100 
AN ANALYSIS OF ERGOT RYE. 
treated with hot alcohol, and the remaining hard resin weighed. 
The alcoholic solutions being reduced in bulk, formed a clear 
brown solution above the black oil ; and were separated by decan- 
tation, and washing the oil with alcohol, hot and cold, until it ceased 
to give color. The tinctures upon evaporation gave a soft brown- 
ish-black resin. The alcoholic displacement therefore yielded a 
black oil and a soft and a hard resin. 
The black oil yielded a slightly brown color to the acid, and 
alcohol, was insoluble in water, and perfectly soluble in ether with 
a brown color and acid test. It was saponified by potassa, and 
converted by chloride of calcium into a lime salt which was washed 
with ether to remove unaltered oil, and decomposed by muriatic 
acid. 
The acid floating in the water was now soluble both in alcohol 
and ether, from which it appears that the black fluid was a true fat, 
and is probably the same oil which is extracted by ether, but 
colored by a foreign body which could not be removed. 
a. Resin. — It was soft, brown, had a bitter taste, and very so- 
luble in ether and hot alcohol, the latter solution when strong becom- 
ing cloudy on cooling ; sparingly soluble in alcohol of 20°, imparted 
a slight tint to acetic and muriatic acids ; dissolved in oil of 
vitriol with evolution of heat, but was reprecipitated by water 
apparently unaltered ; sparingly soluble in potassa solution in the 
cold, more freely with heat, and is partly reprecipitated by water. 
Its alcoholic solution is not precipitated by alcoholic solutions of 
the acetates of lead and corrosive sublimate ; is precipitated white 
by water, and bulky greenish white by yellow prussiate of potash. 
The hard resin consisted of resin slowly soluble in hot alcohol, 
with a brown color ; and a hard black y resin, wholly insoluble 
in alcohol and ether. 
The solution of £ tested acid, and was precipitated by subace- 
tate of lead ; both were soluble in potassa solution with a brown 
color, and in sulphuric acid, but other acids had very little effect 
on them. 
3. Displacement by Ether. — Aqueous ether, freed from alcohol, 
was next employed by displacement as before, until the solution 
ceased to show fat by evaporation on glass or paper. The greater 
part of the ether having been removed by distillation, and the 
