In earlier papers1p2 it has been shown that alcoholic alkaline reagents give two types of reaction with carbonyl bridge compounds, depending on the nature of the substituent groups at the ends of the bridge. When these groups are phenyl, the bridge is cleaved at one end. a carboxylic acid resulting, whereas the presence of methyl groups favors a reduction of the carbonyl to carbinol. It seemed desirable to learn the behavior of a simpler phenylated ...
