- 87 - 
difficult to dissolve, and these have the properties ascribed to them 
by Pesci. With regard to the boiling point of the base, however, 
Pesci has been in error, for the latter lies at about 260°, i. e. about 50° 
higher than would be expected from Pesci's statements. But it is 
correct that, as Pesci mentions, in the reduction of the phellandrene 
nitrites, in addition to the volatile diamine, also a considerable quantity 
of a non- volatile base is formed; the latter is still to be submitted 
to a more detailed examination. 
Very welcome contributions to the knowledge of sesquiterpenes 
and sesquiterpenic alcohols have been supplied by J. Gadamer 
and T. Amenomiya^). These authors examined atractylol, a sesqui- 
terpenic alcohol C;^5 Hgg O which forms the principal constituent of the 
essential oil of Atractylis ovata Thunbg. , and in connection therewith 
also examined a number of other known sesquiterpenic alcohols and 
the sesquiterpenes formed therefrom by loss of water. 
Atractylol, obtained in the pure state by crystaUisation from pe- 
troleum ether at a temperature much reduced by means of solid carbon 
dioxide and ether, possesses a faint odour which when much diluted 
reminds of lilies of the valley; it melts at 59°, boils at atmospheric 
pressure without decomposition at 290° to 292°, and is optically 
inactive. As follows from the behaviour of atractylol towards phenyl 
isocyanate, and from acylation tests, it must be considered a tertiary 
alcohol; this view also agrees with the fact that the alcohol, when 
treated with water-abstracting substances, such as potassium hydrosul- 
phate, is very readily converted into a hydrocarbon C^5H24 atractyl- 
ene. When freshly prepared this represents a fairly mobile liquid with 
a cedar -like odour, boiling point at 10 mm pressure chiefly at 125° 
to 126°; d^ = 0,9101, and nj^goo = I750893, which when kept 
polymerises, becomes viscid, and acquires a lemon-like odour. A similar 
polymerised product is formed when atractylene is produced from 
atractylene dihydrochloride by boiling with aniline. To the pure non- 
polymerised hydrocarbon belong two ethylene-linkings, as appears from 
its behaviour towards bromine and hydriodic acid, whilst the atractylene 
regenerated from the dihydrochloride represents essentially the polym- 
erised compound, which also differs by its slightly dissimilar physical 
constants from the hydrocarbon obtained by means of potassium hydro- 
sulphate. An attempt to attach water to atractylene, and to regenerate 
the alcohol, remained unsuccessful ; it was equally impossible to obtain 
a crystallised nitrosochloride for the purpose of identification. 
As already mentioned, the authors, in connection with their 
examination of atractylol and atractylene, publish communications on 
^) Archiv der Pharm. 241 (1903), 22. 
