History of geine. 77 



acid, lime-water and salts of lime produce no pre- 

 cipitate in it, and it is only rendered slightly turbid 

 by sulphuric, nitric and muriatic acids. It is not 

 precipitated by acetate of lead, or by sulphate of 

 iron. With alcohol and sub-acetate of lead, it af- 

 fords a mucilaginous precipitate. It is evident that 

 it differs widely from artificial ulmin, and from ul- 

 min of soil, and therefore, when Berzelius turned 

 his attention to that, having advised the abandon- 

 ment of the name ulmin, as inapplicable to any one 

 substance, he bestowed on the ulmin of soil, the 

 name of geine, from the Greek ge, earth. If a dis- 

 tinction is therefore to be maintained, it may be said, 

 that ulmin is the product of life ; geine, of decay. 



The mass of matter called mould or humus, has 

 many analogies with the artificial ulmin of authors ; 

 but taken as a whole, there are decided differences. 

 These were noticed by Berzelius, and hence he di- 

 vided, in an edition of his chemistry, (French transla- 

 tion of 1832,) the constituents of the organic part 

 of mould or humus, into 



1st. Extract of mould. 2d. Geine. 3d. Car- 

 bonaceous mould, or coal of humus, as it is often 

 termed. He noticed that these mutually passed into 

 each other. This shows a great similarity if not 



identity of chemical constituents. He did not pre- 



7* 



