218 Progress of Foreign Science. 
acetate of lead was added, till all precipitation ceased. The 
filtered liquid contained an excess of acetate of lead. It was 
almost colourless and transparent. The lead was separated by 
sulphuric acid; then, the operation was finished by the decom- 
position of the sulphate of strychnine by means of magnesia, 
and the separation of the strychnine from the magnesian preci- 
pitate, took place as in the first process. The strychnine ob- 
tained weighed 48 grains. 
The sulphate of strychnine might be also decomposed by am- 
monia, and the strychnine obtained by filtering the liquors. We 
shall insert here an observation, entirely new, which explains 
certain phenomena observed in the preparation of several vege- 
table alkalis. Ifthe salt of strychnine be decomposed by con- 
centrated ammonia, the heat produced is strong enough to melt 
the strychnine, which is then precipitated in the form of a pitchy 
matter, and remains long soft. This matter put for some time 
in contact with water, or left in the liquid that yielded it, absorbs 
water; the hydrate becomes then transparent and friable. In 
this state the strychnine is much less fusible. 
Brucine presents the phenomena of hydration in a still more 
striking manner. One of the above gentlemen had prepared a 
sulphate of brucine, with brucine very much coloured. ‘The sul- 
phate was passed over animal charcoal, and then decomposed 
by very strong ammonia. The brucine precipitated in a fused 
and oily form; but at the end of two days it had increased con- 
siderably in volume, and had become a spongy and triable 
mass. 
We shall also remark, in returning to strychnine, that this 
matter becomes hydrated with so much more difficulty, as it re- 
tains more colouring matter. The hydration takes place almost 
instantly when the strychnine is pure ; it requires some hours, 
when the strychnine is a little coloured ; but when it retains all 
its colouring matter, it takes days, and even weeks. ‘This is the 
reason why a pitchy matter is always obtained, when an alkali 
is poured into a watery solution of the alkoholic extract of nux 
vomica; the absolute alcohol not being able to afford, or afford- 
ing with great difficulty, water of hydration to the strychnine. 
When a fused and pitchy strychnine is to be re-dissolved in the 
menstruum, we ought to employ alcohol retaining a little water, 
that for example at 34° or 36° (0.847 or 0.837). The same pre- 
caution is not necessary, if the strychnine have been previously 
-erystallized. 
3. Process by lead and sulphuretted Hydrogen.—This is the 
process given in our first memoir, for the extraction of strych- 
nine from nux vomica. It is that which has not succeeded with 
M. Robiquet, and the correctness of which he doubts. We have 
applied it also to a solution of nux vomica, representing three 
