1880.] t:DJ- [Greene. 



age regarded with contempt small books and a common reproach against a 

 man was that he was the author of such." But the very magnitude of a 

 work has often been the occasion of its neglect, as but very few persons 

 have either leisure or inclination to wade through long series of ponderous 

 tomes ; a fact only apparent to book publishers within the last one hundred 

 and fifty years. Such sized volumes tempt the reader to cry out as Macaulay 

 did in his celebrated criticism upon Dr. Nares' life of Lord Burleigh. 



The learning which gave rise to such works was as weighty, as solid, and 

 as substantial as the volumes themselves. The period jn which it flourished 

 was before the day of easy paths to knowledge, compends, abridgments 

 and short cuts ; the royal road had not yet been discovered, the quagmires 

 filled up, nor the forests leveled that obstructed the pathway. The con- 

 sequence was that those who were scholars were more thoroughly and 

 deeply learned than those of the present day. The diffusion of knowledge 

 has seemingly resulted in sciolism ; where once the few were educated, the 

 many now are smatterers. 



Knowledge is like a powerful stream, whose currents while checked 

 witliin its banks flows deeply and strongly although silently; but when the 

 obstructions which hem it on each side are removed, when the obstacles to 

 its free dispersion fire leveled, it spreads itself over the adjacent country, so 

 that, where once a noble river ran, naught now remains except a shallow 

 babbling brook. 



Diffusion of knowledge, as it is fashionable to call it in the cant of our 

 day, is unfortunately frequently only a diffusion of ignorance. 



On a New Synthesis of Saliycnin. By Win. H. Greene, M.D. 

 (Read before the American Pldlosophical Society, January 1G, 1880.) 



The method by which I have obtained saligenin synthetically is an ap- 

 plication of a general method for the preparation of phenolic derivatives, 

 made known by Reimer and Tiemann. Indeed, since by the reaction of 

 chloroform or of carbon tetrachloride on an alkaline solution of sodium 

 phenate salicylic aldehyde or salicylic acid may be obtained, it may natur- 

 ally be expected that, under the same circumstances, methylene chloride 

 would yield saligenin, the latter being an oxybenzylic alcohol. 



A mixture of 30 grammes of methylene chloride, 30 grammes of phenol, 

 and 40 grammes of sodium hydrate dissolved in 50 grammes of water, was 

 heated in a sealed matrass in a water-bath. The reaction is complete in 

 about six hours, after which the contents of the matrass is neutralized with 

 hydrochloric acid, and agitated with ether, which takes up the saligenin 

 and the excess of phenol. The ethereal solution is decanted, and the ether 

 distilled off; the residue is repeatedly exhausted with boiling water, which 

 takes up the saligenin and leaves the greater part of the phenol undissolved. 

 The aqueous solution is concentrated to a small volume, and the drops of 



