378 Mr. W. Brande’s Observations on Albumen, 
coagulum by filtration, and evaporated to half its bulk ; when 
the usual tests were now applied, alkaline matter was abun- 
dantly indicated. 
In this instance then, the albumen in passing from the liquid 
to the solid state, gives its alkali to the alcohol.* 
2. When acids are applied to albumen, these effect its co- 
agulation from the same cause : they render it more rapidly 
and more perfectly solid, on account of their superior affinity 
for the alkali. 
The following experiments were instituted with a view to 
ascertain the nature and quantity of the alkaline matter which 
.exists in liquid albumen. 
1. Five hundred grains of the liquid white of egg were 
mixed with two ounces of distilled water, and exposed for 
half an hour to a temperature of 212 0 . The fluid was then 
separated by a filter, and the coagulated albumen cut into small 
pieces, and repeatedly washed with boiling distilled water. 
The filtrated fluid was evaporated to half an ounce by mea- 
sure ; it had a saline taste, it was somewhat turbid, and slightly 
alkaline; on cooling, it gradually deposited a few flakes of 
albumen : it was electrified positively in a small glass cup, 
connected by washed cotton to another similar vessel contain- 
ing a little distilled water, negatively electrified by one hun- 
dred four inch plates, charged with a solution of nitro-muriatic 
acid of the same strength as that employed in a former ex- 
periment, fresh portions of water being occasionally added in 
order to compensate for the loss by its decomposition. 
* When albumen is coagulated by alcohol, it does not become so perfectly solid as 
in most other instances, because the separation effected by the relative affinities is not 
so complete. 
