Miscellanies. 38 1 



had discovered, in the poplar, the substance called Salicine, and an- 

 other substance which he regards as new, and which he has named 

 populine. — Rev. Encijc. Sept. 1830. 



19. Coloring matter of blood. — At the same session of the Acade- 

 my, Gay-Lussac and Serullas made a report on the memoir of M. 

 Lecantj, relative to the coloring matter of blood or hematosine. In 

 recapitulating, say the reporters, what precedes, we find that the color- 

 ing matter of blood or hematosine is not an immediate principle, but 

 a combination of albumine and a particular coloring substance, which 

 M. Lecanu, by the aid of an easy process, which he carefully describes, 

 has succeeded in isolating. He proposes to name it Globuline in as- 

 signing to it the following characters. 1st, of being of a beautiful red 

 in the condition of hydrate, and of a brown red when dry. 2d. of 

 containing (which is easy to prove by incineration) 0.174 of its weight 

 of iron, that is to say, double of Avhat was found in the matter of Ber- 

 zelius, and consequently proportional to the quantity of albumen sep- 

 arated from it; 3d. of being "very soluble in alkalis, and much more 

 so than coagulated albumen, for two or three drops of potash-water, 

 or ammonia are sufficient for the prompt solution of several grammes 

 of it. 4th. of forming with hydrochloric acid a compound soluble in 

 concentrated alcohol. This last is one of its most remarkable prop- 

 erties. These facts which have been clearly stated, and which have 

 required much experience to establish them, render the memoir of M. 

 Lecanu deserving the approbation of the Academy." (Approved.) — • 

 Ide7n. 



20. Water in red hot vessels. — M. Le Chevalier infers from his 

 experiments, that water in red hot vessels has, probably, a tempera- 

 ture below 100° Centigrade, and that water at a boiling heat would 

 cool if poured into a red hot crucible. — Rev. Encyc. Aout, 1830. 



21. Tendency to crystallization. — There is a curious property of 

 many salts which I have seldom seen adverted to, but which is never- 

 theless extremely deserving of attention. We commonly describe 

 salts in their crystalline state only, and attend little to their habits in 

 their amorphous state. 



And yet, in this state, they occasionally exhibit very interesting 

 phenomena. Some salts, when deprived of their water by fusion, de- 

 liquesce on cooling, and run into a liquid in which crystals are after- 

 wards gradually deposited till the whole has assumed the form of a 

 crystalline salt, containing water, and permanent in the air. Others 

 attract only so much moisture as to admit of an internal motion of the 



Vol. XIX.— No. 2. 49 



