98 Report of Schimmel § Co. 1921. 



added may be hydrolysed to different degrees in different cases, it is intelligible why 

 these products do not show exactly analogous compositions. 



The treatment of anisole with mercuric acetate led, in two experiments, to two 

 preparations of melting points 173° and 169°, based upon the formula (C 7 H 8 • HgOH)OH. 

 The difference of the melting points is ascribed by the authors to the circumstance that 

 a little water was split off in the one case. Hot solution of sodium chloride yielded 

 from the mercury derivative the i?-anisylmercuric chloride CH 3 OC 6 H 4 HgCl (m. p. 236 to 

 237°) which is mercurated in the nucleus. This body was identical with the substances 

 prepared by Michaelis and Rabinerson 1 ) and by Dimroth 2 ). 



Analogously an additive product of hydrated mercuric oxide and phenetole 

 (C 2 H 5 OC 6 • H 5 • HgOH)OH (m. p. 1 35.5°) and a i)-phenetylmercuric bromide QHsOCeHJigBr 

 (m. p. 238°) mercurated in the nucleus, were obtained. 



Hydrocarbons. 



Heptane. — E. and R. E. Kremers 3 ) have commenced publication of an investigation 

 of the chemistry of heptane and heptane solutions. Whilst 25 years ago the physical 

 chemists of the school of Ostwald had only known a chemistry of aqueous solutions, 

 the authors had always desired to study also non-aqueous solutions. The behaviour 

 of a group of isomeric nitrosochlorides — of true, simple nitrosochldrides, isonitroso- 

 chlorides and bis-nitrosochlorides — and also of cognate compounds in various organic 

 solvents had already in those days pointed to the importance of the chemistry of 

 non-aqueous solutions. Heptane had the advantage over other organic solvents that 

 it is a volatile, saturated hydrocarbon, the boiling point of which comes very near 

 that of water. 



These authors have now succeeded in preparing perfectly pure w-heptane 4 ) from 

 larger quantities of balsam oil of Pinus sabiniana, Douglas. By steam distillation the 

 crude product yielded 4.2 to 9.4 per cent, of an oil which already had the properties 

 of an exceptionally-pure heptane. It was in spite of this appearance further purified 

 by means of concentrated sulphuric acid and of 1 per cent, solution of permanganate 

 and by repeated fractionation. The heptane thus purified had the following constants: — 

 b. p. 97.33° (760 mm); d, 0o 0.68288; d 40 o 0.66623; [«] D ±0; n D2o0 1.3895. 



In a further paper E. Kremers and D. C. L. Sherk 5 ) report upon the preparation 

 and the properties of saturated solutions of hydrohalogens in heptane. Hydrogen 

 fluoride was soluble to about 0.05 per cent, the chloride to 0.622 per cent, the bromide 

 to 3.57 per cent, and the iodide to 15.31 per cent, in the hydrocarbon at 20 per cent 

 They studied the action of these solutions upon a series of metals and they ascertained 

 that some of these elements are soluble in the liquids, partly under generation of hydrogen. 



p-Cymene. — Spruce turpentine oil, which is obtained from the spruce fir as a 

 by-product in the paper manufacture by the sulphite-pulp process, consists very largely 

 of ^>-cymene. A. S. Wheeler 6 ) prepared the latter in the pure state by first passing a 

 current of air through the crude material for some time, thus removing the sulphur 

 dioxide. The oil was then distilled by means of superheated steam. The vapours 

 were sent first through a 30 per cent solution of sodic hydrate before they were col- 



x ) Berl. Berichte 23 (1890), 2344. — 2 ) Berl. Berichte 35 (1902), 2867. — 3 ) Journ. Americ. pharm. Assoc 

 9 (1920), 857. — 4 ) The distillate, which Thorpe obtained from Pinus sabiniana, showed a feeble rotation and 

 could hence not be pure heptane. — Years ago we obtained a distillation product the main fraction of which 

 was optically-inactive; see Report October 1906, 64 and also April 1913, 102. — 8 ) Journ. Americ. pharm. 

 Assoc. 10 (1921), 26. — 6 ) Journ. Americ. clmn. Soc. 42 (1920), 1842. 



