17 



In other cases there was disagreement with some of the published 

 statements and confirmation of others. Thus, Allen and Tankard 

 obtained no nitrogen from glycocin, 1 and Tankard none from asparagin, 1 

 while Oechsuer de Coninck reported both these substances as acted on 

 (by sodium hypochlorite) when gently heated, nitrogen gas being 

 evolved. 2 The writer obtained from glycocin 4.2 per cent of nitrogen 

 instead of 18.G7 per cent as required by the formula, 3 and from aspar- 

 agin 11.12 per cent instead of 18.67 per cent, the amount calculated, 

 taking account of the presence of a molecule of water of crystallization. 



In a number of cases the quantity of nitrogen evolved from an amid 

 or amido-acid of known constitution seemed to represent a simple frac- 

 tion of the total quantity contained in the material operated on, and it 

 might not unnaturally be suspected, as in some of the cases reported 

 by Allen and Tankard, that one-fourth or one-half to two-thirds of the 

 whole quantity was liberated. Thus in one experiment leucin gave 2.58 

 per cent of nitrogen instead of 10.69 (calculated), or about one-fourth ; in 

 another, kreatin gave 21.96 per cent instead of 32.06 (calculated), about 

 two-thirds; and in another, hypoxan thine gave 18.80 per cent instead of 

 41.18 (calculated), which might mean one half two atoms out of four. 

 But it is not believed there is any more real significance in these approxi- 

 mations to definite fractional parts of the nitrogen being evolved than 

 tn the similar approximations to which Wanklyn drew attention in con- 

 nection with his so-called albuminoid-ammonia process. His conclu- 

 sions have been shown to be entirely erroneous. Different figures could 

 be obtained from the same materials acted on by varying the conditions 

 of the experiment, and in some cases there was no really sharp ending to 

 the reaction, traces of gas continuing to be slowly given off for hours 

 after the main portion had been collected. Moreover, while our knowl- 

 edge of the constitution of kreatin would make it not improbable that 

 two atoms of nitrogen out of three should be liberated, or two out of four 

 in the case of hypoxan thin, there is no similar ground for any expecta- 

 tion that leucin, containing but one atom of nitrogen in the molecule, 

 should yield one-fourth; or glutamic acid, also with but one atom, should 

 yield something like one-fourth (2.56 per cent instead of 9.52 calculated). 



The researches of S. Hoogewerff and W. A., van Dorp have shown 

 that numerous definite products other than elementary nitrogen may 

 be formed by the action of alkalin hypobromites upon amids and amido- 

 acids, especially those containing cyclic nuclei. In several of the 

 writer's experiments as, for instance, with alanin among the simpler 



'A. H. Allen, Commercial Organic Analysis, 1896, Vol. Ill, Part III, p. 275. Pos- 

 sibly the solutions were not heated. 



'Comptes renclus, 1895, 121, 893-894. Jour. Chem. Soc. (London), (1896), 

 Abstracts, org. chein., p. 282. 



3 In Watt's Dictionary of Chemistry, revised edition by M. M. Pattison Muir and 

 H. F. Morley, Vol. II, p. 627, it is stated, on the authority of Deuiges (Comptes reii- 

 dus, 107, 662), that with sodium hypobromite nitrogen is evolved from glycocin. 



2925 No. 54 2 



