NEWS

Here insert the name of the person submitting the article for analysis.

+ Here insert the name of the person delivering the sample.

Here the analyst may insert, at his discretion, his opinion as to whether the mixture (if any) was for the purpose of rendering the article portable or palatable, or of preserving it, or of improving the appearance, or was unavoidable, and may state whether in excess of what is ordinary, or otherwise, and whether the ingredients or materials mixed are or are not injurious to health.

We will now endeavour, very briefly, to draw attention to one or two flaws in the new Act, which have, we think, up to now either partially or wholly escaped notice :

The first "exception," under Section 6, would-under pretence of rendering an article " portable, or of preserving it," admit of the addition of sulphuric acid to vinegar, and of salt to milk.

The second 66 exception " "would-under pretence of rendering an article "palatable, or of improving its appearance "allow of the adulteration of coffee with chicory, bread with alum, mustard with flour, &c.

Section 8, which may be described as the "labelling one, might well be incorporated with Section 6 as an "exception," and it is indispensable that the word "legibly" should be inserted in the proper place, as we have heard of labels where the type was so exceedingly ornamental and minute as to convey no real warning of the "mixture" to the purchaser unprovided with a magnifying glass. Section 7 provides for the punishment of a person selling an adulterated article "if the matter mixed be more than is ordinarily required." Will the promoters of the Bill kindly inform us of any fixed standard of the quantity of an adulterant "ordinarily required"?

In Section 19, which refers to the Analysts' Quarterly Reports, it would be convenient to add a clause permitting the addition of any remarks-in reference to any of the samples analysed-which the Analyst might consider it desirable to make.

In Section 25 we have already pointed out that-while the retailer could not be punished if he could produce a "warranty "from the wholesale dealer-no provision is made for the punishment of the wholesale dealer if such a "warranty" is found to be false; but besides this, it is clear that if-with any modifications-this "warranty business is to be persevered in, some specific form of "warranty "should be prescribed by the Act. and some means provided for verifying the connection between a given warranty and a given sample.

The Bill contains, as a Schedule, a proposed form of certificate, which document we reproduce above, with the single remark that as a specimen of involved and impracticable absurdity it really is ingenious.

A less ambitious and very much simpler form of certificate will be submitted to the Local Government Board, and, if approved, we may print it next week.

The Bill was committed pro forma last evening, with a view to its being reprinted with, of course, the alterations the Government are prepared to accept, but what shape it may bear when next we have to speak of it it would be hazardous to predict. We trust, however, that if it be not entirely re-cast,-which would be, perhaps, the best plan,-at any rate the obnoxious clauses to which such general attention has been called will be expunged. It is, in any case, satisfactory to know that-before it becomes Law, it must pass the ordeal of that Upper Chamber where "trade" interests are less likely to be considered than the good of the community at large.

ON THE

POISONOUS INGREDIENTS AND MIXTURE CLAUSES OF THE

"SALE OF FOOD AND DRUGS ACT." Two objects are aimed at in the Adulteration Acts,-viz., the prohibition of poisoning, and the prohibition of selling articles of food or drink under wrong names.

In order to prohibit poisoning the old Adulteration Acts, as well as the Bill designed to supersede them, enact that the admixture of anything poisonous with an article of food shall entail heavy penalties. Now, on examination, it appears that this phraseology is not happy, and, instead of the offence being the admixture of a poisonous material with an article of food, it ought to be defined to be the rendering an article of food poisonous. The two things are by no means identical, as a few examples will make manifest. Thus, although the substance which imparts the almond flavour is poisonous per se, and although the confectioner who flavours articles of food with the almond flavour becomes liable to the penalty of £50 under the Act, yet it would be most monstrous to fine him, since articles of food are not necessarily rendered poisonous by almond flavouring.

Sulphuric acid per se is highly poisonous, and yet vinegar with a little sulphuric acid in it is not poisonous at all. The essential oil of mustard per se is poisonous, and yet a minute quantity of it in food is not poisonous but wholesome. A proportion of sulphate of copper which would be poisonous or harmful in bread (which is eaten largely), would not necessarily be poisonous in pickles which are eaten but sparingly; and in short it is unavoidably, right or proper, in many instances, to "knowingly mix an article of food with ingredients of a nature injurious to health," and the legislature would only stultify itself if it were to enact the contrary.

In the Bill at present before Parliament, it will be observed that not only is the mixing of articles of food with poisonous or harmful ingredients prohibited, but the prohibition extends to drugs; and here the consideration will present itself that, since many drugs are poisonous, there would be difficulties in the way of an enactment against the rendering drugs poisonous; and much might be said in favour of excluding drugs altogether from the operation of the New Adulteration Act, and of dealing with them separately in a special Act of Parliament.

Touching the second object of the Acts on Adulteration, viz., the prohibition of the sale of articles of food under wrong designations, it may, perhaps, be useful to show that nothing more than that is really contemplated in those parts of the Bill relating to non-poisonous admixtures. This will indeed be plain from Section 8, which permits a vendor to vend any admixture of articles of food with any non-poisonous substances whatsoever, and in any proportions, provided only that what is done be fairly indicated by the label accompanying the articles. It is not in contemplation to stop the sale of skimmed milk, but to prevent skimmed milk being sold as unskimmed milk. It is not meant to prohibit the sale of mixtures of coffee with chicory, but to prevent such mixtures being sold as pure coffee. Neither would it be wise to prevent the baker from making bread of such flour as requires a trace of alum to render it available for that purpose,

provided only that he would offer it for sale as alumed, if, having made that confession, he could find customers for it.

If, then, the Bill only contemplates putting a stop to deception, the question will naturally arise as to the possibility of much simpler provisions than those at present standing in the Bill. Why should not the section run, "No person shall sell any article of food under a designation which does not fairly indicate what it is."

It is true that such an enactment would throw upon those who have to work the Act the burden of defining what is meant by certain names, and what is a fair description; but this burden they have already, and must continue to bear under any conceivable Adulteration Act.

ORDINARY MEETING, February 5th, 1875.

Dr. REDWOOD in the Chair.

THE third paper read was by THOmas Stevenson, M.D.:—
THE DECOMPOSITIONS OF MILK,
WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO ITS ANALYSIS WHEN IN
A DECOMPOSED STATE.

The analysis of milk which has been kept until natural decomposition has set in, or in some cases advanced to a considerable extent, is an operation which the analyst is occasionally called upon to perform. He may also be required to state the extent to which a second analysis of a milk made at a date remote from the day on which the milk was drawn from the cow; may be expected to differ from an analysis made whilst the secretion was still fresh and undecomposed, and how far a second analysis is vitiated by the changes which milk is liable to undergo when kept. It is also important to be able to obviate, if possible, the difficulties entailed in the analysis of milk by the natural changes which the fluid undergoes when kept. Prior to experience it might, perhaps, be expected that when a milk has become decomposed, its analysis, so as to obtain a satisfactory result, is no longer possible. This, however, is not necessarily the case. At all events such an analysis may very frequently be made, as will enable the analyst to state whether a milk is skimmed or watered, and to ascertain within narrow limits the original composition of the milk, though minute accuracy is seldom possible in a second analysis made when milk is decomposed. In order to be able to overcome the difficulties of the analytical problem to which I have referred, it is requisite that the analyst should be familiar with the changes which milk undergoes when kept. For our purpose we may regard milk as an aqueous solution of milk-sugar, casein, and other albumenoids and mineral matters, holding in suspension butter-fat. The more minute constituents of milk, such as urea, are present in too small quantities to influence materially the results of analysis. The first and most obvious change which milk undergoes is, that it undergoes the lactic fermentation, its milk-sugar becoming converted into lactic acid. This change is not accompanied by any sensible alteration in weight; the elementary constituents of the milk-sugar re-arrange themselves in the same proportions to form lactic acid. No perceptible amount of gas is evolved during the lactic fermentation. The lactic acid formed exercises, however, a very important influence upon the casein, depriving this of alkali, and rendering it insoluble. Probably, also, changes are simultaneously wrought in the arrangement of the mineral constituents of the milk, though, as to these, our knowledge is very imperfect. Although the lactic fermentation is usually stated to be very simple, the change of milk sugars into lactic acid is never in reality so simple; for in all cases there appears to be the formation of a small quantity of ethylic alcohol. Should a milk have simply undergone the lactic fermentation, the analysis of the sample in its

CHEMICAL NEWS, March 5, 1875.

decomposed state will, I find, present the following anomalies: (1.) The amount of cream by volume cannot be ascertained. (2.) The specific gravity of the sample will not accord with the original specific gravity of the sample; not only may the change brought about in the casein by acidification alter the density of the fluid, but also the solution of lactic acid produced will have a density different from that of a solution of milk-sugar. (3.) The total solids per cent will not be materially influenced by the lactic fermentation. It is true that the solids yielded by drying a soured milk are usually a little less than those found in the same milk when fresh, but the difference will not be great. The loss is due first to the evaporation of a trace of alcohol; but, secondly, and chiefly, to the decomposition which occurs on drying a sour milk at 100° C., as is shown by the dark brown colour of the dried milk-solids. Concentrated lactic acid chars organic bodies at a temperature of 100° C. (4.) The ash will be a little lower than that of the fresh milk, and the chlorides will be diminished. It is impossible to evaporate, dry, and incinerate a mixed solution of lactic acid and an alkaline chloride without loss of hydrochloric acid. Indeed, it is well known that to obtain all the chlorine in milk it is necessary to ignite with an excess of a base, such as baryta. (5.) If the fat be estimated by exhaustion with ether, the percentage of fat will be too high, since some lactic acid will be dissolved by the ether. Only a portion of the lactic acid formed in the milk will pass into the ethereal solution; some of it will remain combined with the inorganic bases of the milk. Nevertheless, those difficulties may be overcome, provided that the decomposition of the milk has not advanced beyond the stage of lactic fermentation, and that no gas has been evolved. The acidity of the milk may be determined by titration, and the requisite proportion of soda added to a weighed quantity of the sample, which is then analysed in the ordinary manner. Or, a weighed quantity of freshly ignited sodium carbonate is added to a weighed portion of the sample, so that the milk is rendered just neutral to litmus-paper, and the analysis is then conducted as usual. In calculating the results the necessary corrections must be made; first, for the loss of hydrogen on neutralising acid (C3H6O3 + NaHO = C3H5NaO3 + H2O; 2C3H6O3 + Na2CO3 = 2C3H6NaO3 + H2O + CO2); and, secondly, for the sodium carbonate introduced into the milk-ash. The results by either method are excellent, and there is no solution of lactic acid in ether. Milk, when kept for long periods, especially in partially filled vessels, does not stop at the formation of lactic acid; but the lactic is apt to undergo an irregular butyric fermentation, with the consequent formation of butyric acid. Now this kind of fermentation is accompanied by the evolution of a mixture of hydrogen and carbonic dioxide gases; and the theoretical loss during the conversion of lactic into butyric acid amounts to rather more than one-half of the weight of the lactic acid. But the butyric fermentation is also accompanied by the formation of a small quantity of butylic alcohol, and probably of other bodies also. Hence the equation for the butyric fermentation—

the

2C3H6O3=2CO2+2H2+C4H8O2

ог

is not strictly accurate. Probably the casein and butterfat are simultaneously altered. The milk acquires a cheesy odour. In consequence of the acid state of the fluid, the fermentation is irregular. A milk which has undergone butyric fermentation is hence almost beyond the reach of an analysis directed to ascertain its original composition. Had we any means of distinguishing between the butyric acid formed by the fermentation of lactic acid, and the butyric acid liberated by separation from the glyceride of butyric acid, the problem might, perhaps, be simplified. I have found the analysis of milk, kept so as to have a butyric or cheesy odour, to yield most discrepant results, especially in the amount of solids not fat; and no reliance can be placed upon the analytical figures, except those relating to the ashi. Nevertheless

NEWS

CORRESPONDENCE.

considerable light may be thrown upon the genuineness of even a putrid milk by a determination of the amount of ash, and of the chlorine present in this. Two precautions are, however, necessary-to determine the ash of a sufficiently large quantity of the milk (20 c.c. at least), and to determine the chlorine in a separate portion of ash from a portion of the milk evaporated with a slight excess of sodium carbonate, in order to avoid loss of chlorine. An analyst, then, may generally with safety undertake the analysis of a milk which has simply undergone the lactic fermentation; but when the sample has advanced a stage further, and the butyric or cheesy odour is perceptible, no certain and reliable results are attainable, and a probable opinion only can be given as to the genuineness of the article, based upon the determination of the ash and the chlorine in the ash. In connection with this I may direct attention to the recent researches of G. Bunge (Zeitschr. f. Biologie, BJ. x., p. 295), on the variations in the quantities of the alkaline chlorides in milk. It is usually assumed that the chlorine in cow's milk is very constant, and forms one-tenth of the ash, i.e., is about 0'07 per cent of the whole milk. There is, however, always a slight loss of chlorine during the incineration of a milk residue, except a little alkali be added before evaporation. This loss is usually, with careful incineration, 6 or 7 per cent of the total chlorine. Bunge shows that the chlorine in milk ash is far from constant. He found, in fact, the chlorine to vary from o 098 to 0.211 grm. in 100 c.c. of cow's milk. In fact, the quantity of chlorine in milk may vary so much as 100 per cent, according to the manner of common salt taken in the food. Too much importance, therefore, ought not to be attached to the presence of an excess of chlorine in milk ash, so long as the chlorine does not form more than about 0'2 per cent of the whole milk.

PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES.

PHYSICAL SOCIETY.

THE first Annual Report of the President, Prof. Gladstone, F.R.S., and Council, shows that the formation of the Society has been in every way attended with very gratifying results.

The meetings were commenced under singularly favourable circumstances, as the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education generously placed the Physical Laboratories and Lecture Rooms at the disposal of the Society.

It may be mentioned that the success of the Society is due in no small measure to the care and energy of Dr. Guthrie, Professor of Physics at the Royal School of

Mines.

The first paper was on the "New Contact Theory of the Galvanic Cell," by J. A. FLEMING, B.Sc., and many valuable communications have been read during the year. The Society has already lost a very able member by the death of Dr. W. S. Davis, of Derby, at the early age of thirty-two years :

The following is the list of Officers and Council for the

present year :—

President-Prof. J. H. Gladstone, F.R.S. Vice-Presidents-Prof. W. G. Adams, F.R.S.; Prof. G. C. Foster, F.R.S.

Secretaries-Prof. A. W. Reinold, M.A.; W. Chandler

Roberts.

Treasurer-Dr. E. Atkinson.

Demonstrator-Dr. F. Guthrie, F.R.S:

Other Members of Council-Latimer Clark, C.E.; W. Crookes, F.R.S.; Prof. A. Dupré; Prof. O. Henrici, F.R.S.; W. Huggins, F.R.S.; Prof. H. M'Leod; W. Spottiswoode, F.R.S.; Dr. H. Sprengel; Dr. W. Stone; E. O. W. Whitehouse.

SIR,

DOUBTFUL MINERALS.

To the Editor of the Chemical News.

Please to afford me space for a few last words on Doubtful Minerals and Double Nomenclature, inasmuch as Professors Maskelyne, How, and Burghardt have honoured me by some pertinent and valuable remarks on my previous communications.

I very much regret that my letters have laid me open to the suspicion of a desire to mark with a slur the fair names of Dana and Maskelyne. I had so such thought; for, most certainly, the learned professors who bear these distinguished names cannot, in any sense, be classed with the “doubtful.”

These talented presidents of the Republic of Minerals hold important positions of pretty equal elevation; but, betwixt them there is a great gulf fixed, and there is no Colossus of Rhodes to bestride it. Each has been exercising the questioned right of private judgment, and using spectacles tinted to suit his own particular sight. Some disciples, out of compliment to both, have been borrowing a lens from each, and whilst thus clouding their vision have sighed through divided affection, "How happy could I be with either, were t'other dear charmer away." &c.

These potentates, uninterrupted, for some time have been involved in an amiable war of words; and, although just now, it happens, they only shot their guns with persistent "yea " and "nay," the pellets, nevertheless, cause a good deal of fluttering in the flock of very small birds who peck at the food in the great men's hands. Fortunately, anywhere, "cats may look at kings."

Dana and Maskelyne, by English students, are looked up to as Mineral sponsors and authorised Registrars. But, the students say, our masters are so much at variance; they have a habit of calling names across the Atlantic, which may be equal to the same thing, but are not equal to one another. This habit bothers them a good deal, because they say the names themselves are not even echoes of each other to help the identity of things signified. For example, chalcopyrite is authoritatively flashed by cablegram from Yale College, and presto, it is changed into copper pyrites at the British Museum! Dana, all the while sheltering himself under the popular notion that "The Greek language is the most approved source of names." Be it so. Therefore xaλkoç, the Greek for Brass, is made an equivalent of yellow or copper, or of both together. Surely it is a small matter that Henckel, in his Pyritology (1725), wrote of chalcopyrites, "it is a very good distinctive name for the ore." It happens that it was called kupferkies at least 150 years earlier than that date; so then, by virtue of Dana's new law, the German word ought to claim priority of choice, always assuming some advantage in the resuscitation of either. I half blush to write it, but yellow copper ore is a distinctive expression wherever English is spoken, and those who like it will continue to use it whilst the ore is of any value in the mineral market. To my weak mind, chalcopyrite no more explains copper pyrites than the Meus porcus et ego of my boyhood explained mahogany.

There never will come a time, perhaps, when all minerals will be called by appropriately suggestive names : that is no reason, however, why we should not presently try to exterminate the hoard of aliases that now beset us. These aliases are enormous nuisances, and in being their open enemy (it is not to serve any selfish motive), I do but contend, in the interests of common humanity, for something like uniformity of nomenclature. Any radical changes of name ought to be made, I think, more in conformity with what's what than with who's who. Maskelyne's alteration of Smithsonite to hemimorphite, to wit.

Not having any pet names of my own to substitute, I

could contentedly take the catalogues of Maskelyne and Dana, and as to the discrepancies draw lots for the preference, and thus clear the fencing at a bound. The pedigree of minerals might be left at the Herald's College, or better it may be at the British Museum, alongside the Assyrian tablets, containing the legend of the building of the Tower of Babel. Let us, if we can, have one name for one thing, and stick to it. In fact, minerals might be easier recollected numerally than by the present absurd and unscientific practice of bandying personal baptismal compliments, &c.

The great burden of the mineral student's song is the obligation to do double duty, in the way of recollection. To some this is found almost impossible; to many it is most irksome, and to all it is a tax upon life-time, more iniquitous by half than the income tax. Besides, there is neither useful knowledge nor recreation to be got out of such continuous fagging. I don't at all object to being called tar on this side the salt ocean, but I strongly object to being called pitch on the other. Any sensitive substance would, because there is no advantage in the duality to anybody, and one might be mistaken for the other in transit. This dual-miasma has given me a kind of intermittent fever, worse than is caught in the Campagnia; and, when the fit is on, I seek relief in my antiseptic initials. I sometimes find it, and am now hopefully looking forward to the time when I may put myself into the attitude of the tail-piece of Bristow's Glossary, for the correspondence so far has resulted favourably in the reduction of the "Doubtful Minerals," and I dare say this dual business will be cleared up some day; and now a parting word to my kind observers.

Professor Maskelyne in his letter gratifies me immensely. He unhesitatingly declines "to defend a cause which is essentially a bad one." His declaration is at once manly and judicious. He writes, "Responsible, not only to Englishmen, but to the whole world, for whom this collection is becoming a sort of metropolitan collection, I have shrunk from the extensive changes in the nomenclature that the adoption of Dana's names would involve." May he long enjoy the same temperature.

I cannot anywhere have even hinted that mineralogists are likely to be misled hy Maskelyne's nomenclature, for I think just the contrary. But, when Dana's standard, and by far the completest work on mineralogy in the English, and, perhaps, in any other language, differs so very widely from the British Museum catalogue, the fact is by no means insignificant or unimportant, especially as we have no British book corresponding with Dana's for authoritative guidance.

cer

to select and learned societies, but to the unlearned and gaping crowds-the children of all ages, rank, and condition-who come at leisure to look at the "pretty things." With plenty of food in the store, the hunger and thirst after knowledge might be easily appeased.

To Professor How I owe an apology for an offence against his good taste; and I will confess that when I wrote the first letter I was not at all intent on turning delicate periods, and certainly not on annoying him or anybody else. I do not, however, altogether regret baving written it, for the world now knows by this time, through your Journal, that How's "Cyanolite" is fully described in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 1859, and that he is himself in possession of the veritable mineral. Dana (1868) refers to Edin. New Phil. Fourn., x., 84, 1859 (341 B) for How's Cyanolite. Inadvertently, I mistook this contracted reference for some American Journal out of my reach, and I merely noted Dana's remark that cyanolite "is probably the same mineral with centrallassite, impure with much more silica or chalcedony, impure with centrallassite." Dana (1874) makes no further allusion to it: hence its place in my list of "Doubtful Minerals." It is now said by Dr. Burghardt to be "simply okenite." How he arrives at this conclusion he does not say. Without in the slightest degree doubting the accuracy of How's analyses, I wish somehody would just steam to the Black Rock of the Bay of Fundy, and send a lump of the mineral to the British Museum, that the facts of this triple alliance of cerinite, cyanolite, and centrallassite may be definitely settled. Still, after the Professor's expostulation, we cannot find it in our stoney heart to hang the pet he hugs so tenderly.

My neighbour Dr. Burghardt hopes that my "mind will at last be set at rest." He is not alone in that hope. To a great extent I have got over the "confusion of tongues." He says, in his last letter, "He might have saved himself all this trouble by studying German books on the subject." Not so, however, for I have tried it. He says also that, "In mineralogy we are immeasurably behind Germany." Not exactly the fact either. English mineralogists, for the most part, are familiar with German scientific literature. It is not long in finding its way to England, where English professors read it in due course, and profit accordingly. What becomes of all the new mineralogical facts is quite a different question. They sometimes appear in the Family Herald, of all odd places, amongst the conundrunis! "Dawsonite" popped up the other day in Public Opinion! What and where next? Perhaps, in the end public opinion may be brought to bear on the question, and names of minerals may become household words. All natural history facts ought, it seems to me, to find a central station, and not merely a resting-place, at the British Museum; and should be thence disseminated somehow (I would almost say anyhow) officially. I do not indeed "forget that there are other languages besides English." I am aware that Germans are not all dull, and that Englishmen are not all brilliant. I am aware also that the English language is not necessarily inexpressive, and that it is gradually and rapidly becoming universal. I know, therefore, of no reason why an English scientific book should necessarily compare unfavourably with one in any other language. Thackeray used to say, to the effect, that books which are written compare unfavourably with the books which might be written. Many persons now think so. Frankly, I much prefer the German mineral nomenclature to the mongrel Greek and personality that has been foisted on us, although, at the same, I should not always like to go the length of Nickelthoneisenzinksilicat, nothwithstanding its analytical expressiveness.

Indeed, I have not been the author of any "of the confusion in the names of minerals." My small efforts have been quite in the other direction.

I follow Maskelyne and Dana as far as they go, and anybody else who goes further. What more can I do? My great difficulty is in properly treating what may be

called the Mineralogical Orphans, fallen out of the ranks from unknown causes or weakness of constitution. Some of their parents and sponsors have been dead a very long while, and nobody appears to know where many of them came from. I don't care to keep an asylum for them any longer, but wish them to die a natural death, and to be sanitarily buried, or cremated (if preferred) clean out of sight and out of mind.

Dr. Burghardt has contributed several items to the credit of this account and the common good, and for one I thank him. By the way, I didn't say that stilbite was an antimony mineral. I did know better than that, and stillolite. I called an outcast. Dr. B. says, "As to stillolite, no such name is known to modern mineralogists." Just so; but it used to be the name of a variety of siliceous sinter. Thomson (1854) mentioned it as "allied to opal." Dana (1874) puts "stillolite v. opal" in the "Index Expurgatorius." The poor thing therefore, having now no friends, peradventure we may safely make an end of it here.

I feel rewarded in having drawn attention to this important subject in the proper quarters, and I believe the desideratum to be not very far distant. My next communication shall be as concise as this has been verbose.

Feb. 15, 1875.

T. A. R.

Sulph-Acids of Naphthylamin.-Ernst Schmidt and Beruh. Schaal.-The authors have attempted the preparation of the various isomeric sulph-acids of the formula NH2 C10H6 {SO2H

and the comparison of their properties and products of decomposition. Di-Iso-Propyl-Keton and Methyl-Iso-PropylKeton.-R. Münde.-The former of these compounds is sparingly soluble in water, but readily and in all proportions in alcohol and ether. Acid alkaline sulphites do not combine with it. It reduces ammoniacal solutions of silver. Its oxidation produces isobutyric, acetic, and carbonic acids. Nascent hydrogen transforms di-isopropyl-keton into a secondary alcohol of the group of the heptyl compounds, and at the same time into oily products, boiling at high temperatures. Methyl-iso-propylketon is a clear liquid of pleasant odour, boiling at 93° to 94°, and having the sp. gr. 0811 at 15° C. With bisulphite of soda it forms a crystalline compound, but has no action upon ammoniacal solutions of silver. Oxidising agents resolve it into acetic and carbonic acids, and water.

On Ortho-Dinitro-Benzol.-A. Rinne and T. Zincke. The authors have succeeded in obtaining a third dinitrobenzol belonging to the ortho series (Berichte, vii., p. 869). It fuses at 117° to 118°; sublimes at higher temperatures in fine fern-like leaflets. In hot alcohol it dissolves readily, more easily than the para, but less easily than the meta compound. It is slightly soluble in hot water,

SOURCES.

NOTE. All degrees of temperature are Centigrade, unless otherwise expressed.

Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin, No. 15, November 9, 1874.

Siljeström's Experiments for Determining the Changes of Density of Diluted Gases.-D. Mendelejeff.-A mathematical paper; not adapted for abstraction. Remarks on the Influence of the Alkaloids upon Certain Properties of Hæmoglobin.-E. Schaer.The author calls in question certain views put forward in Rossbach's Pharmakologischen Untersuchungen, that is, that the transference of ozone by means of hæmoglobin is checked by quinine; and, further, that both the oxidation of the blood by means of atmospheric oxygen, and the formation and separation of carbonic acid, are checked by many alkaloids. The author considers that all conclusions as to the suspension of the transference of ozone by means of the action of alkaloids should be regarded with extraordinary caution; and that a rational interpretation of the influence of quinine as regards the thermometric decrease of the processes of organisation in the organism, must be attempted from other points of view.

Communications from the Griefswald Laboratory. -H. Limpricht.-These communications relate to a new method of preparing the amido-sulph-acids; a further examination of compounds derived from ortho-amido-parasulpho-toluolic acid, by M. Hayduck (Berichte, p. 552); and a paper on the "position" of the nitro group in the nitro compounds of ortho- and para-brom toluol.

Isomeric Nitro-Toluylic Acids, Azo - Toluylic Acids, and a Second Cymol Sulph-Acid.-F. Fittica. -This paper consists of hypothetical speculations.

Oxidation Products of Isobutylic Alcohol.-Ernst Schmidt. A confirmation of the view of Kraemer that aceton is found among the normal products of the oxidation of isobutylic alcohol.

On Chrysen.-Ernst Schmidt.-The author has not succeeded in detecting chrysen among the condensation products of benzol, as maintained by Berthelot (Bull. Soc. Chim., vi., p. 276).

its solutions in alcohol, benzol, and chloroform it may be obtained in fine tabular crystals of the rhombic or monoclinar system.

Levulic Acid formed during the Action of Sulphuric Acid upon Sugar.-A. von Grote and B. Tollens. -The new acid is most easily obtained from the levulose produced by the inversion of cane-sugar. It crystallises in fine leaflets, is capable of distillation, and the most of its salts are crystalline. Its composition is C5H8O3. The authors have examined the zinc, lime, potash, and silver salts.

Presence of Allylic Alcohol among the Products of the Dry Distillation of Wood.-B. Aronheim.-The author demonstrates the presence of allylic alcohol in ordinary wood-spirit.

Cyan-Acetic Acid.-J. van't Hoff.-Already noticed. Action of Ammonia on Aceton.-N. Sokoloff and P. Latschinoff.-At common temperatures aceton absorbs Städeler's 8.5 per cent of its weight of ammoniacal gas. aceton-ammonia is not formed. Aceton purified according to the method of Saint Gilles is not resolved into aldehyd and methylamin. If aldehyd saturated with ammonia is allowed to stand at an ordinary temperature for three to four weeks, and is then mixed with the quantity of pulverised ammonia necessary to form an acid salt, a crystalline precipitate is at once formed, which, on treatment oxalate of ammonia, and a soluble salt of the base with boiling alcohol (of 95°), is resolved into insoluble C6H13NO. This base Heintz named diacetonamin, but the authors consider it should be called diacetonhydramin.

Certain Compounds of the Sulphide of Mercury.Karl Heumann.-The white body mentioned in the author's paper (Berichte, vii., p. 752) is identical with the white precipitate obtained by passing a small quantity of sulphuretted hydrogen into the solution of mercuric nitrate. Palm and Barfoed have made known a series of analogous compounds, combinations of mercuric sulphide with various salts of the same metal. The blackening of these precipitates by alkalies depends on the separation of mercuric sulphide. Palm asserts the existence of analogous red-addition products, formed by cinnabar with the salts of mercury. Barfoed disputes this view, having obtained with cinnabar the same white compound as with the black amorphous sulphide. The author's experiments confirm those of Barfoed.