1387 
The President said that this analysis certainly seemed to 
agree with Prof. Wurtz’s theory, but we would require more 
extended and fuller examinations to be made of the rocks 
under consideration, before we could accept it entirely. 
The following paper was read, 
On Kreosol and Phenol and their Homologues. 
By Dr. P. SCHWEITZER. 
In the year 1832 a body was discovered by Reichenbach, 
in the distilled oils of beach-wood tar, which on account of 
the peculiar property it possessed, of preserving meat and 
other highly organized substances, was called by him 
Kreosot. This substance attracted the attention of many 
chemists who studied its properties and sought to separate it 
from tar oils in general, and it was with a degree of satis- 
faction, that two years later F. F. Runge announced his 
discovery of a Kreosote in coal-tar oil, which he called 
earbolic acid. Reichenbach, fearing his right of the first 
discovery, infringed by this carbolic acid, which according to 
Runge differed slightly from his compound, tried to demon- 
strate for his own glorification, the identity of both sub- 
stances, and though Laurent, in the year 1841, proved 
carbolic acid to be Phenylic hydrate, and pronounced it a 
different body from Kreosote, Reichenbach did not give up 
the contest, but conducted it with a pertinacity, which caused 
a general confusion among chemists, a confusion which 
became quite lamentable, when in 1855 Cresylic hydrate was 
discovered in coal-tar by Fairlie, and which on account of 
the near resemblance to true Kreosote was generally accepted 
to be identical with the original compound obtained from 
beach-wood tar. 
Many chemists have given their attention since then to the 
study of those two compounds, but carbolic acid very shortly 
after its discovery began to be introduced in commerce and 
sold as Kreosote. It was difficult, and at times impossible to 
procure the oils made from wood-tar, and it was owing to 
