1835.] Scientific Intelligence. 145 



3. Berzelius has recently revived this hypothesis and carried it 

 further. Alcohol he considers as an oxide and not a hydrate of a 

 distinct combination of carbon and hydrogen, represented by C^ H^ 

 O. The equivalent symbol for this^, according to British views, is 

 C2 H'^ O. Ether he represents by the formula C* Hio + 0,virhich 

 is equivalent to our expression C* H^ -f O ; so that the bases are 

 different in these two compounds. This view of the composition of 

 alcohol taken by Berzelius, is rejected by Dumas, on the ground 

 that if it were correct, sulphovinic acid would be a neutral body, and 

 the sulphovinates would be sesquibasic salts, which can scarcely be 

 admitted, when we know that the former is a powerful acid, and the 

 salts are perfectly neutral. 



4. Liebig considers ether as the first oxide of a compound radicle, 

 for which he employs the symbol C* Hi o. Now, this is obviously 

 equivalent in the views of British chemists to C^ H^, because we 

 hold that water is composed of equal atoms of hydrogen and oxygen. 

 Ether therefore is represented, according to Liebig, by C^ H^^^ O 

 = C^ H5 O. This is the same view as that taken by Berzelius. 

 But instead of considering alcohol as an oxide of a different base, he 

 calls it a hydrate of ether = C^ Rio O + HO or C* H^ O -|- 

 HO. It is obvious that these two theories are modifications of that 

 of Dumas. 



5. Dr. Thomson considers the bases of ether and alcohol to be dif- 

 ferent, the elements being present in the same proportions, but are 

 double in the former. The base of ether is tetarto-carbydrogen, and 

 that of alcohol deuto-carbydrogen. Their expressions are ether C* H* 

 -f Aq., alcohol C2 H2 _j_ 2 Aq. The simplicity of this view, and 



its consonance with experiment, so far as we at present know, (the 

 bases described by Liebig and Berzelius having never been obtained 

 in a separate state,) favour its adoption, until further researches com- 

 pel us to have recourse to another theory. 



Article IX. 



Scientific Intelligence. 



L — Proceedings of the Ashmolean Society of Oxford. 



March 27, 1835. — Dr. Daubeny proceeded to deliver a commu- 

 nication on Vesuvius, and the nature of volcanic agency. 



He began by giving a brief account of the great eruption of Vesu- 

 vius which occurred in the month of August of last year, and which 

 had been preceded by a series of ejections of stone and scoriae from 

 the crater, continuing at intervals ever since the year 1831. 



These ejections had by degrees occasioned the formation of two 

 conical hillocks within the area of the crater, the most considerable 

 of which, just before the breaking out of the eruption of August, was 

 more than 200 feet in height. Both the above, however, disappeared 

 at an early period in the course of the eruption, having been swallowed 

 up within the mountain during the course of a single night. 



The lava which first burst forth took the direction of Portici, but 

 this stream proceeded but a short way down the flanks of the moun- 



VOL. II. L 



