SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
87 
heated to a temperature just high enough to volatilise it. He was surprised 
to find that after a short time the tube became filled with red vapours, and 
ultimately the gun cotton exploded. Now, as in the manufacture of the 
artificial ivory mentioned, the mixture of gun cotton and camphor is ex- 
posed to a much higher heat than that he had made use of, it was a fact 
worth taking into consideration, as to whether there might not be danger of 
explosion resulting. It is true that, ordinarily, there is water present, but 
towards the end of the process this is all pressed out, and a dry mass is 
left. Therefore, as a precaution, it is as well to remember this fact thus 
ascertained. 
Chlorine in Meteors. — Hr. J. W. Mallet, in an important paper on meteors 
in u Silliman’s Journal,” says he feels satisfied that the chlorine is not 
of meteoric origin — not an essential constituent of the original masses — 
but has been derived from the soil in which the iron has lain imbedded. 
The exudation of watery drops containing metallic chlorides is observable 
only at points on the outside and on cut surfaces along the lines of fissures 
communicating with the outside. Although chlorine is mentioned above as 
found in the general analysis of the planing-machine shavings, he failed 
altogether to detect it in a specially-selected solid piece of some fifty grams 
taken from a part destitute of fissures or flaws. 
Synthesis of Oil of Rue. — Herren Gorup-Besanez and Grimm have lately 
succeeded in forming oil of rue synthetically (“Ber. Berl. Chem. Ges.,” iii. 
518, and u Chemical News ”). Starting from the fact first suggested by Hall- 
wachs, and confirmed by Harbordt, that this oil is a mixed ketone of the 
n H 
formula G0 { 19 ’ since it is oxidised with difficulty and yields capric 
acid, they distilled together equal molecules of pure dry calcium caprate — 
prepared from a Hungarian wine-fusel-oil — and calcium acetate. The mixture 
melts, swells up, blackens, and evolves at first a fluid smelling like acetone, 
but afterwards an oil which solidifies in the neck of the retort. By fraction- 
ing this distillate, three products were obtained: one boiling below 200° j 
another boiling between 210° and 245 ° ; and a solid body, caprinon, boiling 
above 300°. The second fraction was purified by conversion into the double 
salt of ammonium sulphite, crystallizing from alcohol, and decomposing by 
sodium carbonate ; a colourless, strongly refracting oil rose to the surface, 
which, when dried, distilled completely between 223° and 224 ° and had at 
17-5° C. a specific gravity of 0*8295. Commercial oil of rue, treated in the 
same manner, afforded a liquid distilling between 224° and 225*5° and having 
at 18*7° C. a specific gravity of 0*8281. Analysis of the ammonium double 
sulphite prepared from both, and of the pure oil both artificial and natural, 
gave the same result. Hence oil of rue consists essentially of methyl- 
caprinol or nonyl-methyl ketone. 
Impurities present in Reduced Iron. — The “Neues Jahrbuch fur Pharmacie” 
has a paper by Herr E. Schering, which is abstracted in the “ Chemical 
News.” While this substance (reduced iron) has hitherto not been obtained 
quite free from a more or less large quantity of sulphuret of iron, the author 
calls attention to the fact — an important one, indeed — that he has met with 
samples of this medicament which, in addition to the impurity spoken of, 
also contain oxides and carburets of iron, and even cyanide of potassium, 
