VOL. XXXVI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3Qf 



&c. or all these together, cut and bottle them, pour on them a spoonful or two 

 of the ethereal liquor, and after it has stood an hour in a cold place, fill up the 

 bottle with cold water, and the essential oil will swim on the water poured upon 

 them, easily separable by the funnel, or instrumentum tritorium. Of this 

 essential oil, one drop only on a lump of sugar, manifests to the taste, &c. the 

 medical virtues of the plant, exquisitely drawn out, comprehended in this 

 essence, deservedly named cos, as containing the colour, odour, and sapor or 

 taste of the plant or plants. In like manner the essential oils of exotics are 

 easily prepared. (Succeeded.) But it is not a true essential oil, but an ex- 

 cessive strong tincture, whi(;h may be called the essence. 



Exper. 8. — Of the like use it is in the animal kingdom, where it produces 

 an essential oil of phosphorus, as also in the mineral kingdom, though not so 

 immediately, because the resolution of earths must precede. Moreover, it is 

 easily proved that the same liquor extracts the purest gold, or every part of the 

 golden system from any, or all the baser minerals; and that this gold, thus ex- 

 tricated, is by this one operation better and sooner purified, than by fusion of 

 minerals with antimony. 



Exper. g. — This water is neither corrosive nor joined with apparent corro- 

 sives. Therefore fill as many bottles with ethereal water as there are sorts 

 of salts, and into the first, drop oil of vitriol ; put into the second spirit of sea- 

 salt, into the third spirit of nitre, or of alum, or of sal-ammoniac prepared 

 with water, or the lixivium of tartar, or rectified wine-vinegar ; all the salts 

 immediately sink to the bottom: besides, it is the lightest of all liquors; for 

 fill any vessel with 20 oz. of oil of vitriol, the same emptied, will contain but 

 7 oz. of ether. It is the very ens, or being, most pure of flame; therefore 

 neither soot nor ashes are ever found on its deflagration. (Succeeded,) 



Thus far Dr. Frobenius; but to make this paper more than a mere harangue, 

 it is absolutely necessary to subjoin two paragraphs out of a paper of that ex- 

 cellent chymist Mr. Godfrey, (Dr. Frobenius's fellow labourer in these experi- 

 ments) which he delivered in, when this ether was made public before them. 



" Feb. IQ, 1729-30. That this liquor ethereus, was formerly very much es- 

 teemed and inquired into, clearly appears by an experiment I made formerly 

 for my worthy master, Mr. Boyle, by means of a metallic solution, namely, 

 by the solution of crude mercury united with the phlogiston vini, or other 

 vegetables, and this ether swam on the top of the solution which I separated 

 per tritorium. Note, This is what I have done formerly in Mr. Boyle's Labo- 

 ratory, and Sir Isaac Newton was very well acquainted with it too; which by 

 reason of the shortness of life was not brought to a full end, to do it so readily 

 in quantity. But when Dr. Frobenius, by experiments on this in my Labora- 

 tory, produced it in greater quantity, he wanted to see how far Sir Isaac New- 



