ALBINUM. 
white and brown, which are due to the alterna- 
tions of summer and winter. A similar effect 
might be produced on live sparrows, by plucking 
the feathers, and rubbing their naked bodies with 
spirit-of-wine. The feathers which then succeed 
remain white, because the alcohol prevents the 
secretion of the colouring subcutaneous matter, 
in the same manner as an excessive cold. A corre- 
sponding effect may be produced by similar means 
upon the mammalia. 
ALBINUM. Cotton weed. 
ALBUMEN. A constituent principle of or- 
ganized bodies, nearly identical with the white 
of eggs. It is one of the most common and im- 
portant of the substances of animals, and abounds 
in both their fluids and their solids. It forms a 
chief and essential part of the blood; it is a prin- 
cipal ingredient in the fluid which moistens the 
| internal cavities and organs of the body; it con- 
stitutes the grand principle infused into the 
system by the nourishing portions of both ani- 
mal and vegetable food; it abounds in the bones, 
the muscles, the glands, the membranes, and the 
skin; and it forms the principal part of nails, 
hair, horns, and cartilage. It is much less abun- 
dant in vegetables than in animals; yet it occurs 
in the green feculent matter of almost all plants, 
in the young shoots of trees, in the juices of al- 
monds and other emulsive seeds, and in the per- 
vading sap of a considerable proportion of plants ; 
and it exists in large quantity in all vegetable 
substances which are most nourishing as food, 
and in all such vegetables as ferment without 
yeast, and furnish stimulating drinks of the na- 
ture of cyder, ale, or wine, such as the seeds of 
all gramineous plants. Its properties, as it exists 
in animals and in vegetables, or in the several 
individuals of the two kingdoms, are believed to 
be perfectly uniform. Its composition, according 
to the analysis of Gay-Lussac and Thénard, com- 
prises, in every 100 parts, 52°883 of carbon, 23°872 
.of oxygen, 15°705 of nitrogen, and 7-540 of hy- 
drogen. By other analyses it has been repre- 
sented as containing 
By experim. Atoms. By calcul. 
Cf carbon, 54°84 400 54°70 
hydrogen, 7:09 310 6°92 
nitrogen, 15°83 50 15°84 
oxygen, 31°23 120 21°47 
phosphorus, 0°33 9) 0°35 
sulphur, 0°68 2 0°72 
Its grand feature of interest to the farmer is its 
containing so large a proportion of nitrogen; for 
it is this feature which identifies it with the 
nutritious quality of the best kinds of vegetable 
produce, and makes it an exponent of the inti- 
mate or rather necessary connexion which exists 
between the cultivation of the cereal grasses and 
the sustenance of man and the lower animals in a 
civilized condition of society. See article Azorn. 
The white of an egg consists of albumen held 
in solution by a little water, and combined with 
a very small portion of salt; and it may, for every 
ALBUMEN. 
103 
practical purpose, be regarded as a specimen: of 
pure albumen, and applied to albuminous uses. 
This substance exhibits the remarkable character 
of possessing one set of properties as a fluid, and 
of being convertible from a fluid to a solidified 
condition, and possessing a totally different set of 
properties as a solid. If a quantity of the fluid 
be placed in an open vessel, it will speedily pu- 
trefy, or begin to resolve itself by decomposition 
into its elements; but if a small portion of it be 
spread out in a thin layer, and subjected to a 
current of dry air, it will solidify into a hard, 
transparent substance like horn, and will be as 
durable or unchanging in its new form as the 
claws of a bird or the nails of aman. When any 
portion of the fluid is, in any manner, acted on 
by a certain degree of heat, it undergoes a kind 
of solidification, which is peculiar to itself, and 
bears the name of coagulation, but which is of 
too unique and subtle a nature to be as yet under- 
stood by chemists. The coagulation commences, 
at a heat of about 134° of Fahrenheit, by the for- 
mation of filiform or fibrous streaks; it proceeds, 
at a heat of about 160°, to the conversion of the 
entire fluid into a thick elastic paste; and it ter- 
minates, at a heat of 212°, in the compression of 
the whole into a dry, shrunk, hard mass of al- 
most the appearance of horn. In the proportion 
in which the white of egg is diluted with water, 
a higher degree of heat is required to effect the 
successive degrees of coagulation. Albumen is 
also coagulated, but with somewhat different ap- 
pearances and results, by alcohol, vitriol, aqua- 
fortis, hydrochloric acid, the various metallic 
salts, and galvanic action. Fluid albumen is 
easily soluble in cold water; but coagulated al- 
bumen is as insoluble as horn. The white of egg 
is an excellent clarifier of liquids, and an effectual 
antidote to the virulent poison of corrosive sub- 
limate, by decomposing the chloride of mercury. 
Peschier states that one egg is required for every 
four grains of the poison. It is also an antidote 
against poisonous preparations of copper, such as 
blue vitriol and verdigris. See Guurmn.—Philo- 
sophical Transactions, vol. xc.—Ure’s Dictionary. 
—Lnebig’s Chemistry.— Keith's Botanical Lexicon. 
ALBUMEN. An organ or organic substance 
in the seeds of many kinds of plants. A pulpy 
matter, in which the embryo of seeds is first de- 
veloped constitutes the rudimental albumen, and 
occurs in all seed-producing plants; but, in some 
plants, such as the turnip, the pea, and the bean, 
this is gradually and at last totally absorbed as 
nutriment by the growing seed, and in others, 
such as cocoa-nut, the castor-oil plant, and the 
cereai grains, it is developed and hardened into 
a permanent albumen, which either performs the 
most important services in the process of germi- 
nation, or is subservient to economical purposes 
of the highest value. Thus, the albumen of the 
cocoa-nut is both the meat and the milk of that 
fruit ; the albumen of the cereal grasses furnishes 
the flour of grain; the albumen of the castor-oil 
