agitation with the least possible quantity of potash solution, 
filtered and the ether distilled off from the water-bath. There 
remained a brownish residue, solid at ordinary grec 
which agreed in its crystalline texture and other externa 
properties, as well as in its fusing point (87°°8 C.), with pees 
cyanide C,H,(CN),. When boiled with a concentrated potas 
solution it evolves ammonia, and leaves a residue in nie 
means of its suffocating vapor and reaction with ferric chloride, 
ethylene succinic acid may easily be detected. 
The course of this phase of the decomposition may therefore 
be represented by the following equation : 
CH,CN CH,CN 
= H,O+H 
2h6 2 oH tH:0 du ont 2002+ a 2) 
precisely analogous to the reaction by which, during the elec: 
td 
trolysis of potassium acetate dimethyl | __° is obtained. 
The study of the associated products of the electrolysis bag 
still incomplete, I abstain from a further development ot t il 
theoretical bearings of the facts already communicated ut 
the missing data can be obtained. ie 
As far as studied the reaction affords a very clear and positive 
evidence regarding the constitution of ethylene; it proves PY r 
simple synthesis that this body is formed by the direct. union 0 
two methylene groups, and, that its formula should be written, 
in accordance with what is now the general usage yes and not, 
3 
as it is still occasionally written, ‘so cy’, or, what is the 
CH ” 
same thi < 
ins, (455 
It is my intention to extend this investigation to the dob 
and triply substituted’ acetic acids, and, as the corresponding 
