» fee 
Gn Oriental Bexoars. 5 
pound mass of layers, among which was a splinter of wood 
of the size of a common pin: a homogeneous piece was of 
the specific gravity of 1463, that of water being 1000*. 
The bezoar when reduced to very fine powder yields no- 
thing to water in which it bas been boiled for a long time: 
the water, however, was a little greenish, but had no sen- 
sible taste. The re-agents did not manifest the presence of 
any of the substances the existence of which might have 
been suspected: when evaporated to dryness it yielded 
scarcely any residue. : 
Alcohol which was boiled for a long time with bezoar 
powder also assumed a slight green colour; it was not 
disturbed by the addition of water: when evaporated to” 
dryness it did not leave any appreciable residue. 
Muriatic acid, concentrated in a middling degree, did 
"not act perceptibly upon bezoar; but the concentric nitric 
acid dissolved it with a brisk effervescence: it-assumed an 
orange-red colour; but we found no oxalic acid in this solu- 
tion, and we could not extract from it any yellow bitter 
matter. i ! 
Potash easily dissolved bezoar powder: the solution was 
of a deep brown colour, and the muriatic acid precipitated 
from it the substance of the bezoar without its undergoing 
anv apparent alteration. 
' We distilled over a graduated fire twelve grammes of 
bezoar reduced into fine powder; then passed into the re- 
ceiver a small quantity of a yellow substance, part of which 
was sublimed, and the other part was covered with a little 
liquid, on which some drops of oil floated: the liquid 
gave indications of acidity, and resembled a weak pyrolig- 
nous acid: lime extricated from it ammoniacal vapours, 
but they were scarcely perceptible. 
When we put bezoar on burning coals, it burns, but 
gives out very little flame: there rises, on the part furthest 
removed trom the coals, a little yellow matter: when we 
expose bezoar in powder in a small platina spoon to the 
action of the blow-pipe, it burns briskly, but without fame, 
and around it this yellow matter is formed, which when 
afterwards exposed to the flame is charred and burnt. T+ 
seems, therefore, that the yellow matter is only a portion 
of the bezoar vot much altered, which is sublimed; and 
which, when again exposed to the action of the fire, is re- 
* In appearance the above bezoars were very little different from those 
fecribed by Messrs, Fourcroy and Vauquelin in their paper on Animal 
cretions, as resinous intestinal hezoars, but a chemical analysis his establish- 
ed that there is a considerable difference between them. 
He duced 
