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CHAPTERS FOR STUDENTS. 
tity of hydrocarbon compounds producing this difference must be exceedingly minute, 
for they afford no sensible residue on the evaporation of even a considerable quantity of 
the ether. And, indeed, as the hydrocarbons have a boiling-point considerably above 
that of water, and as the ether of commerce distils at about 105 3 F., they would evi¬ 
dently a priori contaminate it but slightly. Ihese hydrocarbons might be, perhaps, 
considered to bear somewhat the same relation to the effect of the ether, as the fusel-oil 
and fat-acid ethers of whisky and brandy do to the effect of their alcohol. 
If methylated spirit had never been introduced, and ether had not been made from 
it, ether could scarcely have become a popular stimulant in the north of Ireland. And 
it may not be without interest to look at this fact for a moment, from an Inland Re- 
venue point of view. Methylated spirit is absolutely exempt from duty, and especial 
legislation provides against the profitable exercise of chemical ingenuity in rendering it 
potable. But the authorities concerned never could have foreseen that the cheap ether 
which is so great a boon to practical chemists would ever find a place in the shops of 
grocers and publicans. The wholesale price of a pound of ether made from pure spirit 
is 5s., but a pound of methylated ether is sold in Tyrone and Derry for Is. 3d. As 
there are about seven and a half pounds in a gallon of commercial ether, a gallon costs 
11s. 3d. Now, if we assume the ordinary quantity taken at one time to average three 
drachms, and this quantity to be (in stimulant effect) the equivalent of half a glass of 
w'hisky, we arrive at the result that three gallons of ether supply the place of ten 
gallons of whisky, which, at fifteen degrees under proof, pay duty to the amoum of 
£4. 5s., while the ether pays nothing. It is very difficult to arrive at any accurate idea 
of the extent to which ether is consumed in the north of Ireland. Omagh is said to 
take about 400 Winchester quarts (equal to 250 gallons) yearly, and one Dublin manu¬ 
facturer has sent to Belfast at the rate of 4000 gallons yearly. Now, if for the sake of 
illustration, this latter quantity be taken as the total consumption of the North, the 
excise suffers by the practice to the extent of £5666 per annum. These figures must, 
however, fall immeasurably short of representing the total consumption. The excise 
authorities have, I understand, attempted to interfere, but, of course, without success, as 
there is no present legal restriction affecting the sale of ether, whether pure or methylated. 
This subject, too, cannot fail to be of interest to insurance companies, whose risks 
must be enormously increased by so dangerously inflammable a liquid being stored under 
the most unfavourable conditions, and handled by people so ignorant of its properties 
as country spirit dealers must necessarily be. 
Though I have put together all the facts which a careful consideration of the subject 
seemed to make the chief objects of inquiry, I have the disadvantage of not possessing 
personal experience—of not having visited an ether-drinking district. This deficiency 
I hope, ere long, to make good, but, in the meantime, I trust that those of my readers 
who reside in such districts, will be induced to make public any facts or statistics which 
come within their knowledge. 
I am indisposed at present to make any generalizations, but even at this early stage 
of the inquiry, it is impossible not to be struck with its forcible illustration of the fact, 
that if men are deprived, or deprive themselves, of any one form of nervous stimulant, 
they will, sooner or later, replace it by another. And, in the words of Liebig, I would 
ask those who may be hastily disposed to look upon this practice of ether drinking as 
utterly vicious and harmful, first to inquire, “ whether it depend upon sensual and sinful 
inclinations merely, that every people of the globe has appropriated some such means 
of acting on the nervous life ; from the shores of the Pacific, where the Indian retires 
from life for days, in order to enjoy the bliss of intoxication with coca ; to the Arctic 
regions, where Kamtschatdales and Koriakes prepare an intoxicating beverage from a 
poisonous mushroom.” 
CHAPTEES FOR STUDENTS. 
BY WILLIAM A. TILDEN, B.SC. LOND., 
DEMONSTRATOR OF PRACTICAL CHEMISTRY TO THE PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY. 
The design of this and of the papers which will follow it is to give an outline 
of the chief facts and laws of physics, in so simple a manner as to include no 
