few Vegetable Principle in Asparagus. 291 
the tincture of turnsole, and since it has not the taste com- 
mon to all these bodies in a more or less remarkable degree. 
It is not a neutral salt, since jt contains neither an earth 
nor an alkali; but as it furnishes, by means of fire, the 
same products as the vegetables, we are obliged to regard it 
as an immediate principle of asparagus. 
It is probable that it is composed, like the vegetable pro- 
ducts, of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, in particular pro- 
portions: it is not less probable that there is also a small 
quantity of azote in it ; this seems at Jeast to be indicated by 
the smell which is disengaged from it by heat, and by the 
ammonia which it forms with the nitric acid. 
Although we obtained a sufficiently large quantity of this 
substance, we could not submit it to a great number of expe- 
riments, because the greatest part of it was wasted in the la- 
boratory ; and the smal] quantity we gave M. Haity to deter- 
mine the form of it only remained: we purpose continuing 
our researches as soon as the asparagus season returns, but 
we thought it our duty to give an account of our progress 
hitherto. 
We shall also ascertain whether or no this singular sub- 
stance exists in other vegetables. 
As to the saccharine matter which we also found in the 
juice of asparagus, we had not enough of it to recognise 
what kind of sugar it was; in the mean time we are of opi- 
nion that it is manna. 
It may be concluded from the above experiments, that, 
besides the principles discovered in asparagus by M. Robi- 
quet, there exists a principle crystallizable like the salts, 
which is, however, neither an acid nor a neutral salt, and the 
solution of which is not affected by any of the re-agents ge- 
nerally employed to ascertain the presence and the nature of 
the salts dissolved in water; and that there also exists an- 
other saccharine principle, which seems to have an analogy 
with manna, 
Te XLVI. Upon 
