2 INTRODUCTORY 



perhaps desirable to state more fully the facts upon which the English 

 chemist's claim is based : 



In 1826 Faraday published a paper entitled, 'On new Compounds 

 of Carbon and Hydrogen, and on the Products of the Decomposition of 

 Oil by Heat 1 ,' in the course of which he states : ' I find also that 

 sulphuric acid will condense and combine with olefiant gas, no carbon 

 being separated, or sulphurous or carbonic acid being formed, and this 

 absorption has in the course of eighteen days amounted to 84-7 volumes 

 of olefiant gas to one volume of sulphuric acid. The acid produced 

 combines with bases, &c., forming peculiar salts, which I have not yet 

 had time, but which it is my intention, to examine.' 



The following year, on March 9, Brande communicated to the 

 E-oyal Society a paper by Hennell bearing the title : ' On the Mutual 

 Action of Sulphuric Acid and Alcohol, with Observations on the Com- 

 position and Properties of the resulting Compound V In this paper 

 the author shows that he possessed very clear notions concerning the 

 nature of the sulphovinates, and he gives analyses of ' oil of wine ' as 

 well as of the potassium salt of sulphovinic acid. He refers to some 

 sulphuric acid which had been given to him by Faraday as having 

 absorbed eighty times its volume of olefiant gas from oil gas, this being 

 no doubt the specimen mentioned by Faraday in the previous paper. 

 He identified sulphovinic acid in the foregoing preparation, and proved 

 it by a comparison of the potassium salt with potassium sulphovinate 

 obtained from ' oil of wine V It is true that he gives no analysis of 

 the potassium salt from Faraday's acid, but he had already shown 

 evidence of his familiarity with this salt, and he declares the identity 

 of the salts from the two sources in most distinct terms. 



It is impossible to arrive at any other conclusion than that Hennell 

 was aware that he had obtained sulphovinic acid from olefiant gas. 

 In 1828 a second paper was communicated to the Royal Society (read 

 June 19) under the title : ' On the Mutual Action of Sulphuric Acid 

 and Alcohol, and on the Nature of the Process by which Ether is 

 formed V In this second paper, among other experiments, he distilled 

 sulphovinic acid with water and a little sulphuric acid, and proved 

 that it was decomposed into sulphuric acid and alcohol : and not only 

 this, but he also showed that the whole of the alcohol and sulphuric 

 acid which originally entered into the composition of the sulphovinic 

 acid could be recovered by distillation with water. It is true that the 

 sulphovinic acid used in his second series of researches was not 

 obtained from olefiant gas, but this cumbersome mode of preparation 

 was obviously unnecessary in view of the circumstance that he had 

 already satisfied himself that the products were identical. There can 

 be no reasonable doubt that the claim advanced on behalf of Hennell 

 as the first to synthesise alcohol from olefiant gas must be admitted to 



1 Phil. Trans. 1825, p. 448. s Loc. cit. p. 245. 



9 Ibid. 1826, Part III, p. 240. * Ibid. 1828, p. 365. 



