ON SOME DERIVATIVES FROM THE OLEFINES. 621 
From this analysis it would appear that the repeated distillation which the 
body had undergone had not materially affected its constitution. 
The bisulphide of amylen is a light yellow, limpid liquid, of offensive smell. 
Its specific gravity at 13°C. is 0:907. Its boiling point circa 200°C. It shows no 
tendency to combine with the oxides of lead or mercury, like a mercaptan; nor 
does it, under ordinary conditions, combine with oxygen acids or sulphide of 
hydrogen, showing, in this respect, an essential difference from its oxygen 
isotype the binoxide of ethylen, which unites directly and readily with oxygen 
acids and chloride of hydrogen. 
The Bichloride of Amylen, C,, Hy, Cl,- 
All my efforts to combine chlorine directly with amylen have failed. Both 
dry and wet chlorine are absorbed with the greatest avidity by amylen. But the 
reaction is not a simple union. Even when freshly-made ice-cold chlorine water 
is shaken with amylen in the dark, conditions perhaps the most favourable for 
direct union, abundance of hydrochloric acid is eliminated, and the product, 
which, after the expulsion of the amylen, is heavier than water, shows no con- 
stant boiling point, and contains chlorine-substitution products, either of amylen 
or of its chloride. 
But, indirectly, the bichloride of amylen may be prepared with facility; and 
as the method is both elegant and remarkable, I may describe it here. It is - 
based upon the power which amylen enjoys of reducing the pentachloride of 
phosphorus to the state of terchloride, a reaction which at once reminds us of 
the analogous one which is frequently used to prepare the bichloride of ethylen ; 
namely, the elimination by that olefine of two equivalents of chlorine from the 
pentachloride of antimony. 
If pentachloride of phosphorus be finely powdered and treated with perfectly 
dry amylen, a rise in temperature of a few degrees Centigrade takes place. No 
hydrochloric acid is evolved. The amylen disappears after a time, and the solid 
becomes more bulky. Successive quantities of amylen are added as long as these 
changes occur, and the mixture is allowed to stand for some days. The pasty 
mass is then transferred to a basin, which is set to float upon a bowl of water, 
the whole being loosely covered. The moist atmosphere causes the whole to 
become liquid in about twelve hours, and the uncombined amylen escapes. The 
residual liquid has now to be washed, at first with water, and finally with dilute 
caustic potash, till all acid reaction disappears. It should be then gently 
warmed on a water bath to expel all traces of amylen, then dried over 
chloride of calcium, and rectified. 
The product, which, after some rectifications, boils constantly between 141°C, 
and 147°C., is pure bichloride of amylen, C,, Hi, Cle. 
