164 
Solnine. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
April,  1894. 
uble  in  water  and  dilute  ammonia.  It  dissolves  freely  in  all  the 
diluted  sour  acids  forming  very  soluble  salts,  that  are  acrid  and 
bitter,  leaving  a  persistent  tingling  sensation  on  the  tongue.  The 
salts  have  not  yet  been  crystallized. 
It  is  very  soluble  in  cold  chloroform  and  in  boiling  alcohol ;  from 
the  latter  it  separates  on  cooling  in  large  needle-like  crystals 
resembling  hydrastine  ;  from  the  ether  by  evaporation  it  remains 
as  a  glassy  residue.  It  is  precipitated  in  minute  crystals  from  alco- 
holic solution  by  the  addition  of  water.  It  yields  ammonia  on 
heating  with  caustic  potash. 
On  evaporating  the  mother  liquor  spontaneously,  no  other 
alkaloidal  crystals  appeared  until  it  had  been  reduced  to  a  thin 
layer,  when  a  crop  formed  of  the  general  appearance  {Fig.  B). 
The  fact  that  such  an  interval  of  time  and  alcoholic  evaporation  sepa- 
rated the  two  crops  of  crystals,  as  well  as  their  general  appearances 
led  to  the  surmise  that  they  might  be  different  substances  and  of 
distinct  systems. 
Prof.  Prescott,  of  Ann  Arbor,  enlisted  the  services  of  Prof.  W.  H. 
Pettee,  Professor  of  Mineralogy  in  the  University  of  Michigan,  who 
kindly  determined  their  faces  and  angles,  reported  as  follows : 
"  Solnine  crystallizes  in  the  orthorhombic  system.  The  crystals 
are,  as  a  rule,  tabular,  or  at  least  thinner  than  they  are  wide  or 
long.  Some  are  nearly  equal  in  width  and  length,  others  are  elon- 
gated or  rod-like,  but  in  the  latter  case  the  rod  appears  to  be  flat- 
tened, and  terminated  at  the  ends  by  pyramidal  faces.  The  accom- 
panying sketches  (tracings  in  Plate  I)  are  not  mathematical  deline- 
ations, but  are  designed  merely  to  show  the  variations  of  different 
crystals  when  measured  by  the  goniometer.  The  crystals  were  so 
small  that  I  was  unable  to  measure  any  of  the  interfacial  angles. 
They  were  examined  as  they  lay  against  the  bottom  and  the  sides 
of  the  beaker  glass,  and  with  the  aid  of  transmitted  light.  The 
angles  measured  were  the  plane  angles  between  the  sides  of  the 
polygonal  faces  as  they  appeared  under  the  microscope.  There  was 
no  way  of  telling  what  angle  the  plane  of  the  polygon  made  with 
the  line  of  light,  and  the  measurements  cannot  be  regarded  as  very 
accurate.  A  considerable  number  of  different  individual  crystals 
were  examined,  with  the  view  of  ascertaining  whether  the  angles  so 
measured  would  correspond  sufficiently  well  with  each  other  to  jus- 
tify the  belief  that  the  several  forms  seen  in  the  two  beakers  belonged 
