820 . Heinrich Rose. 
might consequently be again resolved into sulphovinic acid and 
water, and the process be continued indefinitely without giving 
rise to any new product. Such a perpetwum mobile is as incon- 
ceivable in chemistry as in mechanics. e fact that alcohol, 
if reproduced, would be immediately again decomposed, seems 
to show that the balance of affinities cannot be in favor of its 
formation. It may then be the decomposing action of the su 
oi acid upon alcohol which prevents the combination of the 
iberated oxyd of ethyl with water. The production of alcohol 
instead of ether, when a not very concentrated solution of sul- 
phovinie acid is distilled, does not prove that the same solution, 
with the addition of sulphuric acid, would not give the opposite 
result. The direct experiment could, of course, give only an 
ambiguous result. 
The case is, however, very different when alcohol is first re 
solved into sulphovinic acid, and this acid is in turn decom: 
formation and direct decomposition of some compound, w ich 
have succeeded each other so rapidly that the compound itself 
has escaped our notice ?* 
Several facts, some of which have been discovered since the 
publication of Rose’s paper, favor his view of the decomposition 
of the sulphovinic acid by the action of water. In the ordinary 
process for the preparation of ether, the greater the proportion 
of sulphuric acid which is added to the alcohol, the higher must 
the temperature of the mixture be raised; that is, where the 
action of water is counteracted by its union with a concentrate 
acid, a higher temperature is necessary to weaken its affinity for 
the acid and enable it to act as if uncombined. In the ope 
eated, 
mid, and iodid, of ethyl, when heated with water in closed tubes 
_ are resolved into hydro-bromic or iodic acid, and ether, together 
ution into new Pp 
