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SELECTED ARTICLES. 
am surprised that I have met with no statements respecting 
the reaction of ammonia with the above mentioned ethereal 
sulphurous sulphate of etherine. 
Since the year 1818, I have been accustomed to saturate 
the acid in that liquid by ammonia. The residue being ren- 
dered very fragrant, and entirely freed from its sulphurous 
odour, by admixture with about twenty-four parts of alcohol, 
was found to constitute an anodyne, possessing eminently all 
the efficacy of that so long distinguished by the name of Hoff- 
man. When the residue, remaining after saturation with 
ammonia, was distilled in a water bath, ether came over, and 
left an oil which I was accustomed to consider as the oil of 
wine. 
I had observed that, in the process above mentioned, there 
was a striking evolution of vapour, which seemed irreconcila- 
ble with the received opinion of the re-agents employed. 
Since the affinity between the ammonia and sulphurous acid 
is energetic, it did not appear to be reasonable that a copious 
escape of the one should be caused by its admixture with the 
other; and it was no less improbable that the vaporization of 
hydric ether, in its natural state, could take place at tempera- 
tures so much below its boiling point as those at which this 
phenomenon was noticed. In order to ascertain the truth, I 
luted a funnel, furnished with a glass cock and an air tight 
stopple, into the tubulure of a retort, of which the beak was 
so recurved downwards as to enter and be luted into the tubu- 
lure of another retort. The beak of the latter passed under a 
bell over water. 
Both retorts were about half full of liquid ammonia, and 
surrounded with ice. The apparatus being thus arranged, 
about a thousand grains of the ethereal sulphurous sulphate of 
etherine were poured into the funnel, and thence gradually 
allowed to descend into the ammonia in the first retort. Not- 
withstanding the refrigeration, much heat was perceptible, 
and a copious evolution of vapour, which, passing into the 
second retort, was there absorbed or condensed, none being 
observed to heat the bell glass. At the close of the operation, 
