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SELECTED ARTICLES. 
their flavor does not in some degree depend upon it; at least 
this idea applies to gooseberries, for when they are sweetest 
to the taste, the quantity of sugar which they contain is greatly 
less than when their flavor is not nearly so saccharine. They, 
however, very readily part with their spirit. Thus, when 
berries are first collected their flavor is exceedingly full and 
generous, but if allowed to stand for some time they acquire 
a dead and insipid taste; there is a sweetness, but the full 
rich flavor is gone, — the spirit has evaporated; for analysis 
conducted forty-eight hours after they have been gathered 
discovers none. If, again, ripe gooseberries be subjected to 
heat, they have a strong tendency to become acid, apparently 
without being previously converted into alcohol; thus, how- 
ever sweet such fruit may be upon the tree, it becomes insup- 
portably sour by baking. But if a little sugar be first added, 
it prevents acidification, and disposes the formation of a consi- 
derable proportion of alcohol. Hence the superiority of a fruit 
pies which are sweetened before cooking, the flavor being de- 
pendent not so much upon the sugar as the spirit to which its 
presence gives rise. The addition of even a trifling quantity 
of alcohol before baking still further improves their flavor, for 
it encourages the formation of such a quantity of spirit as will 
sometimes indicate its presence by its effects. 
ART. L.— NEW OBSERVATIONS UPON THE IODIDE OF 
AMIDINE. By J. L. Lassaigne, 
In 1833 we gave the name of iodide of amidine to the 
combination of iodine with the interior and soluble portion of 
fecula; we then showed what were the properties of this sin- 
gular compound, upon which heat exercised a remarkable de- 
coloring action, as we were the first to demonstrate to the 
Royal Academy of Sciences. 
The results to which we have arrived are such as to cause 
