Occasional Notes. 153 
powdered substances were placed in it, covered with ether and shaken 
well at intervals for about sixteen hours before being weighed. 
The solubility of laurite, dulcite and mannite in rectified spirit was 
also determined. The spirit used contained 86"6 per cent, of alcohol by 
weight. One gramme of each of the finely powdered substances in 
100 c. c. of spirit, placed in a corked flask, was heated in a water bath 
and then set aside to cool, filtered from deposited crystals through 
glass " wool," and, after standing for ten days, measured quantities of 
the clear filtrate were evaporated at a temperature below ebullition, 
and the residue weighed. 
1 part of dulcite was contained in 204 1 alcohol 
1 „ „ laurite „ „ „ 1928 
1 „ „ mannite „ „ „ 439 „ 
Erlenmyer and Wanklyn have shown that both mannite and dulcite 
yielded hexyliodide when distilled with strong hydriodic acid in a cur- 
rent of carbon dioxide gas. Two attempts to produce the same sub- 
stance from laurite have failed, although no difficulty was experienced 
in obtaining it from either mannite or dulcite. By their yielding hexyl- 
iodide it was proved that mannite and dulcite were really hexatomic 
alcohols, and in accordance with modern chemical terminology their 
names have been changed respectively to mannitol and dulcitol. The 
failure of laurite to re-act in the same way prevents it at present from 
being classed as an alcohol, and from receiving the rather euphonious 
name of lauritol. 
Laurite forms a barium-conipound when one equivalent of laurite 
and two of barium hydrate are heated together with a sufficient quan- 
tity of water. This compound is very soluble, and can only occasionally 
be induced to crystallise. When its solution is allowed to evaporate 
spontaneously under a dessicator it, as a rule, slowly becomes a viscid 
syrup, and at last dries up to a semi-transparent paraffin-like looking 
mass that gradually becomes white and opaque. When the solution 
does happen to crystallise, however, the crystals grow to a large size and 
perfect form. The analysis of this compound is not yet completed. 
Other compounds and derivatives of laurite are being investigated. 
Much delay in completing these researches is due to the difficulty of 
getting uvocado-pear bark in this colony; but a quantity of about 500 
pounds of bark has just been received from Grenada, and will doubt- 
less furnish sufficient of the sugar for the study of its more prominent 
properties. 
U 
