172 
OBSERVATIONS ON MYRRH. 
ance, possesses a similar bitter taste, but a different, fainter 
odour, and is characterized by its great amount of bassorine. 
3. Myrrha Indica {Myrrhanova.) — Irregular fragments, 
freq uently three inches thick, bro wnish white, greenish, some- 
times nearly black, tear-shaped, opake, with a waxy lustre. 
In odour and taste it resembles myrrh, but is more bitter. 
Martins distinguishes a fourth kind, the Myrrha alba, 
which is sometimes found mixed with the other kinds ; the 
fragments resemble gum ammoniacum, are more or less 
spherical, tear-shaped or angular, have a conchoidal frac- 
ture and a dull waxy lustre; the odour resembles that of 
myrrh ; the taste is intensely bitter. 
Myrrh was first minutely examined by Brandes in 1819; 
subsequently by Braconnot, Pelletier and Bonastre. The 
myrrh employed by the author in his investigation (Myrrha 
nova) consisted of irregular, knotty and roundish, tear- 
shaped fragments of about the size of a hazel-nut. It was 
of a wine-yellow colour, with a reddish tint, sometimes 
darker. The fresh fracture presented the lustre of wax, at 
some places that of resin, traversed by white opake stripes 
and some spots of the same colour; its odour was peculiar 
and aromatic; its taste likewise aromatic and bitter. Spec, 
grav. 1.12 — 1.18. On pulverization it formed into little 
balls, and left on paper a fatty spot. It did not melt on the 
application of heat, but puffed up, giving off white aromatic 
vapours, and was soon reduced to a coal. It left 3.65 per 
cent, of a white ash, which consisted principally of carbon- 
ate of lime, with some carbonate of magnesia, a little gyp- 
sum and peroxide of iron. Brandes and Braconnot found 
potash and phosphoric acid, which the author could not 
detect. With concentrated nitric acid the myrrh became 
of a blackish-brown colour, the nitric acid acquired a dirty 
violet-red colour ; after long-continued action the resin was 
decomposed, and an orange-red sediment separated. When 
heated with concentrated nitric acid, it became blackish- 
brown, with the separation of some violet-red flakes, which 
