302 Memoir on the Formation of the Phosphoric Ether, 



Should these conjectures he thought deserving of a place 

 in your next Number, they are very much at your service. 



Yours, Sec, 

 April?, iso9. Peter Barlow, 



LIV. Memoir upon the Formation of the Phosphoric Ether, 

 by Means of a particular Apparatus. By M. Boullav, 

 Chemist, in Paris. — Read to the First Class of the Na- 

 tional Institute the 23d of March, 1 807 *. 



Ocheele and Lavoisier had repeatedly tried without suc- 

 cess, to transform alcohol into ether, by the action of the 

 phosphoric acid ; when at last M« Boudet jun., an apothe- 

 cary of Paris, published u Memoir upon the subject, in 

 tome xl. of the Annales de Chimie. The phenomena which 

 he describes announce a real action between the acid and 

 the alcohol, and manifest several circumstances .which ge- 

 nerally accompany the process of etherification: According 

 to his own admission, however, the produce he obtained 

 was not very volatile, totally insoluble in water ; and although 

 it.had a peculiar smell, it did not present the characters of a 

 true ether. 



Convinced bv various trials that the want of action of the 

 concentrated or even vitreous phosphoric acid upon alcohol, 

 was particular! v owning to the difficulty of uniting these two 

 substances, of multiplying and prolonging the contact of 

 their reciprocal molecules, I resumed the experiments, and 

 the hope I entertained of attaining a more satisfactory result 

 was realized by the following experiment : — 



To a tubulated retort placed upon a saudbath, I adjusted 

 a bell-glass also tubulated, which communicated by aWeU 

 ter's tube of safety with a flask filled with limewater. From 

 this flask issued a second tube which proceeded under a bell- 

 glass attached to ihc hydro -pneumatic apparatus. 



I introduced into the retort 500 grammes of pure phos- 

 phoric acid, resulting from the combustion of phosphorus 



• I -.. • :),< Chhrdr, rome hii. p. i?.\ 



by 



