On the Muriatic Ether. lOi 



also result ; but this loss should be more than compensated 

 by the quantity of acid which the combustion of the ga« 

 formed ought to produce. Now, on performing this distil- 

 lation upon 450'937 grammes of muriatic acid of a specific 

 gravity of 11-349, at 5° temperature (centigrade thermo- 

 meter), and upon a volume of highly rectified alcohol equal 

 to that of the acid, there are formed 23 litres of etherized 

 gas al the, temperature of 21° of the ccntio;rade tiijermome- 

 tcr, and at the pressure of 0"" 745, and there disappear 

 122*288 grammes of acid. 



The first hypothesis is consequently false, since it is de- 

 monstrated that, even should the radical of the muriatic acid 

 exist in the etherized gas, this radical would proceed not 

 merely from the alcohol, but rather either from the muriatic 

 acid alone, or from the muriatic acid and alcohol. 



" Let us inquire if it proceeds from the muriatic acid alone, 

 as supposed in the second hypothesis : but here there are 

 two ways of considering the phcenomenon : either the mu- 

 riatic acid must have been decomposed by the alcohol, so 

 that its radical, without its other principle, is to be found in 

 the etherized gas; or this decomposition will have been 

 such, that all the principles of the muriatic acid will be found 

 in the etherized gas, not united, and not forming muriatic 

 acid, but combined with the principles of the alcohol, and 

 in the same stale in which hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and 

 azot exist in animal or vegetable matters. Now if the radi- 

 cal of the muriatic acid exists alone in the other principle, 

 or without a portion of the other principle of the muriatic 

 acid ii; the etherized gas, we ought, by decomposing this 

 gas in a red-hot tube, and deprived of the contact of the air, 

 to obtain no acid at all, or else less of it than has disap- 

 peared in the experiment which produced it : and if this gas 

 contains not only the radical of the muriatic acid, but also 

 all the constituent princij)les of that acid ; as those princi- 

 ples, whatever they are, have a strong tendency to combine, 

 we should conceive that by destroying the etherized ga^ » y 

 fire, without the contact of the air, we shall probably ob- 

 tain the whole quantity of muriatic acid v\hich has disap-- 

 pcared m the c:<pcrin)cut by which we procured it. Jt was 



thertfwr^ 



