No abstract

1. The intermolecular esterification of -hydroxydecanoic acid has been studied and found to proceed easily with the formation of mixtures of chain polymers. These mixtures were separated by crystallization into fractions of average molecular weights ranging from 1000 to 9000.2. These poly-esters were titrated quantitatively with standard alcoholic potash solutions and average molecular weights thus determined.By boiling with excess alcoholic potassium hydroxide, they were converted back to the original acid.3. A twenty-two-membered dimeric lactone of -hydroxydecanoic acid was prepared by dry distillation of the product obtained by the action of acetic anhydride on its potassium salt. Urbana, Illinois

Haitinger,1 by treating isobutylene, isoamylene and tertiary butyl and amyl alcohols with absolute nitric acid, obtained (CH3)2C=CHN02 and (CH3)2C=C(N02) CH3 in small yields, mainly, however, products of oxidation; with ethylene only oxidation products were formed. However, by using a mixture of nitric and fuming sulfuric acids, Wieland and Sakellarios2 succeeded in isolating CH2(0N02)CH2N02 from the reaction products with ethylene, but with much oxidation product. The investigation was extended by Wieland and Rahn3 to isoamylene, which with absolute nitric acid alone gave only resinous products, but when diluted with carbon tetrachloride, gave some of Haitinger's nitroamylene along with (CH3)2C(0N02)CH(N02)CH3. Similarly, (CeH6) 2C (OH) CH2N02 was obtained from a, -diphenylethylene and from phenanthrene the ether of 8-hydroxy-9-nitrophenanthrene. Upon these results Wieland based an interpretation of the nitration mechanism; accordingly, nitric acid does not function as an electrolyte in addition to ethylene groups, but as HO + N024 forming primarily the corresponding satu-

Ssidorenko2 found that nitrogen tetroxide acted upon isobutylene in ether solution to yield a small amount of the so-called bis-(isobutylene nitrosate), [(CH3)2C(0N02)C(N0)H2]2(I) and, as the main product, a blue liquid, which gave a low yield of isobutylenediamine on reduction. SUMMARY 1. The action of nitrogen tetroxide on isobutylene has been investigated under varied experimental conditions.

were prepared by the improved methods given in the experimental section.