Litelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 77 



aether when filtered leaves by evaporation small rounded grains of 

 perfectly pure sulphur ; they are yellow and briUiant, of the size of 

 a pin's head, and when thrown on a burning coal burn with a fine 

 blue flame and the disengagement of sulphurous acid. 



When glairine is gradually heated on a platina crucible, it loses 

 its interposed water slowly, and even begins to be decomposed 

 before it has parted with the whole of it ; towards the end of the 

 calcination it exhales the odour of burnt horn, without any sensible 

 disengagement of sulphurous acid, and leaves a coaly residue. It 

 does not fuse, and it is difficult to incinerate it ; it does not lose 

 its odour by numerous washings with cold water, but imparts a 

 very distinct one to it, with a sweetish taste, without giving it 

 colour ; long boiling takes away the greater part of it ; the solu- 

 tion has a strong smell, and the residue is very small. This liquor 

 when filtered is yellowish, has a sweetish animal taste, is not muci- 

 laginous, and does not coagulate on cooling -, when evaporated to a 

 syrupy consistence in a porcelain capsule, it colours the sides of it 

 strongly yellow. The residue is of a deep yellow, with a slight 

 smell and bitterness ; the sulphuric and nitric acids, whether con- 

 centrated or diluted, do not sensibly act upon it. When glairine is 

 subjected to dry distillation in a glass retort placed in a reverberatory 

 furnace, it swells at first, and boils in the water which it retains inter- 

 posed. This water soon begins to distil by drops, is colourless, has 

 a strong smell of animal matter, and the apparatus is filled with 

 vapours. The odour of burnt horn soon replaces that of animal 

 matter, and drops of a yellow colour then fall into the receiver. 

 Lastly, when the heat becomes very strong, the retort contains char- 

 coal, and the neck is covered with a black substance, of which a few 

 drops only fall into the receiver with the yellow liquor and imme- 

 diately solidify. The yellow distilled liquor has a strong burnt odour 

 and taste, with slight bitterness. It reddens litmus feebly, and dis- 

 solves in all proportions in water and alcohol, ^ther does not dis- 

 solve it, but separates a small quantity of yellow fatty matter, which 

 it leaves by evaporation ; it is insoluble in water, but very soluble in 

 alcohol. 



The coaly residue of the distillation treated with distilled water 

 yielded a slightly alkaline solution ; during distillation the gases 

 disengaged restored the blue colour of reddened litmus. The dry 

 residue of the distillation was a very light, black and friable charcoal, 

 which yielded 0"75 of ash composed of silica, carbonate of lime, and 

 peroxide of iron. No trace of iodine could be detected. 



The preceding experiments on glairine lead to the following con- 

 clusions : it contains verj'^ little nitrogen and no iodine ; it dissolves 

 sparingly in water, alcohol, oil of turpentine, and rather more readily 

 in concentrated acids, from which the alkalies precipitate it in bluish- 

 white flocculi ; heat in all cases increases the solvent power of the 

 liquids ; it is quite insoluble in aether, which isolates perfectly the 

 small quantity of sulphur which it retains interposed between its 

 molecules ; it becomes rapidly of a more or less blackish-gray 

 colour when taken from the water and exposed to the air ; but it is 

 sufficient to treat it with nitric or hydrochloric acid, bromine or 



