Ether, then, is to alcohol, what alcohol is to brandy?
MRS. B.
No: there is an essential difference. In order to obtain alcohol from brandy, you need only deprive the latter of its water; but for the formation of ether, the alcohol must be decomposed, and one of its constituents partly subtracted. I leave you to guess which of them it is—
EMILY.
It cannot be hydrogen, as ether is more volatile than alcohol, and hydrogen is the lightest of all its ingredients: nor do I suppose that it can be oxygen, as alcohol contains so small a proportion of that principle; it is, therefore, most probably, carbon, a diminution of which would not fail to render the new compound more volatile.
MRS. B.
You are perfectly right. The formation of ether consists simply in subtracting from the alcohol a certain proportion of carbon; this is effected by the action of the sulphuric, nitric, or muriatic acids, on alcohol. The acid and carbon remain at the bottom of the vessel, whilst the decarbonised alcohol flies off in the form of a condensable vapour, which is ether.
Ether is the most inflammable of all fluids, and burns at so slow a temperature that the heat evolved during its combustion is more than is required for its support, so that a quantity of ether is volatilised, which takes fire, and gradually increases the violence of the combustion.
Sir Humphry Davy has lately discovered a very singular fact respecting the vapour of ether. If a few drops of ether be poured into a wine-glass, and a fine platina wire, heated almost to redness, be held suspended in the glass, close to the surface of the ether, the wire soon becomes intensely red-hot, and remains so for any length of time. We may easily try the experiment. . . . .
CAROLINE.