TOL. XXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. 6T7 



observe the tartar, or essential salt of plants; but if the acidity be of a vinous 

 sinell, we observe that it is of a middle state of digestion, and may be called a 

 vinous tartar, and the crude tartar an acerb tartar ; but if the tartar had a 

 pungent smell, then it is a volatile tartar, or acid acrid tartar. 



I will next describe the principles observable in sweet tastes, and their several 

 classes ; but must first observe that sweet tastes show their oil by their slimy 

 smoothness, and their tartar is evident in their extracts, as in the juice of 

 liquorice. 1. The grass sweets, gramen caninum, have much essential salt 

 and moderate oil ; j uncus equisetum, arundo, typha, nymphas, are all of the 

 rush kind, sweet and rough, and some of them have more oil, others more 

 acid, and the most crude have more oil than tartar. 1. The corn sweets, as 

 barley, rye, wheat, oats, rice, millet, have much oil and essential salt, and a 

 little volatile : so bread yields oil and essential and volatile salt. Note, that 

 fermentation or the fire produces the volatile salt, by exalting the tartar into a 

 volatile salt ; and the slimy mealiness in corn supplies the oil. 3. The subacrid 

 sweets, as rampions, campanula, trachelium, contain much oil and essential 

 salt ; but the acrimony in these plants shoas a volatile salt not described by the 

 chemist. 4. The ferns contain oil and essential salt, as polypody ; but the acrid 

 principle is not observed by the chemist, nor the fragrancy in hart's tongue. 

 Osmunda and the capillaries have more oil than salt, because more mucilaginous 

 and crude. 5. All the legundnous slimy sweets have more oil than tartar, but 

 all much of both, as broom, ononis, aquilegia, tumaria, asparagus, ruscus, tha- 

 lictrum, polygonatum, sena, galega, lathyrus, iuteola, periclymenum, glycyrrhiza, 

 psyllium, much oil and volatile or essential salt. 6. The sweet nuts, as almonds, 

 have much oil and essential salt ; but the bitter have more salt than the sweet 

 almonds ; therefore it is probable that the tartar abounds more in all bitters, and 

 that tartar is the effect of a higher digestion, and the crudest tastes, as styptics, 

 sweets, and slimes, have least of it. So cht-snuts and beech-nuts have much oil, 

 and little salt. Filberts are described to have essential salt, and a little volatile 

 as well as oil. 7. The sweet acid or vinous tastes have much oil and essential 

 salt, as prunes, cherries, strawberries, raspberries. The sweet viscous fruits, as 

 sebestens, have little essential salt, and much oil. 8. The sweet aromatic 

 burning tastes contain a volatile salt and oil, as schenanthus, ginger, zcdoary, 

 cubebs, cardamoms, vanillas, contrayerva, calamus aromalicus ; but these fol- 

 lowing are mistaken bv the chemist, who says that coslus amarus, dulcis, cyperus, 

 galanga, orris, have a volatile oil, but essential salt only ; fcir orris is acrid and 

 aromatic as well as the rest, and therefore there is both volatile salt and oil in 

 them, and also an essential salt from their sweetness. Q. The sweet acrid 

 aromatics of the fennel class have all volatile salt and a volatile oil ; ns angelica, 

 lovage, parsley, meum, dill. Note, the leaves and ro'>f= of fennel contain a 



