II. Note on fucusol

In a paper which I communicated to the Royal Society of London in 1850, “On the Oils produced by the Action of Sulphuric Acid upon various Classes of Vegetables,” after describing the sources, method of preparation, and characteristic properties of furfurol and its educts, I described another isomeric substance closely resembling furfurol, both in its physical and chemical properties, and which I named fucusol from the source whence it had been obtained, namely,Fucus nodosus, F. vesiculosus, F. serratus , &c. The nature of the substance which yielded furfurol was involved in considerable obscurity until the publication of Gudkow’s paper “ On the Furfurol-yielding Substance in Bran”, which he found to be present in it to the amount of from 15 to 20 per cent., and which, when boiled with dilute sulphuric acid, was converted into a brownish sweet syrup. This is the substance from which furfurol is obtained by distillation with sulphuric acid or hydrochloric acid.