ON SOME VEGETABLE ALKALOIDS. 35 
iodide, chloride, &c.;-and in the following pages I make use of these terms, 
without, however, making any alteration in the conventional nomenclature for 
the base. 
The salts of ethylostrychnine, generally, are characterized by their beautifully 
crystalline nature, and the facility with which they may be obtained pure. I have 
analysed a few, as affording a favourable opportunity of examining the combina- 
tions of one of these derivatives from a natural fixed alkaloid. 
Nitrate of Ethylostrychnine.—This compound is readily formed by double de- 
composition from the preceding, by use of nitrate of silver in warm dilute solutions. 
It is easily soluble in boiling water, but of extremely sparing solubility in this 
menstruum when cold; so much so, that I have used this property as a test of the 
existence of the base on many occasions; a solution containing it, even when 
tolerably dilute, depositing, on the addition of a little nitric acid, in a short time, 
very fine four-sided prismatic crystals; in more concentrated fiuids their appear- 
ance is immediate. The salt, in a pure state, is in colourless prisms of high re- 
fractive power, which may be obtained of great beauty from dilute aqueous fluids. 
Its analysis gave the following results :— 
4-555 grains, dried at 212°, gave 
10-790 ... carbonic acid, and 
2:680 ... water. 
Found. Calculation. 
———— a _ 
Carbon, . . . 64-60 64:94 ©,, 276 
Hydrogen, . . 6:53 6:35 H,, 27 
Nitrogen,. . ° 988 N, 42 
Oxygen, . . . 18:83 0O,, 80 
100-00 100-00 425 
which agree precisely with the formula— 
C,, H,, N. 0,, HO, NO, = C,, H,, N, 0, NO,. 
Its crystals contain no water. 
Chromates of Ethylostrychnine.—Both neutral and acid chromate of potass 
yield precipitates w ith salts of the base; the former giving, even in dilute fluids, 
short prismatic yellow crystals, and the latter tufts of silky needles. As the 
number of bichromates, of whose analysis we are in possession, is in reality very 
small, being limited, I believe, to those of potass and ammonia, whose constitu- 
tion is peculiar, I examined the salt in the present instance, to see if it were quite 
analogous to these compounds, which it does not appear to be. 
Bichromate of ethylostrychnine is deposited from strong mixed solutions of the 
appropriate salts in very beautiful transparent plates of a golden yellow colour: 
it falls, as just mentioned, from more dilute fluids, in tufts of needles ; it is readily 
VOL. XXI. PART. I. K 
