1820.] the Red Siioic o/'thc Eiivirojtsof Mount St. Bernard. 421 



colour, like lake ; it had been covered with fresh snow at the 

 time when it was collected, and did not show upon its surface 

 any substance foreign to the colouring matter. Tliis snow had 

 changed its colour in melting ; the pieces visibly became of a 

 fainter colour before they melted, merely by the transition to a 

 higher degree of temperature. It covers large spaces in 

 June. 



This water was colourless, slightly turbid, tasteless, had a 

 smell analogous to that of a smalt quantity of decayed vegeto- 

 animal substances ; it furnished in this state a greenish liquid 

 with hydrosulphuret of ammonia, and assumed, after the lapse of 

 some hours, a violet tint with the infusion of galls : it did not 

 affect the test papers ; when filtrated, it experienced from the above 

 tests the same effects : it was rendered slightly turbid by oxalate 

 of ammonia, and gave no precipitate with salts of barytes : Vvhen 

 exposed to the action of ebullition in an apparatus adapted to 

 receive the carbonic acid gas, it gave buta very slight indication 

 of it : when evaporated to dryness, it yielded a small deliquescent 

 residuum, having thepropertiesof extractive matter, and eiuitting 

 on the coals a vegeto-animal smell. 



The remainder left on the filter by this water, weighed 68 grs.; 

 in this state it was externally of a greyish-violet, and internallv 

 it was of a very lively violet-red colour, vvhich the action of the 

 air soon changed to that of the surface. It had penetrated into 

 the substance of the paper, and was not to be separated from it 

 v/ithout difBculty. To the touch it was unctuous ; it was pulve- 

 rulent, and strewed with some thin filaments of vegetable 

 substances. 



\Vhen exposed to the action of alcohol with the aid of heat, it 

 gave a tincture, of a deep purplish-yellow, and required several 

 successive boilings with fresh alcohol before it ceased to colour 

 it : the loss which it experienced by the solution of the colouring 

 principle v.as found to be the same as that mentioned by M. de 

 .Saussure. 



The spirituous liquids united yielded by distillation a colourless 

 alcohol, having no extraneous taste, the last portions of which, 

 being evaporated to dryness, left on the sides of the capsule a 

 layer of a safiron-yellow, traversed by greenish dendriuc ramifi- 

 cations. 



This yell.')w substance had an acrid taste; when throv. n on 

 burning coals, it emitted a smoke tliat had a sm-jJl like burnt 

 sugar, which was presumed to come from the alcohol : it v,as 

 ins«>luble in v.ater; but soluble in alcohol, ether, oil, the [)nie 

 alkaline solutions, and chlorine; this last liquid destroyed its 

 colour in dissolving it. These properties, belonging to resinous 

 KubstanctK, very well explain its nature. 



le'n parts of the residue left by the watvr, strongly healed, 

 emitted a copious smoke, with the smt'Il of aniina! substar.ces in 

 conibusti;ai, and left a residue of anale red, with a lo.-is of :.•?-. 



