1865.] Researches on Ethers. No. I. 199 



We have also obtained corresponding results by tbe employment of 

 iodide of ethyl in place of iodide of methyl, and are now occupied in 

 the preparation of a paper containing the details of this investigation, 

 which we hope very soon to have the honour of laying before the Royal 

 Society*. In the meantime, however, some of our results are so remark- 

 able that we hasten to communicate them at once in this preliminary note. 

 It has been proved by Kolbe and Frankland, nearly twenty years ago, 

 that methyl is a constituent of acetic acidf, and in the year 1857 these 

 chemists were the first to propose the derivation of this and a large number 

 of other organic compounds from the carbonic acid or tetratomic carbon 

 typej. According to this view, which is now gradually receiving the 

 assent of chemists, the rational formula of acetic ether is 



CH 3 

 O 



C 2 H g , 



or, with the formula of the contained atom of methyl fully developed, 



[H 



rgfg 



c J" 



IOC 2 H, 



Thus the radical methyl, in acetic ether, contains three single atoms of 

 hydrogen, combined with a tetratomic atom of carbon. If one of these 

 atoms of hydrogen be replaced by methyl, an ether, having the composition 

 of propionic ether, will obviously be produced : 



rc( C I' 



H J H 



[OC 2 H 5 . 



If a second atom of hydrogen be replaced by another atom of methyl, 

 butyric ether or its isomer will, in like manner, be formed : 



"1 O 

 l()C a H a . 



* Whilst engaged in these experiments we became aware, through the ' Jahresbericht 

 der Chemie,' that the reaction had already been studied by Geuther, who, however, 

 owing to his having conducted the process in a somewhat different manner, obtained 

 only two of the compounds above mentioned, viz. the body Cj H 12 O 3 by the action of 

 sodium and iodide of methyl upon acetic ether, and the compound C,, H 14 O 3 in the 

 corresponding reaction with iodide of ethyl. 



t Memoirs and Proceedings of the Chem. Soc. vol. iii. p. 386; and Ann. der Ch. und 

 Pharm. Bd. Ixv. S. 288, imd Bd. Ixix. S. 258. 



J Ann. der Ch. und Pharm. Bd. ci. S. 2GO. 



