INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1875. lxxxiii 



over red-hot copper, earbonyl sulphide, ethyl hydride, and 

 copper sulphide are the normal products ; but that the ethyl 

 hydride breaks up into marsh gas, ethylene, acetylene, and 

 ethyl aldehyde. 



Gladstone and Tribe have continued their researches upon 

 the action of their copper-zinc couple on organic bodies, and 

 have studied its action on chloroform, bromoform, and iodo- 

 form. In presence of alcohol the three bodies are split up in 

 the same general manner, acetylene and marsh gas being, in 

 addition to the haloid zinc ethylates, the hydrocarbon prod- 

 ucts. The amount of acetylene is least with chloroform, 

 greatest with iodoform. 



Berthelot has contrived an interesting lecture experiment 

 for showing the direct union of the olefines with the hydrac- 

 ids. Two flasks of about three hundred cubic centimeters' 

 capacity are previously filled, the one with propylene gas, 

 the other with hydrogen- iodide gas. In the lecture these 

 flasks are opened and placed mouth to mouth, the joint be- 

 tween them being made tight by a band of rubber. Drops 

 of isopropyl iodide soon appear, and the combination is com- 

 plete in half an hour. 



Riban has published an extended memoir on the terebenic 

 hydrocarbons and their isomers which is of great value. He 

 differs from Berthelot in many of his conclusions. 



Bouchardat, by heating isoprene in a sealed tube to 280 

 -290 for ten hours, has succeeded in polymerizing it, and 

 converting it into a terpilene closely identical with oil of 

 turpentine. 



Tilden has produced a new body by the action of nitrosyl 

 chloride upon oil of turpentine, which he calls nitrosoterpene. 



Frebault has observed that a peculiar green coloration is 

 developed in oil of peppermint by the action of certain acids, 

 notably picric acid, which has a red fluorescence similar to 

 chlorophyll. He suggests, therefore, that this substance is 

 formed in the reaction. 



Barbier has investigated the hydrocarbon discovered by 

 Berthelot, and called fluorene. By oxidation it yields di- 

 phenylene-carbonyl, and this acted on by sodium amalgam 

 produces fluorene alcohol in hard, white, hexagonal plates. 

 This substance is interesting as being the first alcohol which 

 by heat alone loses water and forms an ether. 



