Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 445 
to separate a black fatty matter containing ulmic acid, which is removed 
by a skimmer from the surface of the liquid. To the solution thus 
purified, ammonia is to be added, which occasions a black deposit of 
morphia and thebaia. This precipitate is to be dried, powdered, and 
treated with boiling zther, in which the’thebaia, though only slightly 
soluble, dissolves. When the ether is separated by distillation, the 
thebaia is deposited in small reddish crystals, which are to be purified 
by boiling in alcohol with animal charcoal. It is then to be dissolved 
in ether, and by spontaneous evaporation crystals are obtained. 
Thebaia, thus prepared, is perfectly white, strongly alkaline, and 
soluble in alcohol and ether. In the first liquid it crystallizes, like 
the sugar of grapes, in small mammillated crystals, but in the second, 
in brilliant flat rhombic crystals: When heated to about 266° it 
fuses, and does not solidify till its temperature is reduced to 130° ; 
whereas narcotina fuses at 338° and solidifies at 266°. Codeia 
fuses at 302°, and meconin at 194°. By fusion, thebaia loses 4 per 
cent., or two equivalents of water. Concentrated acids convert it into 
a resinous substance, whereas when properly diluted, they combine 
and form crystallizable salts with it. By friction it becomes nega- 
tively electrical. 
It is composed, according to M. Couerbe, of 
Carbon ...... 71:976 = 25 equivalents 
(eis COB Dasam2ew 0 , 
Hydrogen.... 6460 = 27 do. ee 
Oxygen .... 15:279 
M. Couerbe gives the following table of the colours produced by 
agitating the peculiar substances of opium in a bottle with sulphuric 
acid and air. Nitric acid oxidizes them so rapidly that the progress 
of the oxidation cannot be followed. The experiment is to be made 
in a four-ounce phial, with six grains of the substance, with nearly 
half an ounce of sulphuric acid containing nitric acid: strong agita- 
tion is to be employed. At first the colour is not very deep ; but it is 
developed in a few minutes. 
Thebaia is rendered instantly red, becoming deeper and deeper by 
time ; when examined in thin portions the colour has a yellowish tint. 
Narcotina, at first yellow, and remains so for seven or eight minutes, 
then becomes red. 
Codeia immediately becomes of a very pale green colour, which 
passes to a vert-russe after some time. 
Morphia becomes almost immediately of a green colour. 
Meconin, no immediate effect, but in 24 hours the mixture becomes 
of a superb rose colour, 
Narceia immediately becomes nearly of a mahogany colour. 
Whensulphuric acid, which contains no nitric acid, isemployed, then 
Thebaia gives a rose-colour, with a shade of yellow ; 
Narcotina, a blood red colour ; 
Codeia, a green colour ; 
Morphia, a brown colour ; 
Meconin, first a turmeric yellow and then red ; 
Narceia, a chocolate colour. 
