INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1874. l v 



green fluorescence of its solution in ammonia. Several of 

 its compounds are described. Perkin, to whom many of the 

 coal-tar colors owe their discovery, has added a modifica- 

 tion of alizarin to the list. Bromalizarin, produced by re- 

 placing an atom of hydrogen in alizarin by bromine, crys- 

 tallizes in orange or brownish-orange crystals, which are ca- 

 pable of dyeing with mordants like alizarin; but the shades 

 of color are not exactly the same, the reds being less purple, 

 and the purple less blue than those produced with alizarin. 



Lange has described a polymer of hydrocyanic acid, having 

 the composition H 3 C 3 N 3 . It is formed by the action in sealed 

 tubes of hydrocyanic acid (anhydrous) upon epichlorhydrin, 

 and crystallizes in garnet-red prisms. Hofmann has observed 

 the important fact that by the action of heat the position 

 of certain definite groupings within the molecule may be 

 changed, thus producing isomers. In the secondary base, 

 ethyl-aniline (ethyl-phenylamine), C 6 H 5 .C 2 H 5 .H.N, for exam- 

 ple, on heating to 300 or 330 for twelve to eighteen hours, 

 the ethyl group shifts its position, and now replaces a hydro- 

 gen atom in the phenyl group instead of a typical hydrogen 

 atom ; thus producing phenethylamine (C 6 H 4 .C 2 H 5 )H.H.N. 

 isomeric with the former, but a primary instead of a second- 

 ary base. It is believed that this action is quite general. 

 Hugo Schiff obtained last year, by dehydrating the base 

 butyraldine, a liquid alkaloid having the composition of 

 conicine, the active principle of conium macidatum. He has 

 subsequently more fully investigated the relation of the arti- 

 ficial to the natural alkaloid, and has shown that they are 

 true isomers; and that while natural conicine is a secondary 

 base containing an atom of typical hydrogen, the artificial 

 base, which he terms para-conicine, is tertiary. He has ob- 

 tained a new and condensed base also, which he names para- 

 di-conicine. C. R. A.Wright has continued his valuable re- 

 searches on the opium alkaloids, particularly to codeine 

 with its derivatives apocodeine, tricodeine, and tetracodeine 

 and narceine. Important practical results therapeutically 

 may be expected to flow from these investigations. Delitsch 

 and Volhard have simultaneously discovered a new method 

 for the synthesis of guanidine, by heating ammonium sul- 

 phocyanate to a temperature of 180-185 for twenty hours. 

 Grimaux lias effected the synthesis of the uric-acid deriva- 



