of Sulphuric Acid and Alcohol. 343 



but also the nature of sulpliovinates, and, as they supposed, 

 tliough incorrectly, of oil of wine*. That our results with re- 

 gard to sulphovinates and oil of wine differ, may be seen from 

 the published accounts; and there is not less difference be- 

 tween their conclusions with regard to aetherification, and the 

 results I have obtained, which 1 have now to describe. 



2. When alcohol and sulphuric acid in equal weights are 

 put together without the application of any heat beyond that 

 generated during the mixture, the most abundant and im- 

 portant product is sulphovinic acid, above one half of the sul- 

 phuric acid being converted into that peculiar acid by union 

 with hydro-carbon f. But when such a mixture containing 

 so large a proportion of sulphovinic acid is distilled, the most 

 important product is a new substance, namely aether, and the 

 sulphovinic acid disappears. The questions which then arose 

 were, whether the aether was formed altogether from the di- 

 rect action of the remaining alcohol and sulphuric acid in the 

 mixture, or whether the sulphovinic acid might not also assist, 

 or whethei* it might not be an essential state of the elements 

 intermediate between the mixture of the acid and alcohol and 

 the development of the perfectly formed aether. MM. Dumas 

 and Boullay, .who have considered the same questions, or at 

 least some of them, — decide, that the portions of materials 

 which form tether, are altogether independent of those which 

 produce sulphovinic acid : but the following facts prove in my 

 opinion the contrary of this conclusion. 



3. A portion of oil of vitriol was selected for some compa- 

 rative experiments, and also some alcohol of specific gravity 

 0*820 : five hundred grains of the oil of vitriol precipitated 

 by acetate of lead, gave 1500 grains of sulphate of lead. 



4. Five hundred grains of the oil of vitriol were mixed with 

 five hundred grains of the alcohol, and after forty-eight hours, 

 diluted and precipitated by acetate of lead; only 616 grains 

 of sulphate of lead were produced ; so that very nearly three- 

 fifths of the sulphuric acid had become sulphovinic acid by 

 the effect of mixture, and little more than two-fiftlis remained 

 to act as sulphuric acid upon the remaining alcohol, full two- 

 thirds of the quantity employed. 



5. Another mixture of acid and alcohol in the same propor- 

 tions, and made at the same time as the above, was then di- 



* The substance wliicli these gentlemen operated upon appears, from 

 their own account of its preparation, to have been tiio hy(h"o-carbon sepa- 

 rable froiri oil of wine by the action of alkalies, anil not that peculiar sub- 

 Btancc which has hitherto been callcil oil of wine. 



t The sulphuric aciil lo3es half its saturating power by the union, and 

 all the suits foirucd by the new ucid arc soluble. 



stilled 



