ON  THE  ACTIVE  PRINCIPLE  OF  HYOSCYAMUS.  527 
The  chief  advantage  is  that  the  stone  is  only  slightly  crushed, 
and  there  is  very  little  waste. 
In  the  manner  we  have  shown,  from  40  to  80  cubic  metres  of 
rock  may  be  detached  by  charges  of  nitroglycerine. 
We  trust  to  have  shown  by  this  notice  the  possibility  of  recon- 
ciling the  employment  of  nitroglycerine  with  every  desirable 
guarantee  for  public  safety. — Lond.  Chem.  News,  Aug.  10, 1866, 
from  Oomptes  Hendus,  t.  lxiii.  p.  189. 
EXPERIMENTS  ON  THE  ACTIVE  PRINCIPLE  OF 
HYOSCYAMUS. 
By  William  A.  Tilden,  F.C.S. 
The  plants  of  the  Natural  Order  Solanacece,  to  which  the  Hyos- 
cyamus  belongs,  present  in  general  well-marked  narcotic  pro- 
perties, and  their  active  principles  have,  for  the  most  part,  been 
pretty  completely  studied.  Henbane,  however,  seems  to  have 
been  comparatively  neglected,  notwithstanding  that  it  is  in  com- 
mon and  extensive  use  in  the  form  of  extract  and  tincture.  It 
was  on  this  account  that  I  undertook  some  experiments  upon  the 
chemistry  of  this  plant,  hoping  to  have  been  able  to  establish  the 
existence  or  non-existence  of  the  alkaloid  it  was  said  to  contain, 
and,  if  possible,  to  add  to  our  existing  knowledge  by  submitting 
the  base  itself  and  some  of  its  compounds  to  analysis.  The  former 
is  the  only  part  of  my  original  intention  that  hitherto  I  have 
been  able  to  carry  out.  Either  from  the  excessively  minute 
quantity  of  the  principle  contained  in  the  plant,  or  from  its  facili- 
ty of  decomposition  when  under  the  influence  of  chemical  agents, 
I  have  been  able  to  prepare  at  present  a  quantity  only  sufficient 
for  its  identification,  and  for  making  out  some  of  its  principal 
reactions. 
I  first  of  all  attempted  to  prepare  "  hyoscv  amine  "  by  opera- 
ting upon  the  seeds  of  Hyoscyamus  niger  by  the  process  adopted 
by  Geiger,  and  described  in  the  fourth  volume  of  Gerhardt's 
"  Chimie  Organique.'  In  this  manner,  however,  I  obtained  only 
equivocal  results.  I  then  made  another  experiment  upon  the 
seeds,  employing  the  process  recommended  by  Sonnenschein  for 
the  detection  and  elimination  of  organic  bases.    This  process  is 
