CHLORINE AND ORGANIC ALKALIES. 
169 
at which moment it was entirely dissolved. Continuing to 
pass the chlorine, the red color diminished in intensity and 
passed to a yellow; during which a flocculent matter was 
precipitated. This precipitate, collected upon a filter and 
washed until it ceased to be acid, was treated with alcohol. 
A part only was dissolved; a black, insoluble, tasteless matter^ 
a sort of apothegm, being left behind. The dissolved matter 
did not crystallize on the evaporation of the alcohol, but was 
left in the form of a resinous matter, of a reddish-brown color 
and a bitter taste. 
The acid liquor, from which the resinoid matter had been 
obtained, on being saturated with ammonia, gave but slight 
flocculi, which re-dissolved by agitation. 
Morphia, then, of all the alkaloid substances which we 
have submitted to the action of chlorine, is the most promptly 
attacked; it alone deposits with, the resinoid matter, a car- 
bonaceous substance, which appears the final termination to 
the destruction of very carbonaceous vegetable matter. 
The action of Chlorine upon Narcotina. 
Narcotina, suspended in water and treated by chlorine, re- 
ceives at first a flesh color; this color deepens more and more, 
until it becomes of a reddish brown; the narcotina is then en- 
tirely dissolved ; at this time it begins to deposit a brown floccu- 
lent matter and the liquor becomes green. This flocculent 
matter washed in boiling water becomes green; the washings 
are acid. Continuing to wash the green matter until it is no 
longer acid, it becomes as black as coal, friable, infusible, and 
insoluble in alcohol. It was again an apothegm which re- 
mained. 
The water of the washings, saturated by ammonia, threw 
down a small quantity of resinoid matter of a beautiful 
green. 
Narcotina, submitted to the action of chlorine gas, be- 
comes rapidly of a reddish brown color. The mass treated 
with water is partly dissolved and colors the liquid green; 
vol. iv. — no. n. 
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