locality of this interesting species is Joachimsthal in 

 Bohemia. It must have been found at a rather remote period, 

 as the specimens were discovered in old collections ; and it is 

 likely enough, on account of the economical value of Sternber- 

 gite as an ore of silver, that most of it has been melted down 

 long ago. Moreover, it is chiefly accompanied with other ores 

 of silver, as the red silver, the brittle silver, or prismatic melane- 

 glance, and others. 



Art. yi. -^Description of a plant used in Bengal as a com- 

 mon green vegetable, (01 us,) and of another nearly allied to 

 it. By Francis Hamilton, M. D. F. R. S, &c. Com- 

 municated by the Author. 



In Gangetic India this plant is called Palak or Palanki, names 

 that have been given to the spinach of Europe, when this was 

 introduced, both being cultivated in a similar manner, and 

 having similar alimentary qualities. Dr Roxburgh considered 

 it as a species of Beta, and called it B. Bengalensis, which 



