Papers on etherification and on the constitution of salts / by Alexander W. Williamson ... (1850-1856).

  • Williamson, Alexander W. (Alexander William), 1824-1904.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Papers on etherification and on the constitution of salts / by Alexander W. Williamson ... (1850-1856). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    RESULTS OF A RESEARCH ON ^THERIFICATION* HE process by which this remarkable trans- ±_ formation of the elements of alcohol is effected has been the subject of much discussion among chemists ; of the two theories which have been de- vised to explain it, each counts among its supporters many first-rate chemists. The facts upon which the contact theory lays peculiar stress are more physical than those to which the appropriately-designated chemical theory refers for its evidence. But there is one point upon which the two differ essentially, and that is the composition of alcohol ; the one maintaining that the two products, aether and water, are made from 2 atoms of alcohol; the other, that they are both produced from i atom of double size. This is a difference of fact, and is therefore susceptible of being decided by experiment, as it requires nothing more than a direct evidence of the relative atomic weights of alcohol and aether. An experiment was accordingly devised, of such a nature as to give a result according to the simple, differing from that according to the double atomic weight of alcohol. It consisted in making aether from alcohol by a new process, in which the various steps * [From Report of the Twentieth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1850, part 2, p. 65.]