464 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



One of the most remarkable properties of the cyanuret of chlorine, 

 is that of crystallizing in long transparent needles at 0° Fahr. ; and 

 at about 20^^ or 25'' above this it becomes liquid, or under a pressure 

 of four atmospheres, and it remains so in tubes hermetically sealed. 



When bottles containing cyanuret of mercury, either moistened with 

 or dissolved- in chlorine, are exposed to the sun's rays, no cyanuret of 

 chlorine is obtained ; but instead, if a yellow oily fluid is formed, 

 which is denser than water, and which is probably a mixture of chlo- 

 ride of azote and protochloride of carbon, it is readily converted by 

 heat into azote, carbonic acid, muriatic acid, and perchloride of carbon. 

 Without the assistance of heat the same effects are produced, but very 

 slowly ; it yielded by analysis an atom of chlorine and one of cyanogen, 

 which is the same composition as that stated by M. Gay Lussac. — 

 Ibid, Sept. 1827. 



EXAMINATION OF CINCHALONA. 

 M. Tilloy of Dijon states that in 1825 about 500 pounds of Kina 

 Kalissaya were imported into France : it was fine in appearance, very 

 distinctly bitter, and by analysis yielded the same proportions of co- 

 louring and fatty matter as in good bark of the same kind ; but it 

 yielded no quina. M. Tilloy gives the following as a ready process 

 for determining whether bark contains quina. Take one ounce of 

 bark reduced to coarse powder, and put it into twelve ounces of al- 

 cohol of sp. gr. 867, and heat to about 110° to 120° for an hour; 

 pour off the alcohol, repeat the digestion with fresh alcohol, mix the 

 liquors, and add acetate or subacetate of lead sufficient to precipitate 

 the colour of the kinic acid ; set it by, filter, add to the liquid a few 

 drops of sulphuric acid to separate the lead of any acetate which may 

 have been used in excess ; filter and distil : there remains sulphate 

 or acetate of quina. according to the quantity of sulphuric acid em- 

 ployed, mixed with a fatty matter, which adheres to the vessel , pour 

 off the solution and add ammonia to it, which immediately precipitates 

 the quina; but if it be added in excess, it re-dissolves the quina, but 

 a little sulphuric acid will again precipitate it. The quina washed 

 with warm water, treated with sulphuric acid and a little animal char- 

 coal, gives very white sulphate of quina ; in six hours M. Tilloy ob- 

 tained nine grains of sulphate of quina from an ounce of bark. — Ibid. 

 Oct. 1827. 



COMMON SUGAR EXISTING IN THE FORM OF GRAINS IN THE 

 FLOWERS OF RHODODENDRON PONTICUM. 



M. Jaeger discovered, in April 1825, on a plant oi Rhododendron 

 ponticum, which he kept in his room, and which was covered with 

 flowers, grains of common sugar, pure and of a white colour, on 

 the inner surface of the upper division of the corolla. The quantity 

 of grains collected from about HO flowers amounted to 275 centi- 

 grammes. The mean weight of each grain was two centigrammes. 

 The physical and chemical properties of these grains approach so 

 much to those of common sugar, that no essential difference could 

 be detected between the two substances. 



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