230 P. Briihl — On the Resin of Cannabis indica. [Nov. 



magnesium filings and dilute sulphuric acid, in the other case from 

 sodium amalgam and water. 



In either case the resin hardly changed in appearance. It was 

 washed with water, dissolved in alcohol, the solution filtered, and the 

 alcohol driven off. The residue exactly resembled the original resin ; 

 caustic potash solution did not act on it at the common temperature ; 

 nitric and sulphuric acids dissolved it to form brown solutions, etc. 

 Hence it appears that the resin is not acted upon by nascent hydrogen. 



Action of halogens. — In order to study the action of chlorine on 

 the resin, the latter was made up with finely powdered potassic chlorate 

 into small pellets, which were thrown, one by one, into hydrochloric acid 

 of specific gravity 1*15. The pellets soon began to swell up and to 

 assume an orange yellow colour. Some more hydrochloric acid and 

 powdered potassic chlorate was added from time to time ; and finally 

 the resulting mass was rubbed up in a mortar together with fresh quan- 

 tities of the acid and salt, until the colour of the product had become a 

 uniform orange-yellow. It was then washed with a large quantity of 

 hot water and the residue dissolved in benzene, in which potassium 

 chloride and chlorate are insoluble. The benzene was next distilled 

 off ; the residue consisted of a reddish-brown mass, somewhat adhesive 

 at the common temperature and still more so when gently heated. It 

 was found to be easily soluble in alcohol, ether, acetone, ethyl, acetate, 

 benzene. When heated on a piece of platinum foil, it melts, then 

 evolves white fumes, and finally disappears without leaving any residue. 

 On application of the exceedingly delicate test recommended by Beilstein 

 in his Handbuch der organischen Chemie, the substance was found to 

 contain chlorine. It is therefore a Chloro-derivative of the resin of Can- 

 nabis indica. 



The alcoholic solution of this chlorine-compound gives an emulsion 

 with water. An alcoholic solution of silver nitrate, which is reduced by 

 the resin itself on standing for a short time, gives no precipitate with 

 a similar solution of the chloro-derivative at the common temperature ; 

 but when heated to the boiling-point, a white precipitate comes down, 

 soluble in ammonia, whilst the liquid assumes a brown colour. 



An aqueous solution of potassic hydroxide dissolves the chloro- 

 derivative, slowly at the common temperature, more rapidly when 

 heated. Treated with a solution of caustic potash in absolute alcohol it 

 dissolves rapidly to form a dark-brown solution, which gives, of course 

 no precipitate with water. A current of carbonic anhydride was next 

 passed for some time through the alkaline solution, and the liquid was 

 filtered off from the precipitate of potassic carbonate due to an excess 

 of the alkali used. A portion of the solution, which had still an alka- 



