﻿On Ethylate of Sodium and E thy late of Potassium. 117 



It is clear from this that the quantity of substance uncom- 

 bined or dissociated in the flame diminishes as the pressure in- 

 creases. It may therefore be supposed that there is a pressure 

 at which a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen would produce in 

 combining the unimaginable temperature of 6800° which corre- 

 sponds to total combination. But it is no more possible to make 

 a serious hypothesis on this subject, than to ask whether there 

 be a pressure at which water could no longer boil, whatever tem- 

 perature were applied to it. 



I hope the Academy will excuse my having so long dwelt upon 

 a mere programme of researches in course of execution; but 

 they will be long and tedious, and I have been anxious to pre- 

 serve the right of pursuing them if any one more fortunate than 

 myself should sooner reach the object I am desirous of attaining. 

 If the general considerations developed in this communication 

 should facilitate the solution of a problem which I propound for 

 the first time, and which I seek by paths which, if complicated, 

 are yet rational, I shall be happy to have prepared the way. 



XVI. On Ethylate of Sodium and Ethylate of Potassium. — Part I. 

 By J. Alfred Wanklyn, Professor of Chemistry in the Lon- 

 don Institution*. 



^^HE Ethylates of the Alkali-metals have been very imper- 

 fectly studied, and are well deserving of a minute investi- 

 gation. Almost every one who has had occasion to prepare 

 ethylate of sodium must have observed that the quantity of metal 

 capable of being easily made to act on alcohol is comparatively 

 small; from being very energetic, as it is at first, the action be- 

 tween the sodium and the alcohol soon becomes sluggish, and 

 ceases long before so much as one equivalent of metal has de- 

 composed one equivalent of alcohol. Nevertheless I believe that 

 chemists usually regard the beautiful crystals which form when 

 sodium is allowed to react upon alcohol as being ethylate of so- 

 dium, and as having the formula C' 2 H 5 Na. 



The crystals are in reality a compound of ethylate of sodium 

 with alcohol. A note by A. Geuther and E. Scheitz shows that 

 they consist of Na C 2 H 5 0, 2(C 2 H 6 0). (I quote from the 

 Chemical News of January 8, 1869, which quotes the note on 

 Ethylate of Sodium from the Jena Zeitschrift f. M. und N. 

 vol. iv. p. 16). 



According to my own experiments, the crystals contain even 

 more alcohol, viz. three molecules of alcohol to one molecule of 

 ethylate of sodium, as will presently be described. It will also 



* Communicated bv the Author. 



