NOTES ON SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 79 
2. Light considerably accelerates the reaction styrene -> metastyrene. 
3. Styrene which has previously been exposed to the light polymerizes more 
quickly in the dark than unexposed styrene, so that there is a photochemical 
after-effect. 
The course of the polymerization was, in these experiments, followed by measuring 
the viscosity. 
Stobbe?’) felt himself bound to support above conclusions in some other way and 
therefore controlled the speed of the polymerization by determining the refraction of 
the light. It had previously been established that the refractive index is noticeably 
increased already by small quantities of metastyrene, dissolved in the styrene. In his 
new experiments, Stobbe arrived at the same results as before, when he measured 
the viscosity. In addition to the photochemical after-effect previously mentioned, a 
thermic after-effect has been observed. Styrene which has been exposed to the light 
or heated polymerizes more quickly under otherwise equal conditions than preparations 
to which this has not been done. 
~The tendency of polymerization is greater in stored than in freshly distilled samples 
of styrene. 
Alcohols. 
Tinalool. As extremes of optical rotation, the following values have so far been 
observed; — 20°7’ for linalool from oil of limes and + 19°18’ for linalool from sweet 
orange oil, whereas we found from —17 to -+13° for the technical product of our 
own manufacture”). For linalool recovered from the urethane, a rotation of —17°41’ 
was ascertained in our laboratories*). We are, therefore, surprised by a communication 
from V. Paolini and L. Divizia‘), according to which linalool in an optically pure state 
is supposed to show only [@]p + 1.70 and —1.00°. They treated the hydrogen phthalate 
of linalool in alcoholic solution with the calculated amount of strychnine. In order 
to obtain the hydrogen phthalate, they dissolved linalool in light petroleum and added 
sodium in excess at alow temperature. The molecular quantity of phthalic anhydride 
was added to the sodium linaloolate, and the resulting sodium salt in aqueous 
solution treated with dilute sulphuric acid. The linalyl hydrogen phthalate separated 
as an oil, which was converted direct into its strychnine salt. This was purified by 
fractionated crystailization from alcohol and yielded on saponification linalool boiling 
between 197 and 198° (d1;00.869 to 0.870). The scission of synthetic linalool into its optical 
antipodes, was carried out after the same method. The less readily soluble strychnine salt 
of /-linalyl hydrogen phthalate (m.p. 155 to 156°) yielded on saponification d-linalool of 
[z]p + 1.70°, whereas from the mother-liquor /-linalool of [«]) — 1.60° was obtained. 
The authors do not give any explanation for the fact that this low specific rotation 
contradicts former observations. 
Unlike linalool, myrcenol affords an easily soluble, not crystalline strychnine salt 
of myrcenyl hydrogen phthalate. 
Menthol. In a voluminous paper, N. Kurssanow®) reports on the preparation of 
menthy! chloride and its conversion into menthene, menthol, dimenthyl, and other 
bodies allied to menthol. 
4) Inebigs Annalen 409 (1915), 1. — 2%) Comp. Gildemeister and Hoffmann, Zhe Volatile Oils, 274 ed., 
vol. Il, p. 353. — *) Report October 1911, 140. — 4) Rend. delia R. Accademia dei Lincei, Roma (5), 28 
(1914), Il. 171; Chem. Zentralbl. 1915, 1. 606. The authors kindly sent us a reprint. — 5) Journ. russ. phys, 
chem. Ges. 46 (1914), 815; Chem. Zentralbl. 1915, I. 893. 
