TO 
NITRATE  AND  NITRITE  OF  ETHYL. 
consequence  of  the  proportion  of  urea  directed  to  be  used  being 
much  too  small. 
Millon's  process,  as  quoted  in  Kolbe's  "  Organische  Chemie," 
directs  to  distill  equal  weights  of  alcohol  and  of  colorless  nitric 
acid,  specific  gravity  1-401.  Not  to  operate  upon  larger  quan- 
tities than  120  to  150  grammes,  and  to  add  a  little  urea  to  the 
above  quantity,  at  most  ("  hochstens  "\  2  grammes  of  urea. 
Conducted  as  above,  the  operation  succeeded  with  me  but 
once  out  of  four  or  five  times.  But  by  using  a  large  quantity 
of  urea,  three  or  four  times  as  much,  or  even  more,  success  in- 
variably follows,  and  there  results  a  great  saving  of  urea,  be- 
cause when  the  process  fails,  the  materials,  urea  included,  are 
entirely  lost,  whereas  when  conducted  as  just  described,  very 
little  urea  is  consumed.  It  is  only  necessary  to  add  fresh  acid 
and  alcohol,  after  the  first  proportion  had  been  distilled  to  about 
one-fifth,  and  the  process  may  be  repeated  almost  indefinitely, 
with  the  occasional  addition  of  a  little  urea  to  keep  up  the  pro- 
portion. The  product  in  the  second  and  subsequent  operations 
is  much  larger  than  in  the  first. 
Nor  have  I  found  it  necessary  to  operate  on  the  small  quanti- 
ties above  mentioned,  but  have  habitually  used  quantities 
amounting  to  400  to  500  grammes,  and  should  not  hesitate  to 
employ  still  larger  ones.  It  is,  however,  more  convenient  to 
use  the  above  quantity,  and  replace  the  material  as  fast  as  ex- 
hausted. 
The  facility  with  which  nitrate  of  ethyl  can  be  obtained  by 
the  above  process  must,  I  think,  give  it  a  decided  advantage 
over  the  iodide  of  ethyl  for  the  preparation  of  the  ethyl  bases, 
in  the  manner  which  I  have  recently  described.  The  lower 
equivalent  of  nitric  acid  as  compared  with  iodine  is  a  matter  of 
considerable  importance;  100  parts  of  iodine  are  capable  of 
holding  in  combination  something  less  than  23  of  ethyl,  whereas 
100  parts  of  nitric  acid  combine  with  over  53  of  ethyl,' — a 
material  point,  as  the  iodine  on  the  one  hand  and  the  nitric  acid 
on  the  other  are  merely  the  vehicles  for  bringing  about  the 
ethyl  substitution.  In  operations  in  pressure-tubes,  where  space 
is  valuable,  this  is  an  important  consideration;  in  an  economical 
point  of  view  also  the  advantage  appears  to  be  greatly  on  the 
side  of  the  nitrate  of  ethyl. 
