78 On Hircine, a new Resin. [No. 1. 



it leaves a dirty greyish white mass which has an agreeable odour but 

 does not, in the small quantity experimented upon, resemble a resin, as 

 it coagulates in clots and masses in the watch glass. 



The Alcoholic residuum is a light brown resin which burns with a 

 bright clear flame and leaves a white powdery ash as before. The 

 latter portions of the smoke have a musky odour, which, like the 

 hircine one of the original resin, is not disagreeable. 



This Alcoholic residuum is insoluble in ether, or but very partially 

 soluble, giving only a faint yellow colour to it. 



When the pure and filtered yellow Alcoholic solution is allowed to 

 evaporate, it gives an orange-coloured resin, which burns with a bright, 

 clear, yellow flame after fusing to a bright orange red mass. 



This resin is almost totally soluble in ether, giving a bright yellow 

 solution with but a trifling residuum. Its smell is a strong sugary 

 one, like a cask or fazil of raisins. 



With the Acids. 



11. In concentrated Nitric Acid it becomes a tough, bright, yellow 

 pasty and frothy mass, and partly dissolves ; colouring the Acid of a 

 bright straw-yellow colour. The pasty residuum adheres somewhat to 

 the fingers, but could not be farther examined. 



The Nitric Acid solution gives a white precipitate to Carbonate of 

 Potass which is mostly soluble in an excess of the Alkali, but a portion 

 of it remains as a silky precipitate like those of salts of Barytes. 



In Acetic Acid it also gives a straw-yellow solution which is preci- 

 pitated by Carbonate of Potass, but this precipitate does not appear to 

 be soluble in excess of the Alkali, and is silky like the residual precipi- 

 tate from the Nitric Acid solution above described. When the Acetic 

 Acid solution is evaporated it gives a brown resinous -looking material 

 which is soluble in Alcohol. 



Its re-actions with strong Sulphuric Acid are the most remarkable, 

 and with the effect of Nitric Acid on the Alcoholic solution seem quite 

 to distinguish it from any of the resins or gum resins of which we 

 have any record.* 



* Mr. Hatchett, Phil. Trans, for 1806, p. 92, says, thatGuiacum gives also a deep 

 red colour to Sulphuric Acid but then it undergoes various changes of colour, from 

 green to blue and brown, when Nitric Acid is added to the Alcoholic solution ; which 

 as will be subsequently seen Hircine does not. Hircine in the mass looks much 



