398 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



becomes of a deeper red colour, and a pulverulent isabella-yellow 

 precipitate separates from the liquor. This substance, by repeated 

 solution and crystallization, is obtained of a white colour ; and the 

 author is of opinion that it has the same composition as the other salts 

 obtained from the other platina metals ; but the small quantity of 

 ruthenium which he had at his disposal prevented him from veri- 

 fying. — L'Institut, Aout 1, 1849. 



ON THE COMPOSITION OF HONEY. BY M. SOUBEIRAN. 



It has been long known that the honey of the bee contains two 

 different sugars, one of which is solid and the other liquid. The 

 former is considered as identical with the granular sugar, which is 

 slowly deposited from the syrup of raisin-sugar, or in that of cane- 

 sugar altered by acids. As to the liquid part of honey, it has been 

 but little studied. M. Biot has, however, stated that it is a sugar 

 which turns the rays of polarized light to the left. 



According to M. Soubeiran, honey contains three different sugars, 

 namely, granular sugar, or glucose of chemists ; another sugar which 

 rotates to the right, and is alterable by acids ; and lastly, a sugar 

 the rotary power of which is exerted to the left, but with an energy 

 which is nearly double that of altered sugar. 



M. Soubeiran has found in common honey, sugar which has rota- 

 tion to the right, and which can be altered ; but it is especially 

 abundant in the liquid honey which is contained in the honey-comb. 

 The proportion is so considerable, that a solution of this honey, which 

 had a deviation of -|-0"96 towards the right, acquired, by the action 

 of acids, a contrary rotation equal to — 13*78. 



The author describes by the name of liquid sugar of honey, the 

 fluid portion obtained from honey by the use of the press. His ex- 

 periments were made upon sugar extracted in 1841, and which has 

 been kept ever since unchanged and without any indication of cry- 

 stallizing. This circumstance is sufficient to distinguish it from 

 altered sugar, which would not have failed to become a solid 

 mass of granular sugar. Liquid sugar of honey possesses, however, 

 a number of characters which belong also to cane-sugar altered 

 by acids ; it is, like it, uncrystallizable, and reducible to a sort of 

 barley-sugar, which is transparent and solid, but melts with great 

 readiness. Still further, the liquid sugar of honey is very sensible 

 to the action of alkalies, and is readily destroyed by them. The 

 two sugars have the same chemical composition, and combine with 

 alkalies in the same proportion. This agreement of characters would 

 tend to confound them, were it not that the liquid sugar of honey 

 cannot be converted into granular sugar, and that there is a great 

 difference in their rotary power : this power is almost double in the 

 liquid sugar of honey. 



To recapitulate, the experiments contained in this memoir by M. 

 Soubeiran establish the following facts : — Honey is composed of a 

 mixture of three different sugars : one is the granular sugar already 

 known ; another is the liquid sugar, which resembles in many par- 



