1 56 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



which is not charred dissolves in it, and on cooling a jelly is again 

 formed ; at a high temperature it hums with a large flame ; hy di- 

 stillation it yields an acid product. 



Cold water scarcely acts upon gelatinous apiin, hut hoiling water 

 dissolves it readily ; the result is a yellowish limpid liquor, which on 

 cooling, or by the addition of cold water, becomes a transparent jelly. 

 Although gelatinous apiin is scarcely soluble in cold water, it never- 

 theless imparts a very light yellow colour to it, and the solution thus 

 formed by exposure to the air becomes eventually turbid ; protosul- 

 phate of iron is almost the only reagent which produces any effect 

 on this solution, but this detects the smallest traces of apiin, occa- 

 sioning a very intense blood-red colour ; five gallons of water, in 

 which about one-sixth of a grain of apiin is dissolved, is coloured red 

 by the addition of an equal quantity of protosulphate of iron. 



Apiin is dissolved by boiling alcohol, and the solution becomes a 

 transparent jelly on cooling ; apiin, and especially when gelatinous, 

 is soluble in the weakest alkali, and yellowish solutions are formed, 

 which are precipitated by acids in colourless jellies ; when mixed with 

 lime a solution is obtained, which, when evaporated to dryness and 

 treated with water, yields a yellowish solution, from which acids pre- 

 cipitate a jelly ; and the same effect is produced by magnesia ; very 

 dilute solution of ammonia readily dissolves, but without appearing 

 to form a permanent compound with it ; bicarbonate of potash also 

 dissolves it ; caustic potash does not appear to alter apiin, though 

 long boiled with it, for it is precipitated again by acids in a jetyy. 



Acids act very differently on apiin, causing it to undergo a modi- 

 fication which prevents it from gelatinizing ; if a little sulphuric acid 

 be added to a solution of apiin in boiling water, the* mixture remains 

 clear, but when it has been boiled for a few minutes, it becomes very 

 turbid, and is converted into a yellowish thick mass ; when this is 

 washed on a filter with cold water, a colourless acid liquor is ob- 

 tained, which, when saturated with chalk, yields a small quantity of 

 sugar, produced during the reaction ; the matter which remains on 

 the filter is slightly yellow after drying, and consists of nearly the 

 whole of the apiin employed, and as it is neutral to test papers, in- 

 soluble in cold water, and soluble in boiling water and alcohol, and 

 possesses the other properties of gelatinous apiin, excepting that in- 

 stead of being a transparent jelly, it is a white, clouded, opake sedi- 

 ment : still, when redissolved in boiling water, it produces with a 

 little sulphate of iron a blood-red flocky precipitate. 



The flocky apiin thus obtained by sulphuric acid, may be regarded 

 as an isomeric modification of gelatinous apiin ; or rather, may not the 

 latter be the result of a combination of two substances, one which 

 unknown to us may have been converted into sugar by sulphuric acid, 

 whilst the other is apiin in its pure state ? M. Braconnot thinks the 

 latter the more probable supposition ; the property of gelatinizing 

 is also lost by boiling with oxalic acid, hydrochloric or concentrated 

 sulphuric acid. 



Although apiin appears to contain but little or no azote, it neverthe- 



