Obituary Notices. 
xxxvn 
thesis mentioned above. From this “sulphite of perchloride of 
carbon ” Kolbe obtained the potassium salt now represented by the 
formula CC1 3 S0 2 0K, and from the corresponding hydrogen salt, 
by successively replacing the chlorine by hydrogen, CHC1 2 S0 2 0H, 
CH 2 C1S0 2 0H, and CH 3 S0 2 0H. 
A great series of investigations, beginning with a joint work by 
Frankland and Kolbe on the action of caustic potash on the cyanides 
of the alcohol radicals, led Kolbe to theoretical views as to the con- 
stitution and relation to one another of the group of acids now known 
as “carboxyl compounds” and the corresponding aldehydes, alcohols, 
ketones, &c. These considerations profoundly influenced the history 
of chemistry, although, for the reason already mentioned, Kolbe has 
not even now obtained full credit for what he did. It is true that we 
are very apt to read old papers in the light of recent discoveries and 
to find in them more than their writers intended, and the composer 
of an eloge is specially liable to this error; but it is impossible 
to read Kolbe’s papers without seeing that he fully recognised, at 
a time when no one else had a glimpse of the truth on the matter, 
what is the real relation of the “sulphone” and “carbone” acids to 
sulphuric and carbonic acids respectively, and expressed these 
relations and those of the acids to the aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, 
&c., with perfect distinctness. His theory enabled him to predict 
the discovery of the secondary and tertiary alcohols; and when 
Friedel published his discovery, that acetone gives, by treatment 
with nascent hydrogen, a propylic alcohol, Kolbe at once declared 
that this must be one of his secondary alchohols, and that on oxida- 
tion it must give, not propionic aldehyde and acid, but acetone, as 
w r as soon after found to be the case. 
A very early and most interesting investigation by Kolbe, on the 
“ Electrolysis of Potassium Yalerianate and Potassium Acetate,” 
belongs to the period of his short residence in London. The most 
striking result was the synthesis of the hydrocarbons R 2 , if we write 
the potassium salt electrolysed R’COOK ; but the products of the 
electrolysis were very carefully examined by Kolbe, who detected 
among them the ethers R'COOR. 
Another important and extensive series of researches bear upon 
the “ oxy-acids.” His investigations on lactic acid, and the long and 
interesting controversy with Wurtz on the constitution of lactic 
