X NOTES BY THE EDITOR 



passed out from the domain of theory, into the province of actual and 

 practical fact. The contributions made to our knowledge by Professor 

 Graham respecting the molecular constitution and properties of gases, 

 should also be included among the important novelties of the year in 

 inorganic chemistry. The recent advances in organic chemistry are 

 thus detailed by a writer in the London Pharmaceutical Journal, Dr. 

 Mac Adam. He says, " Not only does the manufacturing chemistry 

 of the day transform starch and sugar into alcohol by fermentation, as 

 in brewing operations ; sawdust into oxalic acid by the action of soda 

 and nitre ; starch or sawdust into grape-sugar by the aid of sulphuric 

 acid ; wood and coal into paraffin and paraffin oils by the process of 

 destructive distillation ; coal into aniline and the coal-tar colors ; and 

 guano into a magnificent color, rivalling that from the cochineal insect ; 

 but the organic chemistry of the day has proceeded to produce artifi- 

 cially many alcohols and ethers, including jargonelle pear essence and 

 pine-apple essence ; and to construct many alkaloids resembling quinine, 

 strychnine and morphine in their-composition and chemical properties, 

 encouraging the hope that we may soon be in possession of the means 

 of preparing by artificial processes these powerful medicines, and pos- 

 sibly others equally efficacious. And more than that, and principally 

 through the researches of Berthelot, dead mineral matter has been 

 worked up by stages into organic compounds. Thus Berthelot, taking 

 carbon and sulphur, combines these into bisulphide of carbon, a mo- 

 bile, ethereal liquid ; and therefore, by the mutual reaction of copper, 

 hydrosulphuric acid, and the bisulphide of carbon, he obtains olefiant 

 gas. The latter is absorbed by sulphuric acid (oil of vitrol) to the ex- 

 tent of 120 volumes of the gas in one of the acid, and thereafter by di- 

 lution with water and distillation, the acid mixture yields alcohol of 

 the same composition and properties as that obtained from ordinary 

 grain. Strecker takes the olefiant gas in solution in sulphuric acid, 

 and by adding water, neutralizing with ammonia, evaporating and 

 heating, obtains crystals of taurine, one of the constituents of bile. 

 Wohler combines the simple elements, nitrogen and oxygen, by electric 

 discharges, into nitric acid, and then by the successive mutual reaction 

 of this nitric acid with tin, hydrochloric acid, and black lead, and lime 

 (or oxide of lead), he obtains a complicated organic substance, called 

 the hydrocyanate of ammonia. The latter may also be prepared by 

 passing a mixture of the gases ammonia and carbonic oxide through a 

 red-hot tube. The hydrocyanate of ammonia may then be employed 

 in yielding cyanogen, hydrocyanic acid (prussic acid), oxalic acid, and 

 urea ; also formic acid, paracyanogen, cyanuric acid, sulphocyanogen, 

 and mellon. 



