Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  "I 
Mar.,  1881.  J 
Chemical  Notes. 
119 
CHEMICAL  NOTES. 
By  Professor  Samuel  P.  Sadtler,  Ph.D. 
Inoroanic  Chemistry. — Oecuy'vence  of  Large  Native  Deposits  of 
Antimony  Oxide. — According  to  a  report  of  E.  F.  Cox  there  is  a  very 
extensive  deposit  of  antimonous  oxide  to  be  found  in  the  district  of 
Sonora,  Mexico,  some  39  miles  from  the  Gulf  of  California.  The  dis- 
trict is  hilly,  the  formation  being  essentially  granitic  and  limestone. 
The  rocks  show  extensive  fissures,  in  which  the  metal  is  found  from 
four  to  twenty  feet  in  breadth  and  extending  to  a  depth  of  thirty  feet. 
The  oxide  seems  almost  pure  and  is  very  uniform  in  character.  This 
occurrence  extends  over  a  surface  of  five  miles  in  length  and  one  mile  in 
breadth.  It  is  at  present  worked  by  a  Boston  company.  The  oxide 
contains  on  an  average  50  per  cent.,  and  in  the  purer  specimens  77  per 
cent,  of  metal.  The  chief  impurity  is  silicic  acid.  It  is  likely  that 
below  this  deposit,  in  the  formations  not  yet  uncovered,  the  oxide 
changes  gradually  into  antimony  sulphide. — Chem.  Industrie,  iv,  p.  12. 
Organic  Chemistry. — Detection  of  Methyl  Alcohol  in  Common 
Spirit  of  Wine. — Cazeneuve  and  Cotton  propose  the  use  of  potassium 
permanganate  for  this  purpose,  as  it  is  reduced  instantly  at  ordinary 
temperature  by  methyl  alcohol,  while  ethyl  alcohol  only  reduces  it  very 
gradually.  10  cc.  of  ethyl  alcohol  were  treated  at  20°C.  with  1  cc. 
of  a  1  per  cent,  solution  of  potassium  permanganate  ;  twenty  minutes 
elapsed  before  the  liquid  became  yellow. — Chem.  Centralblatt,  Jan.  5, 
1881,  p.  11. 
On  Two  New  Amesthetics.  (See  also  this  Journal,  1880,  p.  (303). 
— At  the  annual  meeting  of  German  naturalists  held  at  Danzig,  Tauber, 
in  combating  Liebreich's  theory  that  chloral  owes  its  power  to  a  for- 
mation of  chloroform  under  the  influence  of  the  alkaline  blood, 
described  two  new  anaesthetics  that  certainly  do  not  give  rise  to  chloro- 
form and  yet  are  strong  in  their  physiological  action.  The  first  of 
these,  monochlorethyliden  chloride,  may  be  called  a  methyl-chloroforni, 
CH3 — CCI3.  It  was  discovered  in  1840  by  Regnault,  smells  like 
chloroform,  and  is  decomposed  with  much  difficulty  by  alkalies  into 
acetic  and  hydrochloric  acids,  neither  of  which  has  any  anaesthetic 
power.  We  have  here  a  body,  which  contains  the  CI3  group  character- 
istic of  chloroform,  has  2  carbon  atoms  in  the  molecule,  which  can 
exist  in  alkaline  liquids  without  decomposition  and  Avithout  yielding 
chloroform  at  any  time,  but  despite  this  has  an  anaesthetic  power  fully 
