CRYPTOPIA,  A  NEW  ALKALOID  IN  OPIUM. 
liquid  gave  an  alkali  which,  with  strong  sulphuric  acid,  gave  at 
once  the  deep  blood-red  color  characterizing  thebaia.  The  salt 
which  had  given  the  purple  color  had  therefore  been  a  mixture 
of  the  two  salts,  of  the  muriate  of  thebaia  and  the  muriate  of 
cryptopia,  the  red  and  blue  of  the  mixed  reactions  having,  of 
course,  given  a  purple.  It  is  our  belief  that  the  salt,  as  obtained 
from  the  mother  liquid  of  muriate  of  thebaia,  is  a  chemical  com- 
pound of  the  two  salts;  nor  does  this  belief  seem  unreasonable, 
for,  on  making  the  muriate  of  cryptopia  with  the  pure  alkaloid, 
we  have  never  been  able,  by  repeated  crystallization,  to  get  it 
in  such  a  state  as  to  give  other  than  a  blue  color  with  sulphuric 
acid,  nor  to  produce  crystals  at  all  similar  to  those  in  question. 
It  soon  became  quite  clear  to  us,  that  in  order  to  obtain  the  new 
substance  in  a  quantity  sufficient  to  enable  us  to  investigate  its 
nature  more  closely,  it  would  be  necessary  to  devise  some  better 
method  than  the  one  explained.  This  was  the  plan  we  adopted. 
The  hard  pressed  cakes  of  the  last  crystallization  of  a  number 
of  preparations  of  muriate  of  thebaia  were  dissolved  in  as  small 
a  quantity  of  boiling  water  as  possible,  and  the  liquid  filtered 
hot.  On  cooling,  we  found  the  liquid  to  have  crystallized,  not 
in  hard  stony  crystals  like  those  of  muriate  of  thebaia,  but  in  a 
softer  state,  and  generally  in  cauliflower-like  masses.  The  whole 
was  then  subjected  to  strong  pressure,  and  a  portion  of  the  solid 
cake,  after  being  dried  and  powdered,  we  boiled  with  rectified 
spirits  in  the  proportion  of  one  to  five.  The  liquid  we  filtered 
hot ;  and  the  mother  liquid,  after  perfect  crystallization  (the 
full  quantity  of  liquid  being  kept  up  by  the  spirituous  washings 
of  the  crystals  of  muriate  of  thebaia  obtained  by  previous  crys- 
tallization), Ave  again  boiled  with  the  same  quantity  of  the  crys- 
talline cake  as  before.  These  operations  we  repeated  as  long  as 
the  crystals  yielded  gave  an  unmixed  hard  crystallization ;  but 
by:and-by,  perhaps  after  six  or  seven  crystallizations,  the  muriate 
of  cryptopia  accumulating  more  and  more,  we  found  that  a  whiter 
crystallization,  in  soft  tufts,  formed  on  the  surface  of  the  hard 
mineral-like  muriate  of  thebaia.  Whenever  this  appearance 
presented  itself  the  mother  liquid  was  poured  off  into  an  open 
vessel,  and  as  the  spirit  evaporated  the  whole  liquid  set  into  a 
soft  mass.    (This  takes  place  spontaneously,  sometimes  when 
