OXIDE OF METHYL. 819 



gaseous compounds of carbon, a watery fluid containing acetic 

 acid, and a black odorous oily mass, known as tar. The two 

 last products are highly variable mixtures of a great many sub- 

 stances, of which the one that demands our first attention is 

 pyroxylic spirit, or wood spirit. 



SECTION I. 



METHYL SERIES OF COMPOUNDS. 



Formula of methyl, C 2 H 3 =Me. 



A volatile combustible spirit, soluble in water, was first ob- 

 tained from the dry distillation of wood by Mr. P. Taylor. 

 The composition and chemical nature of this spirit and of the 

 compounds it forms, with their extraordinary parallelism to 

 alcohol and the compounds derived from alcohol, were ascer- 

 tained by MM. Dumas and Peligot, and published in their 

 important memoir on wood-spirit (An. de Ch. Iviii, 5). Wood- 

 spirit is the alcohol of a particular series of compounds, being 

 the hydrated oxide of a new radical methyl, which resembles 

 ethyl perfectly in its functions, but differs in its composition, 

 containing 2 atoms less of carbon and 2 atoms less of hydrogen. 

 The oxide of methyl is a base like the oxide of ethyl or ether, 

 and forms acid and neutral salts like the latter. By the abstrac- 

 tion of 2 atoms of hydrogen from methyl, another radical for- 

 myl is produced, as acetyl is derived from ethyl, and having an 

 acid oxide formic acid, corresponding with acetic acid. Methyl 

 has not been isolated. 



OXIDE OF METHYL. 



Formula C 2 H 3 O=MeO. 



Syn. Methylic ether. This compound is prepared by dis- 

 tilling wood spirit with 4 parts of sulphuric acid, and trans- 

 mitting the gas which comes over first through a bottle contain- 

 ing milk of lime and afterwards through several bottles filled 

 with pure water. The latter dissolves the oxide of ethyl ; the 

 gas is evolved on boiling its solution, and must be collected over 

 mercury. Oxide of methyl is a colourless gas of an agreeable 

 ethereal odour, not liquified by a cold of+3.2 ( 16 cent.), 



2 H H 2 



