360 M. Heinz on Glycolic Acid. 
From the mode of its preparation, monobrominated ethylene, 
in passing through strong potash, is simply resolved into acetyl- 
ene and hydrobromic acid, 
€? H® Br—H Br=€? H?. 
Monobrominated Acetylene. 
ethylene. 
By a similar series of actions, M. Morkownikoff has prepared 
what appears to be the gas allylene, described by Sawitsch. 
According to Heinz*, the best method of preparing glycolic 
acid is from monochloracetic acid, which, under the influence of 
alkalies, decomposes into an alkaline glycolate and into an alka- 
line chloridet. | 
The hydrate of glycolic acid may readily be obtained by the 
following method :—To the solution of the mixture of glycolate 
of soda and chloride of sodium obtained in the above reaction, a 
sufficient quantity of solution of sulphate of copper is added. 
The glycolate of copper, C+ H? Cu O®, which forms, is a diffi- 
cultly soluble salt; it precipitates as a crystallme mass, and 
is readily obtained pure by washing. This salt is then dif- 
fused in a large quantity of water, the mixture raised to boiling, 
and saturated with sulphuretted hydrogen. When all the cop- 
per is precipitated it is filtered; and as the filtrate is brownish, 
from the solution of a small quantity of sulphide of copper, it is 
evaporated to a small volume, while a slow stream of sulphuretted 
hydrogen is passed through, and when now filtered, is obtained 
quite colourless. 
By a series of operations analogous to those by which an 
alcohol of the ethyle series may be transformed into the next 
higher acid, Cannizarot has obtained from anisic alcohol an acid 
homologous with anisic acid. 
Anisic alcohol, €® H'®Q?§, appears to contain the group 
€° H® 0, which plays the part of a monoatomic radical. When 
the chloride of this group, C® H9 O, Cl, was treated with cyanide 
of potassium, chloride of potassium was formed, and an oil which 
was the cyanide, C7 H9O EN. This oil was obtained in the im- 
pure state, and was treated directly with potash at the tempera- 
ture of ebullition, by which a large quantity of ammonia was 
disengaged ; and on the subsequent addition of hydrochloric acid 
in excess, an oil deposited which solidified to a crystalline mass. 
This consisted of the new acid which Cannizaro names homoanisic 
* Poggendorff’s Annalen, January 1861. 
tT Plul. Mag. vol. xvi. p. 138. 
{ Comptes Rendus, vol. li. p. 606, 
§ Phil. Mag. vol. xx. p. 294. 
