Analytical Essay on Asparagus. 35 
lent matter was filtered while yet warm, and deposited, while 
cooling, some light jelly-like flakes, which in drying united 
in small yellowish masses, They became soft with heat, 
and diffused, when burning, an agreeable odour. They ap- 
peared to be true vegetable wax. 
The alcoholic tincture, which became slightly turbid by 
the addition of water, left as the residue of its evaporation 
a green tenacious substance, of which the taste was at first 
a little sharp, slightly bitter, and very tart; it had a smell 
\ 
also peculiarly insipid, and even nauseous; properties which 
may create a presumption that if it is a resin it is not pure, 
and that it is probably united to a portion of volatile oil. 
I think that those substances, although they are not of 
great importance, deserve to be mentioned in the analysis 
of asparagus. JI shall pass, however, to the examination of 
the filtered juice: it had a colour nearly resembling that of 
whey, though inclining a little more to yellow, and redden- 
ing very sensibly the tincture of turnsole. I exposed it to 
the action of fire, to see if it contained a small portion of 
albumen. Before ebullition it showed some flakes, of which 
the number augmented considerably in proportion as the 
heat acquired intensity. The liquor, after having been boiled 
a certain time, was filtered, to separate from it the coagu- 
Jated albumen. 
My principal object being to obtain malic acid and gela- 
tine, I evaporated (as M. Antoine had done) the liquor to 
the consistence of an extract, which I treated with alcohol 
at 39°; and after having washed the extract, obtained by 
several repetitions of the experiment, always with alcohol, 
I dissolved in water the portion that was insoluble in spirit 
of'wine ; but I did not obtain, as M. Antoine did, a residue 
which that gentleman designates by the name of an oxyge- 
nated extract. From the process he followed it was possibly 
owing to a Jittle of the albumen remaining in the solution, 
which separated in the progress of avApORAtON. But this is 
only a conjecture. 
I tried the alcoholic liquor, and was much astonished to 
obtain, by the acetate of lead, only a very slight flaky preci- 
pitate, which, according’to M. Antoine, ought to be abun- 
C2 dant, 
