Several years ago in connection with some work in progress at that time, there was needed some p-cyanobenzyl mercaptan. In attempting to prepare this compound by the action of sodium hydrogn sulfide on fi-cyanobenzyl chloride a mixture of P-cyanobenzyl sulfide and fi- cyanobenzyl disulfide was obtained instead of the mercaptan.'Shortly after our observation Horn2 obtained the same results using 9-nitrobenzyl chloride and found that the p- ...
