243 * ASPARAGUS. 



N. B. These two last figures w«ukl have been of an 

 inconvenioiit size if they had been drawn on the sanle 

 scale ^vith the two foregoing ones, for which reason, in 

 comparing the ^(\ and 4th with the 1st and 3d, it must be 

 remembered that the former are reduced to one half of 

 the dimensions of the latter. 



[The Conclusion in our next.] 



XII. 



DiscoverT/ of a Nezo Vegetable Principle in Asparagus, 

 (Asparagus Sativus. Linn,), By Messrs, Vauquelin 

 and RoBiQUET*. 



New vegetable JO V examining more attentively than was formerly done 

 principle in as- the products of vegetation, modern chemists have distin- 

 paragus. guished a great number of substances unknown to the 



antients ; but it is a long time, I apprehend, since any 

 immediate principle has been discovered which is so 

 singular and interesting as that of which we are about to 

 speak. 



During the last summer, Mr. Robiquet, a young che- 

 mist, who unites solidity of reasoning to a great skill inr 

 experiments, subjected upon the invitation of Mr. Par- 

 mentier, the juice of asparagus to chemical analysis, of 

 which the interesting results are to be found in our 

 Annals. 

 Two kinds of Having set aside in my laboratory, during a journey 

 crystals formed which he made, a certain quantity of the juice of aspara- 

 Sparaeus?^ ° S^-^? concentrated by evaporation, I observed a considera- 

 ble number of crystals, among which tvro appeared to 

 me to belong to new substances ; and as their form, 

 transparency and taste were different, it was easy for me 

 to separate them. 

 Description of ^^^ ^^ these kinds was perfectly white and transpa- 

 one kind rent after having been several times crystallized. — Its 



taste is cool and slightly nauseous, so as to occasion a 



* Annales de Chimiei Jan. I606. 



secretion 



