Aldrich, Henry

Some years ago we went to Ames, Iowa, where all the Henry Gilman samples were stored in one big room, thousands of them. A company wanted 8000 to remove them. I offered to pay for the chemicals and send a truck to pick them up. The only mistake we made was that the truck we sent wasn t big enough so we had to send it twice. There were 20,000 bottles. We immediately discarded about 12,000 because these were chemicals which Aldrich listed. There were another few thousand where the labels had fallen off or the materials had decomposed. We were still left with 3000 chemicals and we published a little yellow catalog of the Gilman samples, just as we published a blue catalog of Woodward s samples. 

Bromobutanenitrile was obtained from Lancaster Synthesis Ltd. Alternatively it can be prepared from 1,3-dibromopropane and potassium cyanide using the procedure of Derrick and Henry. Lithium wire (3.2 nri diameter, containing ca. 0.01% sodium) and propargyl alcohol were obtained from the Aldrich Chemical Company, Inc. The latter was dried with potassium carbonate and then distilled prior to use. 

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