“…Dimethyl sulphate appeared to be ineffective as a methylating agent, as McEwen had found in his early experiments,' and we turned to the use of the recently discovered and highly potent alkylating reagent, methyl fl~orosulphonate.~~ Most of our experiments with this reagent were carried out with octaethylporphyrin in hot o-dichlorobenzene and, in addition to the N-methyl (FIGURE 2) (7) and tram N,Ncdimethyl- (8) porphyrins, two other red N,N'-dimethyl porphyrins, and a bright green N,N',N"-trimethylporphyrin were also formed.14 These were separated by a combination of chromatographic and counter-current distribution procedures and shown by spectral analyses to be the cis-and trans-N.N,-dimethyloctaethylporphyrins (9) and (10) and truns-truns-N.NbN,-trimethyloctaethyIporphyrin salt (11).…”