920 PREPARING ACETIC ETHER. 



24°, immiscible with water, of a pleasant smell, and power- 

 fully reddening vegetable blues. No particular gas was 

 evolved during the operation ; the atmospheric air alone 

 being displaced by the gasiform ether. I rectified this 

 ether over potash purified by alcohol; after which it no 

 longer reddened blue vegetable colours, indicated 25° by 

 the areometer, and weighed 420 grammes. 

 Durosier's with The process by the intervention of sulphuric acid, pointed 

 sulphuric acid. qu j. ^y our colleague Durosier, consists in introducing 

 500 grammes of powdered acetate of copper into a tubu- 

 lated retort, and adapting to it a Woulfe's apparatus. 

 * 500 Grammes each of rectified alcohol and sulphuric acid 



are then mixed together, and when cold are poured through 

 the tubulure into the retort; heat is gradually applied; and 

 640 grammes of acetic ether are immediately obtained, 

 mixed with a small quantity of sulphurous acid. This ether 

 marks on the areometer 25-p, powerfully reddens vege- 

 table blues, and forms a precipitate with barytes or lime 

 water. During the process a small quantity of elastic fluid 

 is disengaged, which I found to be sulphurous acid gas. 

 Examination I rectified this ether with 50 grammes of potash purified 



whether it con- fry a i co hol ; and, to ascertain whether any sulphuric ether 



tamed sulphu- '. . ' ■ ' '\ J . r 



tic ether. existed in it, 1 separated what came over into portions of 



50 grammes each. 



Giavityofthe The first portion indicated on the areometer 31°, the 



Sffe^n?^ second 28 S the third 27 l°> the fourth 26 T°- These dif- 

 periods. ferent products together indicated 28°, and weighed 535 



grammes. 

 Cravityof sul- To find whether it were easy to detect the presence of 

 acetic^ther sulphuric ether in acetic ether by separating the products, 

 mixed near the I made a mixture of 50 grammes of the former at 56°, the 

 mean - thermometer being at 0, with 200 grammes of the latter at 



25°. The two ethers thus mixed after two days standing 



indicated 30°. 



I distilled about 70 grammes of ether; it indicated 39°, 



and had the smell of sulphuric ether very perceptibly; 



whence I concluded, that the mode I had employed was the 



only one for separating the two ethers. 

 The two kinds I afterward subjected the acetic ethers to the following 

 compared. cxamination# 



1. They 



