362 DR ANDERSON’S RESEARCHES ON SOME OF THE 
The fiuid from which teropiammon has been separated is pale yellow. When 
supersaturated with potash, it acquires a more or less dark colour; and on stand- 
ing, and still more rapidly on agitation, deposits a quantity of pale-yellow crys- 
talline grains. The mother liquor, which contains a large excess of potash, is 
separated by filtration, and the precipitate washed with water. It then presents 
all the characters of cotarnine, dissolves in the acids, with a red colour, gives 
highly-soluble salts, and is precipitated by potash and soda, but not by ammonia. 
Its identity was further determined by the following analysis of its platinum 
salt :— 
{ 5-436 grains of platinochloride of cotarnine gave 


1242 ... platinum. 
Experiment. Calculation. 
eee 
Carbon, : : AGE 35°68 Cr 156 
Hydrogen, 3 ‘ ore 3°20 1aly, 14 
Nitrogen, : ; se 3°20 N 14 
Oxygen, : . age 10:98 0, 48 
Chlorine, ; : has 24:37 Cl, 106°5 
Platinum, ; 5 epERY! 22-57 Pt 98-7 
100-00 4372 
In this way cotarnine is obtained with extreme facility, and the process is 
greatly to be preferred to WouLER’s method of preparation. The sole precaution 
necessary is to avoid the application of too high a temperature during the action 
of the nitric acid, and to arrest the action as soon as the whole of the narcotine 
is dissolved. If the heat be too great or too long continued, the cotarnine itself 
undergoes decomposition, and yields products which will be described afterwards. 
X. Examination of the Potash Solution. 
In the alkaline fluid from which the cotarnine had been separated, it was natu- 
ral to look for the opianic acid of Lizsic and Wouter, which, as the simultaneous 
product of the oxidation of narcotine, must almost of necessity be present. Its ex- 
istence was accordingly soon ascertained; but it was also found that it was by no 
means the only or the invariable product of the action, but that different substances 
were obtained in different operations, even when the nitric acid was caused to act 
under what were supposed to be perfectly identical conditions. In some instances, 
opianic acid was entirely absent, and its place was taken by hemipinic acid, which 
was invariably obtained in greater or less quantity, even when opianic acid was 
present; and in other cases, substances appeared which could not be produced 
at will, and were only obtained when the conditions of the oxidation were very 
successfully fulfilled. 
In order to obtain these substances, the alkaline fluid is evaporated on the 
sand-bath to a small bulk, and the nitre, which deposits on cooling, is separated 
ad 
