Original Communications. 
Experiment 4th. One hundred grains, finely pulverized, 
were digested in ether for several days ; the solution, unlike the 
one produced by the action of the same solvent on the dregs 
in Experiment, No. 1, was scarcely coloured, 1 it yielded, by 
evaporation, about 4 grains narcotine, and a peculiar sub- 
stance of an oily consistence, quite fluid, without odour, and 
nearly colourless, but possessing a very acrid, biting taste, 
comparable to that of tincture of capsicum, insoluble in wa- 
ter, soluble in alcohol, weighed 13 grains. The piece upon 
which the two last experiments were performed was of a 
very dark colour, the surface having a more decidedly greasy 
feel, though that characteristic was observable in all that I 
examined. 
To satisfy myself more fully of the value of the article, I 
experimented on 300 grains of the Turkey opium of the shops, 
and obtained by the same process as Experiment No. 2, 26 
grains of tolerably pure morphia, and 9 grains more coloured. 
The residuum of the opium, Experiment No. 3, when 
boiled in water and dried, weighed 80 grains, showing a loss 
of seventy-three and a third per cent., and the dregs of 4922 
grains of Turkey opium, from which laudanum had been 
made, after similar treatment, weighed 1312 grains, being a 
loss precisely in the same proportion, proving the assertion 
made by the dealers in Egyptian opium, that it dissolves 
more perfectly in diluted alcohol, and consequently leaving 
less sediment, is incorrect. 
One hundred parts yielded to water 55 of a friable extract, 
and to alcohol 20 parts soft extract. 
The amount of morphia usually obtained from opium is 
stated in the books to be from nine to fourteen per cent. 
Guibourt got from Egyptian opium 14.5 impure morphia, and 
the article mentioned as having been analyzed by J. Scatter- 
good, yielded about five per cent. Now, the amount ob- 
tained from the article under consideration, containing im* 
purities, such as colouring matter, narcotine &c. was a little 
over seven per cent., and the average amount of the first 
three experiments, after purification with alcohol and ether,, 
3.55 per cent. 
