[ 506 ] 



LXVII. Chemical Notices from Foreign Journals. 

 By E. Atkinson, Ph.D., F.C.S. 



[Continued from p. 229.] 



WE have given an account, in a former notice*, of the experi- 

 ments of Fittig and others on the formation of the hydro- 

 carbons of the aromatic series, the general result of which was to 

 show that the higher members might be obtained from the lower 

 by substituting radicals of the ethyle series for hydrogen. Thus 



€ 6 H 5 



toluole, Q 7 H 8 , was found to be methylphenyle, ^ Tj3 j xylole, 



€ 6 H 5 1 

 € 8 H 10 , to be ethylphenyle, g 2 jjs r ; and so forth. 



Fittig and Ernst showed that the hydrocarbon methylxylole, 

 € 8 H 9 "l 

 Q H 3 p wmcfl was obtained by treating a mixture of bromide of 



methyle and brominated xylole with sodium, was identical with 

 cumole, Q 9 H 12 , as was evidenced by a comparative examination 

 of some of the derivatives of the synthetically prepared body with 

 those of the cumole extracted from coal-tar. 



By the action of sodium on a mixture of bromide of ethyle 

 and monobrominated xylole, the same chemists obtained ethyl- 

 xylole, Q 8 H 9 (€ 2 H 5 ) , or, as it may also be considered, ethyldime- 



CG H 3 

 thylated benzole, C 6 H 3 < G H 3 . This hydrocarbon differs from 



[€ 2 H 5 

 any known one of the same composition. 



Fittig and Bigot f have prepared some other hydrocarbons by 

 this process. Amyltoluole, € l2 H 18 = € 6 H 4 | ^ 5 gn, is ob- 

 tained by the action of sodium on a mixture of bromide of amyle 

 and brominated toluole. It is a body of pleasant odour, which 

 has a constant boiling-point, 213°. Nitric acid acts upon it 

 very energetically, and forms a nitro-compound, dinitroamyl- 



the image in one spectroscope could be made to shift laterally ; and it is 

 likely that the position of coincidence of the two spectra would be readily 

 seized, even with extremely faint spectra. To secure this motion of the 

 images with the instrument for observing the zodiacal light, the prisms of 

 the spectroscopes might be placed a little out of the position of minimum 

 deviation, and one of them so mounted as to admit of rotation through a 

 small angle. 



* See Phil. Mag. S. 4. vol. xxix. p. 311. 



f Liebig's Annalen, vol. cxli. p. 161. 



