ON THE SUBLIMATION OF THE ALKALOIDS. 109 
results which I have found to be characteristic. With these facts to guide me, 
I am disposed to reckon the failures in these hundred successive experiments at 
about 10 per cent. 
The eighty sublimates remaining, after the separation of the group of twenty 
small and indistinct specimens, I arranged in three classes, according as they 
contained crystalline forms, consisted of watery patterns, or were smoked. I 
then selected for careful experiment and comparison one specimen from each 
group, and applied to them distilled water as a reagent. I repeated this ex¬ 
periment with distilled water, and then adopted precisely the same procedure 
with dilute hydrochloric acid, solution of carbazotic acid, solution of bichromate 
of potash, and solution of nitro-prusside of sodium, successively,—my object, 
as already explained, being to ascertain whether the reagents which produce 
effects striking and characteristic with crystalline sublimates affect the two 
classes of non-crystalline sublimates in the same way, or in any other characteris¬ 
tic manner. 
I will briefly describe these reactions as supplying the answer to this important 
question. 
1. Distilled Water :— 
a. Crystalline sublimate. —Immediate solution. The dry spot shows small 
crystals and crystalloids. 
b. Watery sublimate. —Immediate development of small sparkling crystals, 
visible in dry spot. 
c. Smoked sublimate. —Immediate development on the smoky drops, and 
in the interspaces, of large winged crystals and rosettes; further 
development in course of time; crystals permanent in dry spot. 
2. Distilled Water, second experiment :— 
a. Crystalline sublimate. —Immediate formation of crystals springing from 
the crystalline pattern at all points. 
b. Watery sublimate. —Large rosettes immediately developed. 
c. Smoked sublimate. —Immediate development of large winged crystals 
marked with radiating lines, and bearing a curious resemblance to 
insects of the order of the dragon-fly. 
3. Dilute Hydrochloric Acid (A,). 
a. Crystalline sublimate. — Immediate solution of sublimate ; and, on dry¬ 
ing, bundles of needles and prisms chiefly at borders of crust, with 
numerous cubical crystals scattered over the centre. 
b. Watery sublimate. —Immediate solution; and, on drying, one small 
and one large bundle, and numerous cubical crystals, as above. 
c. Smoked sublimate. —Ho immediate effect; but, after a time, separation 
of layers and detachment of large irregular fragments. In dry spot, 
no bundles, but numerous cubic crystals, as above. 
4. Carbazotic Acid (aio)- 
a. Crystalline sublimate. —Immediate thickening of liquid as seen by the 
naked eye; colour yellow by reflected, black by transmitted light. 
Crystalline spots slowly dissolved. Thick scum on surface of liquid, 
with floating bundles of crystals. Crystals also on glass, like scattered 
petals of flowers. In dry spot, crystals still visible, and at margin of 
spot thick dark masses of coalesced disks. 
b. Watery sublimate. —Immediate thickening of liquid with abundant 
dark scum, and black granules formed instantaneously in the globules. 
Ho crystals. In dry spot, the globules retain their shape, but are 
mottled. 
c. Smoked sublimate, with large oily globules.—Immediate thickening of 
fluid, and development of dark spots, disks, and lines in the globules. 
