Heinrich Rose. 321 
with other products of decomposition. Reynoso found that 
when sulphuric acid and alcohol were heated under pressure, 
more or less sulphovinie acid was produced in the greater num- 
ber of cases; and only when a very dilute sulphuric acid was 
om thie could none of this acid be detected. 
he experiment of Graham, which is quoted by Prof. Miller 
as opposed to Rose’s view, seems capable of a different explana- 
| tion. 100 parts of oil of vitriol, 48 of alcohol of sp. gr. 0-841, 
; and 18°5 of water, were heated in a closed tube to 148° C. for one 
: our. The alcohol was evidently decomposed by the large 
quantity of acid, and no stratum of ether formed upon the sur- 
lace of the fluid. The tube was opened, and the fluid divided 
Into two equal portions, One of the portions was mixed with 
half its volume of water, and the other with half its volume of 
alcohol, and both sealed up in glass tubes and again exposed to 
148° C. for one hour. 
It would be expected, says Prof. Graham, on the ordinary 
view of water setting free ether from sulphovinie acid, that 
much ether would be liberated in the mixture above, to which 
Water was added. The ether which separated, however, 
amounted only to a thin film, after the liquid had stood for 
Process, a too dilute alcohol be employed, so that the acid be- 
comes diluted beyond a certain point, the formation of ether 
Ceases, and the alcohol distils over unchanged. In the portion 
of the liquid to which Prof. Grabam added water, the affinity of 
the sulphuric acid may have been so weakened that it was un- 
able to prevent the recombination of the ether with water ; for, 
as has been said, diluted sulphovinic acid gives, on distillation, 
not ether, but alcohol. : ae 
Es, he more recent theory of Williamson, of the constitution 
_ nd formation of ether, offers no other explanation of the de- 
composition of the sulphovinic acid than the tendency to dupli- 
Cation of the atomic weight, which Prof. Grabam has aseri 
to a “ polymerizing action” of sulphuric acid; to this, however, 
_ Am. Jour. Sct.—Szconp Serums, Vou. XXXYVIII, No. 114.—Noy., 1864. 
4] 
