240 
ON  A  NEW  SOURCE   OF  KINO. 
and  the  broken  pieces  have  exactly  the  appearance  of  ordinary 
kino,  except  that  they  are  even  blacker,  and  more  glassy  by  re- 
flected light ;  and  by  transmitted  light,  though  opaque  when  of 
very  moderate  thickness,  they  are  of  a  splendid  cherry-red  color 
in  very  thin  fragments.  They  are  easily  reduced  to  fine  powder, 
which  has  a  dark,  dirty,  lake  tint.  Their  taste  is  very  slightly 
bitter  and  intensely  astringent. 
Cold  water  acts  more  quickly  on  this  kino  than  on  the  kino  of 
commerce,  gradually  dissolving  a  very  large  proportion  of  it, 
and  forming  a  deep  cherry-red,  astringent  solution ;  and  there 
is  left  a  small  proportion  of  greyish  flocculent  matter,  which  is 
slowly  soluble  in  a  great  measure  in  boiling  water,  and  which 
appears  to  be  analogous  to  the  insoluble  variety  of  gum  called 
bassorin.  Boiling  water  dissolves  this  kino  almost  entirely,  and 
the  solution,  when  cold,  continues  nearly  transparent  for  at  least 
an  hour ;  but  afterwards  it  becomes  slightly  turbid,  and  a  scanty, 
flocculent  precipitate  slowly  subsides.  Both  the  hot  and  cold 
solutions  yield,  when  much  diluted,  a  deep  olive-green  precipi- 
tate with  the  tincture  of  sesquichloride  of  iron ;  and  when  the 
solution  is  concentrated,  a  dirty  grey  precipitate  is  formed  so 
abundantly  that  the  whole  fluid  becomes  a  thick  pulpy  mass.  A 
boiling  solution  in  twenty-five  parts  of  water  forms  with  the  iron 
test  a  pulp  too  thick  to  flow,  which  is  one  of  the  characters  as- 
signed in  the  Edinburgh  Pharmacopoeia  to  true  officinal  kino. 
But  I  find  further  that  a  solution  in  even  seventy-five  parts  of 
cold  water  has  a  beautiful  intense  cherry-red  color,  and  forms 
with  sesquichloride  of  iron,  in  the  course  of  an  hour,  a  pulp  so 
thick  as  to  flow  only  sluggishly. 
On  comparing  these  characters  with  a  fine  specimen  of  kino  of 
home  trade,  and  also  with  a  specimen  collected  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Goomsoor,  in  Mysore,  by  Dr.  Cleghorn,  of  the  Madras 
Medical  Service,  when  he  was  Surgeon  of  the  surveying  corps 
in  that  country,  I  find  that  the  last  two  are  identical,  with  the 
single  exception  that  Dr.  Cleghorn's  specimen  is  somewhat  red- 
der when  seen  in  bulk ;  and  that  the  Moulmein  kino  is  blacker, 
more  vitreous  in  lustre,  rather  more  easily  soluble  in  cold  water, 
and  with  rather  less  flaky  residue ;  and  when  the  cold  solution  is 
diluted  to  the  strength  of  one  in  seventy-five,  it  requires  rather 
more  sesquichloride  of  iron  to  throw  down  all  its  tannin,  and 
