CHEMISTRY. (NEW SUBSTANCES.) 



10; 



cial and characteristic properties which show 

 affinities rather to oxygen than to ehlorin. 



In a preliminary account of their investigation 

 of the nature and origin of the poison of Lotus 

 u rubious, or the Egyptian vetch, W. li. Dunstan 

 and T. A. Henry show that the toxic property is 

 due to the prussic acid which is formed when the 

 plant is crushed with water, by means of the 

 hydrolytic action of an enzyme, lotase, on a glu- 

 cosid, lotusin, which is broken up into hydrocy- 

 anic acid, dextrose, and lotoflavin, a yellow col- 

 oring matter. The authors have continued the in- 

 vestigation, with the object of ascertaining the 

 properties and chemical action of lotoflavin and 

 of lotusin, and also of studying the properties of 

 lotase in relation to those of other hydrolytic 

 enzymes. From lotusin, a monobasic acid, lotu- 

 sinic acid, is obtained, which furnishes yellow 

 crystalline salts. With the exception of amyg- 

 dalin, lotusin is the only glucosid definitely 

 known that furnishes prussic acid as a decompo- 

 sition product. Lotusin is isomeric with luteolin, 

 the yellow coloring matter of Reseda luteola, and 

 with fisetin, the yellow coloring from young fustic, 

 Rims cotimis. Morin, from Morus tinctoria, ap- 

 pears to be hydroxylotoflavin. The amount of 

 prussic acid given by plants of different stages of 

 growth has been ascertained. The formation 

 reaches its maximum about seeding time, and 

 after this diminishes rapidly. The power of lotase 

 is rapidly abolished by heat, and is gradually 

 destroyed by contact with alcohol or glycosin. 



Tanaform, an antiseptic much employed lately 

 in veterinary practise, and first prepared only a 

 few years ago, is a condensation product of tannic 

 acid and formaldehyde. It is a buff-colored pow- 

 der, odorless and almost tasteless, insoluble in 

 water, but fairly soluble in alcohol, ether, caustic 

 alkali, and ammonia, and possesses all the anti- 

 septic powers of formaldehyde, but is free from its 

 unpleasant smell and irritant action, while it re- 

 tains the astringent properties of tannic acid. It 

 appears to be harmless when taken internally. 



In the preparation of the dialdehyde of suc- 

 cinic acid by C. Harries, the aldoxim of the alde- 

 hyde is prepared by the method of Ciamician and 

 Dunstedt from pyrrol and hydroxylamin; and 

 this, suspended in water and treated with nitrous 

 acid, gives an aqueous solution of the new dialde- 

 hyde, from which the pure substance can be iso- 

 lated with some difficulty by fractional distilla- 

 tion. Succinic aldehyde is the first member of the 

 aliphatic dialdehydes to be isolated in a purely 

 monomolecular form, and is of interest as being 

 the starting-point for the preparation of the three 

 heterocyclic rings, furane, thiophe^, and pyrrol. 

 The ready convertibility of the aldehyde into 

 derivatives of these rings is shown experimentally 

 in the note of the authors. 



Hitherto only one organic base, nicotin, has 

 been known as occurring in tobacco. As in most 

 plants producing alkaloids several bases usually 

 occur together, Pictet and Rotschy undertook a 

 search for others in this plant. In the treatment 

 of a large quantity of tobacco extract, three new 

 bases were discovered, which were named nicotein, 

 nicotallin, and nicotemin. The last of these was 

 associated with crude nicotin, with which it is 

 isomeric; but it differs from it in being a sec- 

 ondary base, and in forming a nitrosamin by 

 means of which it can be separated from the nico- 

 tin notwithstanding it is present in only a very 

 small amount in the crude base. The nicotein 

 contains two atoms and the nicotallin four atoms 

 of hydrogen less than nicotin. 



The osmyloxalates are described by M. L. Win- 

 trebert as forming a well-characterized series of 



salts. Details arc given in the author's paper l;c- 

 fore the Academy of Sciences of J'aiis of the 

 preparation and properties of the suits of sodium, 

 ammonium, silver, barium, strontium, and cal- 



cium. 



Prof. William Ramsey and Morris M. Travers, 

 continuing their examinations of the new gases in 

 the atmosphere during 11)00, found that the pres- 

 ence of what they had called metargon was to 

 be accounted for by the fact that in removing 

 oxygen from the mixture of the gases (krypton, 

 neon, xenon, helium, etc.), phosphorus contain- 

 ing carbon was employed. This mixture when 

 burned in oxygen yields a spectrum to some ex- 

 tent similar to that furnished by carbon monox- 

 id, but differing from it in that lines of cyanogen 

 gas are also present. The authors are .satisfied 

 that their metargon, the spectrum of which is 

 visible only at high pressure, and only when im- 

 pure phosphorus has been employed to remove 

 oxygen, must be attributed to some carbon com- 

 pound. Although their experiments had been nu- 

 merous, they had not succeeded at the time of pre- 

 paring their paper (in November, 1900) in pro- 

 ducing in quantity any gas yielding this com- 

 posite spectrum. It could only be obtained by a 

 mixture of carbonic monoxid with cyanogen. 



By many repetitions of the process of liquefy- 

 ing by means of liquid air the mixture of argon, 

 krypton, and xenon obtained by the evaporation 

 of air, the authors succeeded in separating the 

 three gases from one another. It was proved that 

 they are all monatomic by determining the ratios 

 of their specific heats, using Kundt's method. 

 Experiments were made, too, on compressibility 

 and observations of the spectra. That these gases 

 form a series in the periodic table between that of 

 fluorin and that of sodium is regarded by the 

 authors as proved from three lines of argument: 

 based upon the steady ratio of 1.66 between their 

 specific heats at constant pressure and constant 

 volume; on the fact that if their densities are re- 

 garded as identical with their atomic weights, as 

 is the case with certain diatomic gases, there is 

 no place for them in the periodic table; and be- 

 cause they exhibit gradations in such properties 

 as refractive index, atomic volume, melting-point, 

 and boiling-point, which find a fitting place in 

 diagrams showing such periodic relations. " Al- 

 though, however," the authors say, " such regu- 

 larity is to be noticed, similar to that which is to 

 be found with other elements, we had entertained 

 hopes that the simple nature of the molecules of 

 the inactive gases might have thrown light upon 

 the puzzling incongruities of the periodic table. 

 That hope has been disappointed. We have not 

 been able to predict accurately any one of the 

 properties of one of these gases from a knowledge 

 of those of the others ; an approximate guess is all 

 that can be made. The conundrum of the periodic 

 table has yet to be solved." 



Sir William Crookes has pointed out that in his 

 earlier proposed arrangement of the elements at 

 equidistant intervals on an ascending curve of 

 figure 8, horizontal vacant spaces exist into which 

 the new elements helium, neon, metargon, and 

 krypton may, in consideration of their properties, 

 be appropriately inserted. 



The powerful oxidizing acid called Caro's acid, 

 which is prepared either by treating a persulfate 

 with concentrated sulfuric acid or by the elec- 

 trolysis of moderately concentrated sulfuric acid, 

 or by the action of concentrated sulfuric acid on 

 hydrogen peroxid, has been found by Baeyer and 

 Villiger to have a composition represented by the 

 formula H 2 SO 5 . It is gradually changed in solu- 

 tion to sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxid. 



