On the Replacement of Alcoholic Radicals. 35 
a salt, and in general the replacement of one element by another, 
and there was reason to hope that the study of the reactions in 
which these organic radicals were concerned might throw some 
light upon those in which their types, the inorganic elements, 
play a part. 
tives of others which are analogous, and have endeavored to 
solve by experiment the following problems. 
1. Is the replacement of the alcoholic radicals by each other 
one that takes place readily in all the combinations into which 
they enter; or is it peculiar to their combinations with acids? 
2. Is one alcoholic radical to be considered as playing the 
part of a stronger base than another, and as displacing it from 
its combination by virtue of a stronger affinity for the body with 
which it was combined? Or, on the contrary, is the change of 
composition, produced by heating a mixture of compounds of 
several radicals, due to the tendency of each one to enter into 
all the combinations possible to it 
In order to answer the first question, we have examined—tst, 
the action of alcohols on the ethers of various acids; 2d, the 
action of these ethers on each other: and 8d, the action on each 
rate the two, advantage was taken of the property of amylic 
alcohol to unite readily with an excess of sulphuric acid to form 
amyl-sulphuric acid soluble in water, while acetate of amyl is 
dissolved, undecomposed by the acid, and is precipitated by di- 
luting the solution with water. [If care is taken not to allow 
_the temperature of a mixture of amylic alcohol, with several 
sufficient to rey the small amount of water still retained by it. hb excess of 
sodium employed forms an alcoholate of sodium, which is not decomposed at the 
