76 Destructive Distillation of the Sulphate of Etherine. 



Art. VI. — On the destructive Distillation of the Sulphate of 

 Etherine or heavy Oil of Wine; by Clark Hare, of Phila. 



When the oil of wine is subjected in a retort, to a temperature 

 sufficiently high, a receiver refrigerated by snow and salt being 

 fitted to the beak, there passes over not the oil itself, but the yel- 

 low liquid which is obtained with the acid of a similar refrigera- 

 tion, in the process for forming the sulphate of etherine, by the 

 reaction of sulphuric acid and alcohol. This yellow liquid* con- 

 sists of a combination of sulphurous acid and ether, called by 

 Dr. Hare, who first described it, sulphurous ether, which boils 

 below 30°, holding in solution a small quantity of the heavy oil 

 of wine, which, by the formation of other more volatile com- 

 pounds, has escaped decomposition. 



This experiment is interesting as proving that ether may be 

 formed from the sulphate of etherine, as well as the sulphate of 

 etherine, from ether ; and thus adding a new link to the chain 

 which connects these two compounds. It may also perhaps serve 

 as the ground on which to base some theoretical speculations, on 

 the phenomena which attend the reaction of sulphuric acid and 

 alcohol, Avhen subjected to the process of distillation. 



According to the theory of etherification, which refers the 

 phenomena attendant on this reaction, to the formation and de- 

 composition of sulphovinic acid, the production of ether has been 

 ascribed to the tendency of this acid when heated, to resolve it- 

 self into its constituent parts, sulphuric acid, and ether. But 

 there has been some difficulty in understanding how, when the 

 process is pushed a little further, such large quantities of sulphu- 

 rous acid should accompany the ether, while the sulphate of 

 etherine, which one might, from the composition of sulphovinic 

 acid, have anticipated as the principal product, is formed in quan- 

 tities so small, as to appear rather the result of some accidental 

 play of affinities, than of a regular decomposition. 



The composition of sulphovinic acid, has been variously stated 

 as 2S- + E+2H-, and 2 S-+E+H-, while for that of the sul- 

 phate of etherine, we have had given S--- + E+H, and 2S--- + 2 

 E----f H. In the following remarks founded on the writings of 



* This liquid has been designated as the ethereal sulphurous sulphate of ether- 

 ine, by Dr. Hare. 



