ORGANIC MATTER. 13 



in the solid state : that is to say, when deprived of the water 

 usually mixed with them, they do not admit of fusion, much 

 less of volatilization. To which add, that they have not even 

 that molecular mobility which solution in water implies; 

 since though they form viscid mixtures with water, they do 

 not dissolve in the same perfect way as do inorganic com- 

 pounds. The chemical characteristics of these sub- 

 stances, are instability and inertness carried to the extreme. 

 How rapidly albumenoid matters decompose under ordinary 

 conditions, is daily seen : the difficulty of every house-wife 

 being to prevent them from decomposing. It is true that 

 when desiccated and kept from contact with air, they may be 

 preserved unchanged for a long period ; but the fact that they 

 can only be thus preserved, proves their great instability. It is 

 true, also, that these most complex nitrogenous principles are 

 not absolutely inert ; since they enter into combinations with 

 some bases ; but their unions are very feeble. 



It should be noted, too, of these bodies, that though they 

 exhibit in the lowest degree that kind of molecular mobility, 

 ■which implies facile vibration of the atoms as wholes, they ex- 

 hibit in a high degree that kind of molecular mobility resulting 

 in isomerism, which implies permanent changes in the posi- 

 tions of adjacent atoms with respect to each other. Each of 

 them has a soluble and insoluble form. In some cases there 

 are indications of more than two such forms. And it appears 

 that their metamorphoses take place under very slight 

 changes of conditions. 



In these most unstable and inert organic compounds, we 

 find that the atomic complexity reaches a maximum : not 

 only since the four chief organic elements are here united 

 with small proportions of sulphur and phosphorus ; but also 

 since they are united in high multiples. The peculiarity 

 which we found characterized even binary compounds of the 

 organic elements, that their atoms are formed not of single 

 equivalents of each component, but of two, three, four and 

 more equivalents, is carried to the greatest extreme in these 



