UMBELLIFERZ. ee 159 
cimen, powdered and exhausted with boiling water, yielded 
ut one ounce of dark-coloured ammoniacum. 
hemical composition.—The following account is extracted 
m the Pharmacographia.—‘‘ Ammoniacum is a mixture of 
olatile oil with resinand gum. We obtained only } per cent. 
of oil, which we find to be dextrogyrate ; we failed in obtaining 
terpine from it. 
“The volatile oil, which is lighter than water, and has the 
precise odour of the drug, contains, according to our experi- 
_ ments, no sulphur; a similar observation was made by Przecis- 
zewski. Vigier, who obtained the oil to the extent of 1°8 per 
nt. by distilling the gum-resin with water, asserts that it 
lackens silver, and that by oxidation with nitric acid, he 
black; we failed in obtaining this coloration. By diluting the 
1 with bisulphide of carbon, and then adding mineral acids, 
e observed only yellow coloration. The oil ciinted me 
ohol acquires a red hue with ferric chloride. 
«The resin in ammoniacum usually amounts to about 70 
n indifferent resin. He asserts that the indifferent resin 
‘when heated yields sulphuretted hydrogen. Our own experi- 
ents failed to show the presénce of sulphur in the crude 
g@; and the same negative result has been more recently 
tained in some careful experiments by Moss. Water, when 
iled with the resin, acquires a yellow hue and slightly acid 
ction; the liquid assumes an intense red coloration on 
ition of ferric chloride. 
‘Ammoniacum yields no umbelliferon; when melted with 
austic potash it affords a little resorcin. The mucilaginous 
er of the drug consists of a gum readily soluble in water, 
a smaller quantity of about } of an insoluble part, no doubt 
ntical with that occurring in Asafcetida and galbanu 
eous solution of the gum of ammoniacum As ve 
