AmMa°rch>?8h96!'m  }      Acetone  and  Acetone-Chloroform.  157 
not  only  because  the  price  of  acetone  is  too  high,  but  particularly 
because  acetone  yields  about  33  per  cent,  of  its  own  weight  of 
chloroform  when  it  is  treated  with  chloride  of  lime.  Watts  distilled 
30  grammes  of  acetone  with  150  grammes  of  chloride  of  lime,  and 
rectified  the  watery  distillate  with  40  grammes  of  chloride  of  lime. 
I  have  discovered  a  method  whereby  it  is  possible  to  obtain  a  yield 
of  chloroform  from  acetone  very  much  greater  than  that  obtained 
by  Watts.  I  have  found  that  the  reaction  may  be  made  to  take 
place  in  such  a  way  that  one  equivalent  of  acetone  will  yield  one 
equivalent  of  chloroform  by  volume,  or  about  180  per  cent,  by 
weight,  and  the  advantages  of  my  invention  may  be  secured  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree  by  properly  employing  with  about  58  pounds 
of  acetone  more  than  300  pounds  of  good  chloride  of  lime.  The  best 
results  and  greatest  yield  of  chloroform  can,  as  I  have  found,  be  ob- 
tained by  the  use  of,  say,  58  pounds  of  acetone  to  at  least  600 
pounds  of  a  good  chloride  of  lime  containing  about  35  per  cent,  of 
available  chlorine,  and  in  proportion  if  the  chloride  of  lime  is 
poorer.  The  yield  of  chloroform  will  then  be  from  1 50  per  cent,  to 
180  per  cent,  of  the  weight  of  the  acetone  employed,  instead  of  about 
33  per  cent." 
Then  follow  claims  for  invention  of  diluting  the  acetone  and  of 
introducing  it  periodically  during  the  process — of  introducing  it 
below  the  surface  of  the  solution  in  the  still — of  the  use  of  a  me- 
chanical stirrer,  and  of  the  use  of  a  still  and  condenser,  which  are 
described  and  figured. 
The  basis  upon  which  this  patent  rests,  for  its  reason  to  be,  is  the 
quotation  from  Watts'  Dictionary.  Watts  quotes  the  process  from 
GmelirCs  Handbook,  and  Gmelin  quotes  it  from  Sterner  ling' 's  Paper 
in  the  Archiv.  der  Pharmacie ,  1848,  Vol.  LIV,  p.  26.  Now,  as  the 
paper  and  quotations  are  grossly  erroneous,  and  as  writers  of  pre- 
ceding papers  publish  results  that  approximate  those  of  the  patent, 
it  might  reasonably  be  asked  :  what  is  the  value  of  the  patent  ?  But 
the  present  writer,  while  intending  to  make  acetone-chloroform,  very 
earnestly  desires  to  avoid  all  question  in  regard  to  the  validity  of 
this  patent,  and,  therefore,  uses  the  Watts  (Siemerling)  process,  which 
is  outside  the  limit  claimed  by  the  patent,  with  an  entirely  different 
apparatus  and  management,  described  by  him  in  1857,  and  repub- 
lished in  Ephemeris,  Vol.  IV,  No.  1,  p.  71. 
It  is  proposed  to  use  charges  of  280  pounds  of  absolute  acetone 
