56 
SELECTED ARTICLES. 
F., and from being transparent becomes opaque. When ex- 
amined with a microscope, a multitude of small yellow grains 
are discoverable, resembling the concrete substance obtained 
from the first tinctures. If this product be treated with ether, 
it dissolves in an incomplete manner, and this solution, if 
spontaneously evaporated, affords a yellow inodorous powder 
identical with the mammiform substance. I at first thought 
that the ready liquefaction of this product might be owing to 
the presence of some ether. But if this were the case, the 
same phenomena would occur when the concrete oil was 
again treated with that fluid, which, however, is not the case. 
To ascertain, whether this aromatic principle was very vola- 
tile, I heated it to 212° in a proper apparatus. Nothing con- 
densed in the receiver except a few drops of an etherial fluid, 
and I did not remark the slightest trace of oil, but the whole 
apparatus was filled with a powerful odour of jonquil, and the 
product operated upon was sensibly diminished in volume. 
Nevertheless, what remained was still very odorous. Hence, 
it would appear, that this aromatic product is volatile, but at 
the same time cannot again be condensed. 
I cannot terminate these observations without mentioning 
a remarkable property of this same product, — its property of 
giving a black tinge to iron. Having used the point of a 
knife to detach some portions of it, I perceived that every 
part of the blade with which it came in contact was covered 
with a coat of black. 
I have already stated that the concrete product of the ethe- 
rial tincture appeared to me to be the result of an alteration of 
the odorous oil; the following considerations would seem to 
strengthen this conjecture: 
I repeated the treatment of the flowers by ether twice; and 
the second time, I operated on flowers that had been expanded 
for some days, and obtained proportionably less of the oil and 
more of the concrete substance. It was remarkable that as 
this latter became divested of the former, it lost in like pro- 
portion its tendency to assume a mammiform appearance, till 
finally, that obtained from the last solutions in ether assumed 
