M. Boutlerow on Methylenitane. 475, 



with alcohol a saccharine substance was dissolved out, which 

 Boutlerow calls methylenitane. It is uncrystallizable, and, heated, 

 on platinum-foil, emits the odour of burnt sugar. Its aqueous 

 solution is feebly acid, and reduces a solution of tartrate of copper 

 even in the cold. When heated with excess of butyric acid, it 

 forms an oily compound, which is somewhat viscous at ordinary 

 temperatures ; it is decomposed by baryta-water with formation 

 of butyrate of baryta. It was not possible to free it entirely 

 from an inorganic substance, probably formiate of baryta, and 

 the analyses were not very concordant. Boutlerow assumes pro- 

 visionally that its formula is € 7 H 14 O 6 , and he thus expresses its 

 formation : — 



4€ 2 H 4 2 = G 7 H 14 6 + €H 2 2 . 



Dioxymethylene. Methylenitane. Formic acid. 

 Boutlerow says, " It is the first example of the synthesis of a 

 substance of a saccharine character, and from the simplest com- 

 pounds of organic chemistry. Considering the whole series of 

 changes through which ethylic alcohol passes, which can itself 

 be formed from the elements it contains, it may be said that the 

 first example of the complete synthesis of a saccharine substance 

 is here met with." 



The same chemist* has described a new mode of forming 

 ethylene and its homologues. When iodide of methylene, C 2 H 2 I 2 , 

 was heated with copper and water in a closed tube, a gaseous 

 mixture was formed containing carbonic acid, marsh-gas, and 

 Various hydrocarbons, about 85 per cent, of which were absorbed 

 by bromine with the formation of an oily liquid. This proved 

 to be a mixture of the bromides of the general formula G n H> Br 2 , 

 the greater part of which consisted of bromide of ethylene, 

 G 2 H 4 Br 2 . 



Beilsteinf has made a series of experiments on glyceric acid. 

 When an aqueous solution of this acid was mixed with iodide of 

 phosphorus a brisk reaction was set up, and hydriodic acid vapours 

 disengaged ; the mass in the retort, at first liquid, solidified on 

 cooling to a white crystalline mass, which on recrystallization 

 was found to consist of iodopropionic acid, € 3 H 5 1 O 2 , the forma- 

 tion of which may be thus expressed : — 



G 3 H 6 4 + PI 2 = € 3 H 5 I0 2 + HI + PO 2 . 



Glyceric acid. Iodopropionic acid. 



The group P O 2 , which contains the elements of phosphorous and 

 phosphoric acids, probably takes up water, and decomposes into 

 these acids. Iodopropionic acid crystallizes from a hot saturated 



* Liebig's Annalen, December 1861. f Ibid. November 1861. 



