108 
ON THE SUBLIMATION OF THE ALKALOIDS. 
I began by procuring one hundred successive sublimates of morphine from 
minute quantities of the alkaloid (probably not exceeding the T £_th of 
a grain). From each of these I got all the sublimates they could be made to 
yield; and when one was exhausted, I added another, using throughout the same 
slab of porcelain, and the same cell-glass. The experiments were performed 
quickly and with common precautions, and probably represent fairly enough 
the results which would be obtained by an unpractised person following the 
directions given in my first paper. 
These hundred specimens, examined by the naked eye, were appropriately 
grouped as follows:— 
1. Dense white spots (some on thick mists) evidently crystalline . . 10 
2. Circular thick mists of uniform consistence.50 
3. Small, or faint, or marginal only.,20 
4. Circular, thick, smoky mists.20 
The same specimens, cursorily examiued under the microscope with an inch 
power by transmitted light, arranged themselves in groups as follows:— 
1. White spot or spots, distinct crystalline pattern . . . 4 N 
2. Crystalline spots on watery pattern.14 
3. „ with black projecting fern-leaves * .... 1 
4. „ with coarse black crystals of indistinct form . 1 
5. Scattered prismatic crystals on watery pattern .... 4 
6. Large smoked crust with crystalline spots.4, 
7. Large watery pattern.17' 
8. Small watery pattern.38 
9. Watery pattern, with small, black, circular spots ... 3 
10. Smoked pattern.8 \ 
11. Smoked crystalloids.2 
12. Small bright disks.2 
13. Granular. 2 
100 
The one hundred sublimates may be most conveniently grouped as follows:— 
Crystalline, or with disks, granules, and crystalloids . . . . 34 
Watery.58 
Smoked...8 
100 
Of the twenty sublimates designated in the first summary as small, or faint, 
or marginal only, eight were so small and indistinct that I did not expect to 
obtain any characteristic reactions with the recognized tests for morphia, nor 
with those with which I had become acquainted through Helwig’s work or my 
own experiments. The one, however, to which. I applied the nitric acid test 
assumed a very distinct orange tint. Out of the twelve remaining sublimates, 
superior to the eight just named but still indistinct, eight were tested with 
nitric acid; and of these four assumed a decided characteristic orange tint, and 
four failed. The four remaining of the twelve were tested with spirit of wine, 
liq. ammonise, nitro-prusside of sodium, and dilute hydrochloric acid, and yielded 
* These dark crystals, consisting of parallel lines radiating from a central stem, and closely 
resembling delicate fern-leaves, are often met with in large numbers on the thicker crusts, 
both of strychnine and morphine, as also on the upper edge of the short reduction-tube when 
sublimation is effected by its means. They bear a close resemblance to the tin-tree, obtained 
by submitting a weak solution of a salt of tin dropped on a flat surface of glass to the action 
of a fragment of zinc; and they are among the most unexpected, no less than the most beautiful, 
results of the process of sublimation. 
Containing 
crvstals, 
*28. 
Not 
crystalline, 
72. 
