Analyses of the products of the above reactions were made, with the following results:

II. 0.2593 0.0857 HgS. Hg=28.48.

CHISHg requires Hg= 28.57 per cent.

Dimethylethylsulphine iodide-mercuric iodide, (CH3)2(C2H ̧)SIHgI2, was prepared by three methods.

1. Dimethylethylsulphine iodide was dissolved in acetone and the calculated quantity of mercuric iodide added. From the solution, ether precipitated a substance which melted at 85° and, when pure, crystallised from acetone in long, yellow prisms melting at 87°.

2. Dimethyl sulphide-mercuric iodide was dissolved in excess of ethyl iodide, and after standing for 12 to 15 minutes, the interaction was complete. From the solution, a yellow, crystalline substance melting at 85° was precipitated by ether, and this, when recrystallised from acetone, formed long prisms which melted at 86.5°.

3. An excess of methyl iodide was added to methyl ethyl sulphidemercuric iodide, and the interaction, which took place immediately with slight evolution of heat, was complete in about 2 minutes. On adding ether, a yellow substance melting at 78-79° was obtained, which, after reprecipitating twice from acetone, melted at 87°.

When the mixture of methyl iodide and methyl ethyl sulphidemercuric iodide was allowed to stand longer than about 15 minutes, an impure product was obtained. In one experiment, the mixture was allowed to stand for 2 hours, and a crystalline substance was then obtained which melted at 160-161°, and was evidently the trimethyl derivative. The solution contained a mixture of other substances. Analyses of the products of the above three reactions were made, with the following results:

III. 0.4512 0.1545 HgS. Hg=29.51.

CHISHg requires Hg= 29.76 per cent.

Methyldiethylsulphine iodide-mercuric iodide, CH,(C2H5),SIHgI2, was also obtained in three ways.

1. 2.5 grams of methyldiethylsulphine iodide were dissolved in acetone and 4.9 grams of mercuric iodide added. From the solution, ether precipitated a yellow, crystalline substance which melted at 64-65°, and after reprecipitating twice from acetone by ether, at 67°; itsacetone solution, when allowel to evaporate spontaneously, deposited large, transparent, yellow plates.

2. A concentrated solution of 6 grams of diethyl sulphide-mercuric

iodide was treated with an excess (3 grams) of methyl iodide. After standing for 3 minutes, the solution was precipitated with ether, giving 5 grams of a yellow, crystalline compound melting at 63—64°. After purification, the product melted at 67°, and could be easily obtained in large plates.

3. Methyl ethyl sulphide-mercuric iodide was dissolved in ethyl iodide, and in a quarter of an hour the reaction was complete. The product obtained by precipitation melted at 60-62°, but when purified by solution in acetone and precipitation with ether, at 66.5°. When the substances prepared by these methods were analysed, the following numbers were obtained:

CHISHg requires Hg= 29.15 per cent.

It appears, then, so far as these experiments go, that no isomerism exists among the compounds which the sulphine iodides form with mercuric iodide. Although the supposition that these substances contain sexavalent sulphur allows of its possibility, isomerism does not follow as a necessary consequence, for, as already pointed out in the introduction, similar isomerism among the nitrogen compounds is non-existent in the lower members of the series, and only appears when the nitrogen is united to larger and more complex radicles.

In connection with this work, attempts have been made to resolve CH3 CH, CO methyl ethyl thetine, into optically active com

CH,

ponents, but without success.

It was found that any attempts to prepare a strychnine or cinchonine salt of the hydrobromide of the

CH S
-CH, CO,H

CH

Br

thetine, resulted in the formation of its anhydride and the hydrobromide of the active base. Silver malate and the thetine hydrobromide gave similar results. Experiments were also made with Penicillium glaucum, but it was found that only a very slight growth of the mould took place after standing for some weeks with a 2 per cent. solution of the anhydride, the solution being

inactive.

In conclusion, I wish to express my thanks to Professor Ramsay for the interest he has taken in the work described in this paper, and the help he has afforded me in carrying it out.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,

LONDON.

vou

169

VICTOR MEYER MEMORIAL LECTURE.

(DELIVERED ON FEBRUARY 8th, 1900).

By T. E. THORPE, Ph.D., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., President of the Chemical Society.

By the untimely death of Victor Meyer, on August 8th, 1897, under circumstances of peculiar sadness, and at the comparatively early age of forty-nine, our sister Society in Berlin lost her President of the year, and, at the same moment, we were deprived of one of the most brilliant of that band of eminent men whom we distinguish as our Honorary Foreign Members. The Council have deemed it fitting that the attempt should be made to put on record our appreciation of the remarkable services Victor Meyer rendered to the science which he cultivated, during the all too short period of his activity, with such striking assiduity and success. As a friend of nearly thirty years' standing, and as one who worked, literally, side by side with him in the famous laboratory which he lived to direct, and died whilst directing, I have charged myself with the execution of this duty.

Of Meyer's early life—that is, of the period before I first knew him at Heidelberg as a girlish-looking, bright-eyed youth, quick of movement and active in thought, ready and fluent of speech, full of zeal, and intensely interested in the higher work of the place-I know little, beyond that he was born in Berlin and was the son of a calico manufacturer.* Once, in the course of some discussion on the characteristic differences in the school training of English and German lads, he made reference to his own experiences in the gymnasium, from which I gathered that his inclination towards science was in nowise shaped by what he saw or heard in early youth. Nor, so far as can be determined, was there anything in his home life which inclined him to take to chemistry. In the case of many who have become eminent in physical science-and doubtless also in the case of more who have not—their first love has sprung from the passion of experimenting. But at this time Meyer, apparently, had neither the opportunity nor the desire to make experiments. Indeed, the home atmosphere tended to make him literary or artistic. doubt that he owed to this environment, and more example and precept of his mother, herself a woman of considerable intellectual power, certain strongly marked features of character which

There can be no especially to the

* The date of his birth was September 8th, 1848.

VOL. LXXVII.