366 Intelligence and Miscellanies. 



The circumstances under which I procured it are nearly 

 these. A quarter of a pound of opium was boiled in a quart 

 of proof spirit, and strained while warm through a coarse 

 cotfon cloth. The solution, thus obtained, being allowed to 

 stand for about twenty four hours, crystals were observed to 

 be spontaneously deposited on the sides of the containing 

 glass jar. These being dissolved in acetic acid, on the ad- 

 dition of ammonia a precipitate took place which was col- 

 lected by a filter, and dried. Narcotin was thus obtained 

 in the form of white, beautiful silky crystals, which were 

 readily soluble in sulphuric ether. 



When we consider how often opium has been dissolved 

 in proof spirit by chemists and pharmacopists, it is surprising 

 that crystalline principles so easily evolved, as are morphia 

 and narcotin, by the process above described, should have 

 escaped observation until lately, when Sertuerner by a much 

 less obvious route had the honor of discovering them. 



7. An account of an extraordinary explosion^ arising from 

 the reaction of nitric acid with phosphorus ; by the author of 

 the preceding article. — In the winter of 1 827-8, having made 

 some unusually strong nitric acid, (above 1.5 in specific grav- 

 ity,) I proceeded, with more than usual caution, to arrange 

 the apparatus for exhibiting to my class the reaction between 

 it and phosphorus. A tube, about seven eighths of an inch in 

 diameter, closed at one end, was placed within a stout hollow 

 glass cylinder, of about three inches diameter, of which the 

 glass was nearly three eighths of an inch thick. The whole 

 was situated about four feet in the rear of my table. About 

 five grains of phosphorus, in two or three lumps, was thrown 

 into about as much of the acid, as occupied the tube an 

 inch and a half in height. Very soon afterwards there was 

 a flash, followed by an explosion, like that of gunpowder, 

 and the fragments of the glass cyhnder as well as of the 

 tube were driven in all directions so as to break many glass 

 articles at the distance of from five to twenty feet, and to 

 wound slightly some of the spectators. After my lecture 

 was over, I repeated the experiment, with a smaller quantity 

 of materials, when an explosion again took place proportion- 

 ably violent. It fractured the containing tube, but did not 

 break a stout glass cylinder by which it was surrounded. I 

 have been accustomed annually to exhibit to my class the 

 combustion of phosphorus m nitric acid, and I have, on dif- 



