— 68 — 
The pure ketone shows no fluorescence. The fluorescent ketone des- 
cribed by Charabot-Dupont-Pillet^), was clearly contaminated with 
the above-mentioned basic constituent. 
The methyl heptyl carbinol obtained from methyl heptyl ketone 
by reduction with sodium in an aqueous-ethereal solution, — a body 
which from another side has recently been detected in oil of rue (see 
below) — is a liquid with a pleasant odour, boiling at 193° to 194^ 
(90° to 91° at 12 mm). Dimethyl heptyl carbinol produced from the 
ketone by Grignard's reaction with methyl magnesium iodide, boils 
at 96° to 98° (Iv^j5 nim). The carbinol boils at 10 mm pressure 
at 115°, at 14 mm at 120°; its acetic ester distils at 122° (11 mm). 
The second reduction-product from methyl nonyl ketone, representing 
10 to 15 per cent., is methyl nonyl carbinol pinacone, a solid body of 
the boiling point 215° (10 mm). Dimethyl nonyl carbinol boils at 
117° to 118° (12,5 mm). According to Houben's statements, the 
conversion of the methyl nonyl ketoxime (after Beckmann) with con- 
centrated sulphuric acid, does not take place in accordance with the 
observations made by Hantzsch"^) with ketoximes; for the author 
found, contrary to Thoms^), in addition to acetyl nonyl amine, also 
a large proportion of caprinic acid amide. 
F. B. Power and H. Lees^) also report on a number of interesting 
bodies detected in oil of rue. The origin of the material examined 
could not be determined with certainty, but the authors believe, on 
the strength of the resemblance of its chemical and physical constants 
to those of the oil examined by von Soden and Henle^), that it 
was an Algerian rue oil. It had a bright-yellow colour without fluor- 
escence, the specific gravity d 0,8405, the optical rotation — 3°48^ 
and was soluble in 2 parts 70 per cent, alcohol. The quantity of oil 
used was 1800 grams. By shaking with 20 per cent, sulphuric acid, 
a basic body was abstracted from the oil, but this body (contrary to 
the base of rue oil discovered in our laboratory) showed no blue fluor- 
escence, and had an odour reminding of quinoline. The crystals of 
the melting point 156°, previously found by Thoms^) and lately also 
by Houben in the German oil, were proved by Power and Lees 
to be salicylic acid, clearly originating from its methyl ester which was 
obtained in small quantity along with it. The properties of the two 
ketones which are also present in this oil are as follows: 
Les huiles essentielles, p. 283. 
2) Berliner Berichte 24 ( 1 891), 4021. 
^) Berichte d. deutsch. pharm. Ges. 11 ( 1 901), 3. 
^) Journ. chem. Soc. 81 (1902), 1585. 
^) Pharm. Ztg. 46 (1901), 277 and 1026. — Report October 1901, 47. 
^) loc. cit. 
