242 Prof. B. Silliman, Jr. on Chloroform. 
phuric acid, to deprive it of water or to increase its density. 
Some care and experience are required to wash it economically. 
Thus prepared it is an oily, highly volatile and fragrant fluid, per- 
fectly pellucid, with a sweet and pungent aromatic taste. 
mingled with atmospheric air is highly agreeable, and produces 
at once the symptoms of intoxication. It boils at 141° I*., and is 
not inflammable, but its vapor, as observed by M. Soubeiran, if 
directed from a jet upon the flame of a spirit lamp, takes fire and 
burns with much smoke. It also burns when mingled with an 
equal volume of alcohol. Iodine dissolves in it. Potassium de- 
composes it slowly at common temperatures, disengaging hydro- 
gen and some carbon, and forming chlorid of potassium. Bary- 
tes and lime also decompose it, with the production of a metallic 
chlorid, and the separation of free carbon and inflammable gas. It 
is not decomposed by sulphuric acid, and hydrochloric acid 
does not change it even with heat. Heated with nitric acid, 
a small quantity of nitrous vapors are exhaled. A concentra- 
ted solution of potash produces a slow decomposition of the 
compound. 
The constitution of chloroform is best expressed by the for- 
mula C,HC\l,, or it is formene C,H,, in which three equivalents 
of hydrogen are replaced by three of chlorine, without destroying 
the type of the original compound. F'ormene is the name whic 
has been given to marsh gas, and has the same constitution as 
wood-spirit minus two atoms of oxygen. C,H,O, - O,=C,H,. 
Although the chloroform contains more than eighty-three per cent. 
of chlorine, this element cannot be detected in it by nitrate of 
silver. This apparent anomaly is in obedience to the law which 
governs all similar substitution products, in which the electro-neg- 
ative element exists in an electro-positive allotropic condition. 
Not the slightest analogy can be traced between the constitution 
of chloroform and the ethers, and hence the great impropriety 0 
calling it “ chloric ether,” which term belongs to the perchloric 
ether described by Booth and Boyé, a totally dissimilar compound, 
of much explosive energy, which is C,H ,Cl0., = If chloroform 
were an ether, it ought in analogy with all other compounds of 
that family, promptly to be decomposed by watery solution of 
potash, taking up two equivalents of oxygen, and regenerating 
alcohol and chlorine, which is obviously not the fact and quite 
impossible. TIodoform and bromoform are two compounds (C, HI, 
and C,HBr,) in strict analogy with chloroform. All these com- 
pounds are decomposed by an alcoholic solution of potash, aflord- 
ing a compound of the salt radical with potassium, and formate 
of potash. ThusC,HCl,+4KO=3KCI1+C,HKO,. Trichlo- 
rinized formene is a name which exactly describes the composi- 
tion of chloroform, and the fourth equivalent of hydrogen which 
it contains, may be replaced by exposing chloroform to the action 
