252 DR ANDERSON ON THE PRODUCTS OF THE 
before described* as a product of the action of alkalies upon codeine, under the 
name of Metacetamine, but which I now prefer calling Propylamine, in accord- 
ance with the name now usually applied to the acid with which it corresponds. 
Unfortunately the quantity of propylamine obtained was too small to admit of 
my examining either its compounds or itself with accuracy. It is, however, a 
perfectly limpid and colourless fluid, with a strong pungent odour resembling that 
of petinine, but more ammoniacal. It gives an abundant white cloud when a 
rod dipped in hydrochloric acid is brought near it, and unites with the con- 
centrated acids, with the evolution of much heat. Its hydrochlorate crystallizes 
in large plates closely similar to those of methylamine and petinine. 
The discovery of methylamine and propylamine among these products natu- 
rally directed my attention to the probable presence of ethylamine, the interme- 
diate term of the same series; but as I had not employed any very particular 
precautions in condensing the more volatile products during the successive recti- 
fications to which I had subjected the crude oil, almost the whole of it appears to 
have escaped. By collecting, however, the first few drops passing over in the 
rectification of the portion boiling under 150° in hydrochloric acid, and forming a 
platinum salt, I obtained the following result :— 
6°930 grains of platinochloride gave 2°649 grains platinum. 
This corresponds to 38°22 per cent. Now the per-centage of platinum in the 
ethylamine salt is 39:60, and the result obtained, which is much too high for the 
propylamine salt, shows that I must have had a mixture of the two, which 
might have been separated had I possessed a sufficient quantity of the salt. It will 
readily be understood that a result of this kind could not in general be produced 
as evidence of the existence of ethylamine, but under the particular circumstances 
of the case, the next term of the same series on either side of it having been 
detected, it may be considered as sufficiently conclusive of its presence. 
The occurrence of these bases enables us to establish, on satisfactory grounds, 
the constitution of petinine. In the first part of this paper, an analysis of that 
base is given, which agrees in the most perfect manner with the formula C, H,, N, 
which was also confirmed by that of its platinum salt. It cannot, however, for a 
moment be doubted that it is homologous with the bases with which I have now 
shewn it to be associated, that its true formula is C, H,, N, and that it is really 
butylamine, the corresponding base of the butyric group. The analysis of the 
platinum salt given in my former paper agrees equally well with this formula, and 
though that of the base differs from it to some extent, much less reliance is to be 
placed upon it, as it is scarcely possible, when operating upon so small a scale 
as that upon which I was compelled to work, to subject the bases to a sufficient 
number of distillations to effect their complete separation. 
* Hdinburgh Philosophical Transactions, vol. xx., p. 82. 

