NATURAL 
smell which is peculiar to ir, and 
also of its taste and colour; bur, 
when I evaporated ‘lie solution, by 
a very gentile fire, 1t soon acquired 
its former brown colour, and did 
not shew any disposition to pro- 
duce regular crystals. ‘ I therefore 
thought it reasonable to cunciude, 
that this property of recovering 
its original colour, either was na- 
tural to the whole substance of 
honey, or belonged exclusively to 
one of those constituent parts of it 
upon which charcoal had no power ; 
for when a solution of common 
sugar is thickened by boiling, even 
theugh it is made to boil violently, 
it does not contraé& any colour un- 
til all the aqueous parts are evapo- 
rated. 
III. -The honey whic! had been 
treated with charcoal, and thick- 
ened by evaporation, in the man- 
ner already described, was observ- 
ed, two months after, to have a 
great number of small white lumps 
in it, which had the appearance of 
crystals ; and, soon after, the whole 
mass seemed to be full of them. 
To distinguish accurately the na- 
ture of these small lumps, it was 
necessary to separate them from the 
rest of the mass, which was en- 
tirely coagulated, very thick and 
glutinous. This operation IJ per- 
formed tolerably well, by wach- 
ing the mass with alkalized spirir of 
wine, without heat. I soon per- 
ceived that the spirit dissolved the 
glutinous part completely, merely 
by shaking the mixture; but that 
fluid did not seem to have any ef- 
fe&t upon the white granulated 
part; so that I succeeded in obtain- 
ing this last quite pure. After 
having separated this saccharine 
granulated part from the liquor, by 
means of a filter, I dried it by a 
HISTORY. [409 
gentle heat, and reduced it into 
powder ; this powder did not at. 
tract moisiure, and had a _ yery 
agreeable sweet taste. 
IV. As the granulated consist- 
ence of white honey seems to arise 
from the coagulation of its sace 
charine parts, 1 endeavoured to se- 
patate that part by means of the 
purest spirit of wine, and which 
contained the smallest possible 
quantity of water. From twelve 
ounces of this sort of honey, I pro- 
cured three ounces of saccharine 
matter, This matter siill cor‘ai ed 
some heterogeneous substances, 
which appear not to be soluble in 
spirit of wine. To dissolve iic sac. 
charine part, I again had recourse 
to the purest spirit of wine I could 
procure ; which I made use of by 
putting the mixture into a glass 
matrass, and boiling it therein for 
some time. By these means the 
saccharine part was entirely dis- 
solved; while the insoluble part 
remained behind upon the filter, 
having the appearance of a greyish 
dirty slime. I had filtered the 
mixture while it was hot; after 
which I had poured the clear li. 
quor into another matrass, in 
which I jet it stand quict for some 
days. After that time the sugar 
of the honey began to fix itself to 
the bottom of the vessel, in the 
form of little spherical knobs, 
ranged in lines by the side of each 
other; these, increasing in pum. 
ber every day, formed at last a solid 
crust, which was as white as snow, 
rather rough at the top, and which 
after being separated from the li- 
quor above it, was so firm as to 
bear cutting with a knife into 
very thin slices. The remaining 
liquor, having been left quiet for 
some days, let fall, in that inter. 
4 val, 
