314' Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 



salts of copper, an excess redissolving the precipitate, yielding an 

 azure blue solution ; this effect is, however, produced with greater 

 difficulty than with ethylamine, methylamine or ammonia. Valera- 

 raine also precipitates nitrate of silver ; the precipitate is of a fawn- 

 colour, and adheres like a resinous mass to the bottom of the vessel. 

 An excess of the reagent whitens and completely dissolves it. Chlo- 

 ride of silver is dissolved by valeraraine, but with more difficulty 

 than by ammonia. — Comptes Rendus, Aout 13, 1849. 



ON CHLOROFORM. BY MM. SOUBEIRAN AND MIALHE. 



Two liquids are sold in commerce under the name of chloroform ; 

 and though of very different origin, they are considered as identical, 

 and are accordingly substituted for each other. Nevertheless there 

 are notable differences in their properties : one, derived from the 

 reaction of hypochlorite of lime upon alcohol, possesses all the pro- 

 perties which one of the authors of this memoir has assigned to 

 chloroform ; it is that which may be called normal chloroform ; the 

 other, obtained by the action of hypochlorite of lime on pyroxylic 

 spirit, is so different from the first, that the authors have submitted 

 them to a minute examination in order to discover the cause of the 

 difference. 



The chloroform from pyroxylic spirit, which the authors provi- 

 sionally call methylic chloroform, although possessing the same phy- 

 sical appearances as normal chloroform, has quite a different odour : 

 this odour is not sweet and agreeable, but empyreumatic and nau- 

 seous. Its density is less than that of common chloroform ; the 

 latter being 1-496, the former 1-413*. Its boiling-point appears also 

 to be not so high ; lastly, the inhaling of methylic chloroform is 

 so far from being easy and agreeable, that it occasions general un- 

 easiness, followed by heaviness of the head, continued nausea, and 

 sometimes vomiting. 



Such differences in the properties of these two liquids induced the 

 authors to think that they did not possess the same composition, or 

 that the properties of one of them was masked by some foreign 

 substance. 



On the first hypothesis, it might be thought that chloroform, 

 which does not belong to the same chemical type as alcohol, and 

 which is formed by the powerful reaction of chloride of lime, may 

 be a different body according as it is formed from alcohol, which 

 belongs to the ethyle series, or from pyroxylic spirit, which belongs 

 to that of methyle. It may happen, also, that the difference de- 



* The authors remark in passing, that the density of chloroform, stated 

 by M. Liebig to be 1-480, is too light; they constantly obtained it of 1*496 

 at 54° F. The difference is unquestionably derived from the presence of 

 some foreign body, which it was not known how to separate from the chlo- 

 roform, as the authors will presently show. 



