402 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO CHEMISTRY CHAP. 



pounds of the acids with olefiant gas formed by the removal 

 of water from the alcohol. They concluded : 



"That olefiant gas plays the part of a very powerful 

 alkali, endowed with a capacity of saturation equal to that 

 of ammonia, of which it would probably show most of the 

 reactions, if it were, like ammonia, soluble in water. 



2. That alcohol and ether are hydrates of olefiant gas. 



3. That the compound ethers are salts of olefiant gas, 

 etc." (loc. tit. p. 52). 



The analogy of composition between the compound 

 ethers and the salts of ammonia was shown in a table, a 

 part of which (using modern atomic weights and formulae) 

 would read as follows : 



Compound Ethers.* Ammonium Salts. 



Alcohol, C 2 H 4 ,H 2 O 3 Ammonium hydroxide, NH 3 , H 2 O 



Sulphuric ether, 2C 2 H 4 ,H 2 O 3 Ammonium oxide, 2NH 3 ,H 2 O 

 Hydrochloric ether, Q,H 4 ,IIC1 Ammonium chloride, NH 3 ,HC1 



Hydriodic ether, C 2 H 4 ,HI Ammonium iodide, NH 3 ,HI 



Nitric ether, C 2 H 4 ,HNO 2 Ammonium nitrite, NH 3 ,HNO 2 



Acetic ether, G,H 4 ,C 2 H 4 O 2 Ammonium acetate, NH 3 ,C 2 H 4 O 2 



Sulphovinic acid 2 C 2 H 4 ,H 2 SO 4 Ammonium bisulphate, NH 3 ,H 2 SO 4 



Liebig (1834) on the ethyl radical. Berzelius in dis- 

 cussing Wohler and Liebig's paper "On the Radical of 

 Benzoic Acid," adopted the view of Dumas and Boullay in 

 reference to the composition of alcohol and the ethers. He 

 suggested (Ann. der Pharm., 1832, 3, 286) that the group 

 of atoms present in olefiant gas should be described as 

 AETHERIN and represented by the symbol Ae. Liebig him- 

 self (" On the Constitution of Ether and its Compounds," 

 Ann. der Pharm., 1834, 9, 1-39) adopted a different view. 



1 The compound ethers were named after the acids used in preparing 

 them but " sulphuric, phosphoric, arsenic ethers ... are identical 

 amongst themselves" (loc. cit. p. 15), being merely alcohol deprived of 

 water. 



2 Examined just before by Dumas and Boullay ("Memoir on the 

 Formation of Sulphuric Ether," Ann. Chim. Phys., 1827, 36, 294- 

 310) as the first product of the action of sulphuric acid on alcohol. 



3 Isolated in 1909, see p. 287. 



