194- TKANSAOTIOXS OF THE [MARCH 15, 



vented methods of fractional distillation have disclosed previ- 

 ously unsuspected constituents and peculiarities. Lachowitz has 

 found in the petroleum of Galicia several members of the aroma- 

 tic series;"^ Mendelejeff has noticed abnormal relations between 

 the spccitac gravity and boiling-points of successive fractions in 

 distilling American petroleum." The various commercial pro- 

 ducts from crude petroleum, rhigolene, vaseline, parafllin, etc., 

 continually find new and useful applications, their names being 

 household words. 



The industrial and scientific novelties in the important groups 

 of oils and fats, alcohols, and acids, cannot be specified. After 

 cane-sugar, glucose is receiving the most attention; in the U. S. 

 and Germany are sixty manufactories of the various grades of 

 starch-sugar, the annual home production alone being valued at 

 810,000,000. Glucose is extensively used as a substitute for 

 cane-sugar in the manufacture of table syrup, in brewing, in 

 confectionery, in making artificial honey, and in adulterating 

 cane-sugar, as well as in many minor applications. Recent ex- 

 l^eriments by Dr. Duggan," of Baltimore, show that glucose is in 

 no way inferior to cane-sugar in healthfulness. Much work has 

 been clone on sorghum by Dr. Peter Collier,"* and the first com- 

 ])lete examination of maple-sugar has lately been made by Prof. 

 Wiley," of the Department of Agriculture. Lovers of the latter 

 sweet will be pleased to learn that it can be made by adding to a 

 mixture of glucose and cane-sugar a patented extract of hickory 

 bark which imitates the desired fiavor. 



The great demand for high explosives as adjuncts to engineer- 

 ing, mining, and military operations, occasions constant experi- 

 mentation;" besides the invention of mere empiric mixtures of 

 known substances, chiefly nitro-compounds, much work is done 

 of a purely scientific nature, such as investigations on the chem- 

 ical reactions and products of explosive mixtures, on the heat 

 disengaged by their explosion, on the pressure of the gases 

 produced, and on the duration of the explosive reaction. Thanks 

 to the "Notes "of Prof. C. E. Munroe"" of the U. S. Naval 

 Academy, chemists are informed of the freshest novelties.in this 

 de]iartment, rendering further mention superfluous. 



(18.) The researches of chemists in the aromatic series out- 

 weigh in both number and importance those in all other sections. 

 Tiie once despised refuse coal-tar has created an entirely new 

 ciiemistry, and, in its products and derivatives, is by far the 

 most promising field for investigators. The compounds of the 

 aromatic series have afforded some of the most notable successes 

 in synthetical chemistry, as well as some of the most useful sub- 

 stances for dyeing, for hygienic and medicinal purposes. The 

 oil obtained in the dry distillation of bones, a subject of classic- 

 investigations by Anderson," of Glasgow, forty years ago, has ro- 



