F. &. Williams—Synthesis of Hydrocarbons. 363 
For the platinum cone used in filtering, I take an old worn 
piece of platinum foil, one that has been used in blowpipe 
work, make it perfectly smooth and cut it to the center on one 
side, bend it till it nearly fits the bottom of the funnel and 
then press it in place by means of a turned wooden cone. e 
more small holes in the foil the better. 
I will add that these valves, as shown in fig, 2, as well as 
the entire apparatus, fig. 1, are made in the college workshops 
here, and will be furnished at cost, on application to Profes- 
sor Anthony. 
Chemical Laboratory of the Iowa State Agricultural College, t 
Ames, Iowa, Sept. 8th, 1873. 
Art. XL.—Chemical Papers from the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology.—No. III. On the Synthesis of Hydrocarbons by 
the treatment of Cast Iron with Acids ; by ¥. H. WILLIAMS. 
chemists, and the discoveries of Woehler, Kolbe, Berthelot 
est interest; it is therefore singular that the simplest possible 
means of preparing artificially hydrocarbons has received so 
little accurate study. : 
_ No synthesis in chemistry can be neater than that which 
Joins the carbon combined in cast iron with the hydrogen evolved 
uring the solution of the compound in an acid, and if no 
one has hitherto isolated and examined the oe of this 
Teaction, the reason of this neglect may perhaps lie in the 
erroneous assumption, that the hydrocarbons must consist in 
such large part of marsh gas or similar gases, as to make it 
3 ages to separate them from the hydrogen evolved. 
Jr. Schafheutl* has given us the most precise accounts 
Which we possess, of attempts to isolate the hydrocarbons pro- 
duced during the solution of pig iron in an acid, but he does 
not appear to have obtained any notable quantities of sub- 
stances ire enough to be recognized. 
th 
Method a great variety of hydrocarbons, belonging to the satu- 
* Erdmann, Jour. der Chemie, 1859, 76, 271. 
