424, QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Oocr., 1901. 
flour. The purest saponin was obtained on cooling of the alcoholic solution, 
in the form of a white curdy precipitate. I also separated the saponin by 
evaporating the alcoholic solution, precipitating with baryta water, and decom- 
posing the baryta-saponin with carbonic acid, and separating the saponin by 
shaking the watery solution with chloroform. 
The yellowish, amorphous powder obtained had a peculiar sweetish taste, 
was easily soluble in water, chloroform, and in hot dilute alcohol. From the 
solution, it was precipitated with subacetate of lead, boryta water, and also, to 
a slight extent, by acetate of lead, but gave no reaction with Mayer’s solution 
By moistening a trace of the dry saponin with strong sulphuric acid, or, better, 
with fuming sulphuric acid, a beautiful red colour is slowly formed, turning 
purple and becoming darker on standing. This colour keeps for days. A 
small quantity of the saponin dissolved in water forms a strong froth on shaking 
the solution. 
Both these reactions may be shown with slices of the fresh or dried seeds, 
as when moistening the surface with sulphuric acid, very shortly, bright red 
spots and streaks are formed; again, when putting a few slices of the seeds in 
water and shaking the mixture, a froth is formed as if soap were present. 
A peculiar reaction, which I have not seen mentioned in any of the works 
at my disposal, is that the sample of saponin prepared from the beans, on the 
addition. of ammonia, dissolves in the cold with a beautiful carmine colour, 
which appears only gradually, and gets more brilliant as exposed to the air. 
After a while, the colour begins to fade, and remains yellow ; when heating, 
the red colour disappears rapidly. The saponin itself is not chalet 
as, on evaporation of the ammoniacal solution with sulphurie acid 
again, the characteristic glucoside reaction is obtained. Weak caustic 
potash dissolves a trace of the saponin with a brick-red colour, 
also changed into yellow on standing or heating. I don’t know if. this 
peculiar reaction is due to the impurity in my samples of saponin or not. 
The air-dried sample of the bean was also tested for alkaloids, but no trace of 
a bitter principle can be found in alcoholic extract or acidulated aleoholice 
extracts. That the substance obtained from the hot alcoholic soluble extract 
is really a true saponin, is further proved by the fact that a solution of it does 
not reduce Fehline’s copper solution. When heating a solution with dilute 
acids for some time, the saponin is decomposed into glucose, and into a 
substance—saponogin, sparingly soluble in water. The inverted saponin solu- 
tion, due to the presence of glucose, acts at once on Fehling’s solution. The 
saponoginis soluble in hot alcohol, and forms, on evaporation, a crystalline 
residue. , 
I consider the presence of a saponin in the beans undoubtedly proved, and 
the toxic effects of the bean are due to this glucoside. 
As saponin is yery soluble in water, it also shows that by soaking the 
crushed beans for a few days in water, as practised by our aboriginals before 
using the seeds as food, the poisonous principle is remoyed, leaving a rather 
valuable nutritious food. 
ANALYSES OF CHEESE AND BUTTER MANUFACTURED AT THE 
QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, GATTON, 
By J. C. BRUNNICH, F.C.S., 
Chemist to the Department of Agriculture. 
The matter of the adulteration of foods has been, of late, brought so 
prominently before the public, that it is quite refreshing to be able to give the 
analyses of absolutely pure butter and cheese as manufactured at the Queens- 
land Agricultural College. 
Hitherto no exhaustive analysis of our colonial manufactured articles have 
been made, and the food analyst had always to rely for his standards on the 
analyses published in England and America, and I am sure that the analyses of 
