470 Transactions.—Chemistry. 
As this substance, though clearly an alkaloid, does not yield any colour 
reaction with oxidizing agents (such as chloride of lime), it is neither aniline 
nor naphtha-aniline, and therefore is not derived from either benzol or 
naphthaline, and so does not indicate the presence of these hydro-carbons in 
the oil tested. The alternative is, then, that it is derived from a hydro- 
carbon or some hydro-carbons of the series which benzol heads and typifies, 
and which is in all probability either touluole or xylole, or a mixture of 
the two. 
Having obtained this result I extended my researches, and so have 
ascertained that all the brands of American kerosenes which we have here, 
together with the so-termed benzols, also contain hydro-carbons, which are 
capable of yielding alkaloids to the process I have described (the aniline 
process), but still give no colour reaction to oxidizing agents. 
Our own petroleums, both the heavy (Taranaki), and the light one 
(Poverty Bay), as well as their distillates light and heavy, also behave in 
this respect like the American oils. 
In the case of the Taranaki crude petroleum in particular, this series of 
hydro-carbons is well represented—that is, quantitatively. 
The nitro-oil of this petroleum (the first product of the process employed), 
when cleansed from the unaltered oil by repeated solutions in aleohol and 
precipitations by water, has a sweet and powerful odour much resembling 
that of nitro-benzol. 
The facts detailed above lead me to suspect that every petroleum contains 
one or more representatives of the benzol series of hydro-carbons. Which 
particular member of this group (or which members, if more than one) 
is present in the several oils I have cited, I eannot inform you until I have 
ascertained the composition of their respective alkaloids, a labour of so 
tedious a kind, that I cannot promise to perform it for some time to come. 
Art. LXXIX.—On a Property possessed by Essential Oils of whitening the 
Precipitate produced by mixing a Solution of Mereuro-iodide with one of . 
Mercuric-chloride. By Winuiaw Srey, Analyst to the Geological Survey 
of New Zealand. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 17th August, 1878.] 
Ix article 88 of the last volume of our Transactions,* I showed that 
solutions of certain alkaloids and albumenoids, made so weak that they will 
not give any precipitates with mercuro-iodide of potassium, will give them 
immediately that a little mereuric-chloride is mixed therewith, in addition 
* Trans. N.Z.IL., IX., p. 553, 
