chloride has the composition (C21 H20 N2 O4)2 Pt Cl。 H2 + 4Aq The sulphate hydrochloride, tartarate, and oxalate are soluble in water, but excess of the acids precipitate the salts in brown flocks. An acid present in the bark acts in a similar manner, and forms a difficultly soluble alstonine compound, which the author considers was probably Palm's alstonine.

PORPHYRINE, C1 H25 N3 O2 is contained, with other substances, in the light petroleum solution, from which it is removed by agitation with acetic acid, to which it communicates a fine blue fluorescence. From the acetic acid solution it is precipitated by ammonia as a reddish white precipitate, which is dissolved in ether and treated with animal charcoal, which gives up a small quantity of alstonine as well as another base (porphyrosine) which can be removed from the charcoal by acetic acid, to which it gives a fine purple red colour; the etherial solution gives up the porphyrine to dilute acetic acid, from which it is precipitated by ammonia. So purified, porphyrine is a white, amorphous substance, melting at 97°, readily soluble in alcohol, ether, and chloroform. The alcoholic solution, largely diluted with water, shows a slight blue fluorescence. The alkaloid gives the following reactions: With concentrated sulphuric acid, a purple solution; with sulphuric acid and chromic acid, a greenish blue colouration, which becomes yellowish green; concentrated nitric acid, a purple solution, becoming yellowish or brownish green. In acid solution it gives a blue fluorescence. It forms a platino-chloride (C21 H25 N5 O2)2 PtCl H2. Only 0·6 grm. porphyrine was obtained from 2 kilos of the bark.

ALSTONIDINE (composition unascertained) is separated from porphyrine by its less solubility in light petroleum. It is readily soluble in choroform, ether, alcohol, and acetone, and crystallizes from solution. The alcoholic or dilute acid solutions have an intense blue fluorescence. Ammonia and soda precipitate it from acid solution in flocks, which soon become crystalline. It forms various salts, which mostly crystallize easily. The base melts at 181°C. It resembles the alstonine of Oberlin and Schlagdenhauffen, but differs in its reactions with sulphuric acid and chromic anhydride, which turn the latter bluish-green, then violet, then purple-red.

The author considers he has not exhausted the number of alkaloids in the bark.

ATHEROSPERMA MOSCHATUM. N. Zeyer (Jaresb. 1861, 769. Watt's Dict. Sup. I, p 231.)

The bark of the Victorian sassafras contains ash amounting to 3.64% on the air dried, or 4.06 on the bark dried at 100°C.; it contains

2

NaCl K2O Na2O CaO NyO Al2O, FeОз M2O, SO, P2O5 SO2 CO2 2.675 4.033 8.321 45 445 4.361 0.191 0·098 0.477 1-443 1.186 1.396 30.005.

The bark contains a volatile oil, fixed oil, wax, albumen, gum, sugar, starch, butyric acid, oxalic acid, an aromatic resin, irongreening tannin, and an alkaloid which the author names atherospermine. The lead compound of the tannin, obtained by precipitating the clear watery extract of the bark with acetate of lead, digesting the washed precipitate with acetic acid, and reprecipitation with ammonia, added to exact neutralization, gave numbers agreeing with the formula C10H14 PbO3.

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After removal of the tannin and substances soluble in water and in dilute sulphuric acid, treatment of the bark with dilute soda extracts the aromatic resin, which can be precipitated by dilute hydrochloric acid, and purified by treatment with alcohol and water. The resin is brownish red, has an aromatic odour, a taste of nutmeg and sassafras, melts at 114°, is easily soluble in alcohol, alkaline hydrates, and carbonates, but difficultly so in ether and turpentine; its composition is expressed by the formula CH2 O5. The atherospermine is obtained by precipitating the filtrate from the tannin lead compound by ammonia. The precipitate, of which a further quantity is obtained from the dilute sulphuric acid extract, is washed and dried, digested with alcohol, the solution evaporated, the residue taken up by hydrochloric acid, again precipitated by ammonia, washed, dried, extracted with carbon bisulphide, the solvent evaporated, and the residue a third time taken up by hydrochloric acid and precipitated by ammonia. The atherospermine so obtained is a white or greyish light highly electric powder, having a pure bitter taste and without odour. Exposure to light turns it yellowish; it melts at 128°, and on further heating emits an empyreumatic odour, ignites, and burns away without leaving a residue. When slowly heated it first gives an odour of putrid meat and then of herrings. It is soluble in chloroform, turpentine, and volatile oils, and in alcohol, which solution has an alkaline reaction; is difficultly soluble in ether, and almost insoluble in water. It neutralizes acids, forming varnish-like salts, and liberates iodine from acqueous hydriodic acid. The neutral solution of the hydrochloride gives yellow precipitates with picric acid, tannin, phospho-molybdic acid, and platinic chloride, and white by alkalies and their carbonates. The composition of the alkaloid has not been determined.

DUBOISIA MYOPORODES. A. Landenberg. (Compt. Rend. XC, 874.) See Journ. R.S., N.S. W., 1880, 125.

DUBOISIA MYOPOROIDES. A. W. Gerrard. (Pharm. J. Trans. [3]. VIII, 789; C. S. J., XXXIV, 589.)

The bark is extracted with water, alcohol added as long as a precipitate is formed, the alcohol distilled of the residue diluted with water, made alkaline with ammonia and shaken with chloroform which dissolves the alkaloid. The chloroform is evaporated,

the residue dissolved in dilute sulphuric acid, and neutralized by ammonia, when oily drops separate from which the alkaloid is extracted by ether. Duboisine so obtained forms a yellow viscous mass, soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform, benzine and carbon bisulphide, but only sparingly soluble in water, to which it gives an alkaline reaction. In its physiological action and in some chemical reactions it resembles atropine.

With tannic acid it gives a white precipitate soluble in hydrochloric acid; with Nessler solution a white precipitate, alkalies a white precipitate soluble in excess; with chloride of gold or platinum it gives yellow precipitates; with mercuric chloride it gives a precipitate in concentrated solutions. Strong nitric acid gives with it a slight brown colouration, whilst this re-agent gives no reaction with atropine. Atropine is not acted on by sulphuric acid in the cold, but on heating it evolves an aromatic odour which is increased by chromate of potassium, chromic oxide being precipitated. Duboisine on the other hand gives a reddish brown colour with sulphuric acid in the cold, and on heating, an odour of butyric acid, and does not reduce chromate of potassium. Boiled with baryta-water atropine gives an odour of oil of gaultheria or of hawthorn, whilst duboisine gives an odour of butyric acid. The alkaloid is more soluble in water than is atropine, and the sulphate and hydro-bromide are the only salts which crystallize. The physiological actions of duboisine resemble those of atropine, in that it dilates the pupil, causes dryness of the mouth, and thirst, prevents the action of muscarine on the heart, and after some time produces tetanus.

DUBOISINE. Baron F. von Mueller and L. Rummel (C.S.J. XXXV, 32.)

This volatile alkaloid obtained from the leaves and twigs of Duboisia myoporoides is probably identical with the piturine found by Staiger in D. Hopwoodii. It is prepared like nicotine, and is a yellowish oily liquid lighter than water, of a strong narcotic odour, resembling nicotine and cantharides, has a strong alkaline reaction, neutralizes acids completely; dissolves in any quantity of ether, alcohol and water, throws down ferrous oxide from ferrous sulphate, dissolves without colour in concentrated acids. Its dihydrochloride, which is deliquescent, when greatly diluted with water is precipitated by biniodide of potassium, potassio-mecuric and potassio-bismuthous iodide and by tannic acid, but not by any of the other alkaloid reagents.

Nicotine, which duboisine resembles, is distinguished from the latter by its specific gravity, less powerful odour, by its hydrochloride, and by being precipitable by phospho-molybdate of soda, picric acid and chloride of platinum.

Note by abstractor. It is evident that the name duboisine has been applied to two different substances, and it may be that one

exists in the bark the other in the twigs and leaves of the plant. The characteristic reactions of the alkaloid as given in the two papers are diametrically opposed to one another, and it is to be regretted that no analyses are given in either case. See Liversidge, Journal Royal Society of N.S. W., 1880.

EDIBLE CLAY from New Zealand, M. M. Pattison Muir (Chem. News, 36-202). The clay came from Simon's Pass Station, Mackenzie county, South Island, where it forms a range of low bare hills and is eaten by the sheep in considerable quantities, it is thought for the salt that it contains. It gave on analysis

SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 CaO MgO (NaK)Cl Organic Matter Water 61.25 17.97 5.72 1.91 0.87 3.69 1.77 7.31 ASH OF EUCALYPTUS. W. Smith. (Chem. Soc. Journ. XXXVII, 416.)

The ash of E. rostrata (red gum) and E. globulus (blue gum) were examined and found to contain

The percentage of ash in the wood of the first was 2.25, and in the second 2.01.

LEAVES OF EUCALYPTUS GLOBULUS. E. Rabuteau (Compt. Rend. LXXV, 1431.)

An alcoholic extract of the leaves from which the resin has been precipitated by water, acidulated by hydrochloric acid, and the tannin by an iron salt, gives no precipitate with either iodine in solution of iodide of potassium, or with phospho-molybdic acid. The author therefore concludes that the leaves are free from any basic substance similar to the vegetable alkaloids.

CHLOROPHYLL OF E. GLOBULUS. Schunck. (Chem. News, XLII,

31.)

The leaves of E. globulus were examined to find whether their glaucous colour is due to any particular modification of chlorophyll. The peculiar colour was found to be due to a covering of fatty matter which may be dissolved off by ether, the leaves then becoming green. The ether leaves on evaporation a white semicrystalline fatty residue, which melts below 100°C. and is soluble in dilute boiling lye, so that it probably consists in part of some

fatty acid. The ether-washed leaves do not differ in colour from ordinary leaves, but the alcoholic and etherial extract of them shows a peculiarity in the chlorophyll in regard that the spectral absorption bands are rapidly changed, even in the dark, into those characteristic of acid chlorophyll. The solution which at first is without action on litmus at the same time becomes acid. In twentyfour hours the change is complete, whilst a solution of chlorophyll from grass is unaltered in seven days. The latter solution on insolation for a few hours almost completely loses its colour and becomes pale yellow, and then hardly shows a trace of absorption bands, the band I being only just discernible. The eucalyptus chlorophyll on the other hand, after being kept in the dark for twenty-four hours, on exposure to sunlight becomes much paler in colour, but the bands I, II, and IV are quite as distinct as before, whilst in addition to these the broad band IV, between the E. and F. lines, which also belongs to acid chlorophyll, comes out very clearly. The author is inclined to attribute the change to the essential oil of the leaves converting ordinary oxygen into ozone, which has been found by Gerlach to produce a similar effect in ordinary chlorophyll; but a comparative trial with leaves from an orange tree also containing essential oil showed that no change took place in the dark, though on insolation bands I and IVc. remained visible, whilst in extract of grass the former becomes faint and the latter disappeared.

LEAVES OF E. GLOBULUS. P. A. Hartzer. (Deut. Chem. Ges. Ber. IX, 314; Watt's Sup., III, 762.)

The old leaves exhausted with alcohol yield a complex resin consisting of tannin, a resinous acid dissolving with a crimson colour in sulphuric acid; a fatty acid melting at 245° to 247°, and containing 77 per cent. carbon, and 11 per cent. hydrogen; an alcohol which is perhaps ceryl alcohol, and several resins.

LERP MANNA. Flückiger. (Arch. Pharm. [2], CXLVI, 543; Watt's Dict. Supl. II, 733.)

This substance, found on the leaves of Eucalyptus dumosa, consists of white threads cemented by a syrup produced by the insect Psylla eucalypti, which spins them. It contains water 14 per cent., sugar 53 per cent., threads 33 per cent. The threads are starch-like in properties, but differ in form. When the substance is washed with water the sugar and a little of the threads dissolve, so that the solution is coloured blue by iodine. The remaining threads are slightly swollen, and consist of Lerp amylum, which is very slightly soluble in water, either cold or at 100°, but heated to 135° with 30 parts of water in sealed tubes it is dissolved to a thin liquid, which on cooling deposits the unchanged substance almost completely in flocks without forming a jelly. In the air bath at 190° it becomes brown, and then only reddens iodine solution, and