HISTORY OF SAGO. 221 
drying, it presented somewhat a translucent aspect ; the 
maceratum had a stale sweetish taste, similar to a very 
thin solution of starch, without action upon litmus; it assum- 
ed a beautiful blue colour upon the addition of tincture 
of iodine, was rendered slightly turbid by the tincture of 
galls, and afforded, after some time, a white flocculose 
precipitate. The tribasic acetate of lead rendered the 
liquor opalescent, but no precipitate was formed. The 
extract obtained weighed twelve grains; it was of a dull red- 
dish yellow colour, with the taste of baked starch, slightly 
saltish. Heated to redness in a platina crucible, it became 
swollen, giving out thick smoke with the odour of burnt bread, 
and the ash exhibited traces of muriate of soda, a salt which is 
found, as may be perceived, in all the varieties of sago. 
Here M. Planche gives the reasons which induced him in 
the treatment of sago, to prefer cold water to hot, and the sago 
entire to its powder. 
" At the period,'^ says he, " when M. Raspail made his 
beautiful experiments upon the feculae, three species of sago 
described in the memoir now published, were not to be found 
in commerce, viz: — the sago of Sumatra, the white, and the 
rose-coloured. Of the three other species, one alone was 
pretty abundant, and from the description given of it by the 
skilful observer mentioned, this must have been that from the 
Maldives: — 
" M. Raspail experimented upon the sago whole, and em- 
ployed cold water. 
" M. Caventou in his analysis of sago, also employed cold 
water, but he acted upon this substance in powder. The first 
likening sago to the other feculae, supposed the existence of a 
tegumentary substance insoluble in cold water, serving as an 
envelope to another contained soluble matter. The second 
assures us that sago is homogeneous in its composition, and 
that it is only a variety of starch soluble in cold, but more 
so in warm water. Evidently, if instead of experimenting 
as we have done, we had acted upon it in powder, the white 
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