1S2 O* MtyRlATIC ETHER, 



tigatcd, aud on this he is at present eagerly engaged, sinccj 

 however it may turu out, the results cannot lall to be very 

 important. 



Note on the Discovery of the Muriatic Ether; hy Mt, 

 Thenard. 

 The muriatic When on the 18th of February last 1 read to the Institute 

 known la"^' my paper on muriatic ether, all the members, among whom 

 France, were Messrs. BerthoUet, Chaptal, Deyeux, Fourcroy, Guyton, 



Vauquelin, and Gay-Lussac, considered the results it con- 

 tained as perfectly novel, and were struck with the conse- 

 and in Spain j quences, that might be deduced from them. Mr. Proust, who 

 is at present in Paris, and before whom I was eager to repeat, 

 at his desire, the experiments I had made with the ethereous 

 gas, was not less surprised than the French chemists. But 

 last friday, that is twenty-five days after I had read my paper, 

 but not inGer- j\|jr^ Gay-Lussac, turning over Gehlen's Journal, accidentally 

 found in a note, that Gehlerj himself had made experiments 

 on muriatic ether, and recorded them in on& of the volumes 

 of his Journal published in 1804. 

 Gehlen made ^^ appears, that Mr. Gehlen made muriatic ether from 

 it in dififerent equal weights of the fuming muriate of tin and alcohol. He 

 ■' ' likewise made it in Basse's method, by a mixture of seasalt, 



concentrated sulphuric acid, and alcohol ; from which till 

 Basse's time, and even Gehlen's, sulphuric ether onl}' was 

 supposed to be obtained. He did not obtain any with muri- 

 atic acid alone. Mr. Gehlen however observed most of the 

 properties in muriatic ether, that I have mentioned. The 

 chief differences between us are, that he has not attempted 

 to investigate the source of the muriatic acid produced by 

 burning the gas, the quantity it is capable of affording, or the 

 Hk'wAslessin *^®°^y ^^ *^^^ formation of the ether. My process-too not 

 quantity, and only affords ether in larger quantity probably than any other, 

 less pure, jj^j much purer; for the specific gravity of mine was '87 ^y of 



his only "845, and in this case the greater gravity is a proof 

 of greater purity. He likewise marks tlie point of its conden- 

 gation as about 10° of Reaumur [54'5° F]. 



As from the account of Mr. Gehlen I could no longer 

 doubt but muriatic ether had been made in Germany, and its 



property 



