Annales De Chimie Research Articles

LV. Letter addressed by M. Edmond Becquerel to the editors of the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, in reply to Mr. Daniell's Letter to Mr. R. Phillips on the constant voltaic battery, inserted in the Phil. Mag. for April 1842

LV. Letter addressed by M. Edmond Becquerel to the editors of the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, in reply to Mr. Daniell's Letter to Mr. R. Phillips on the constant voltaic battery, inserted in the Phil. Mag. for April 1842

LXXVII. Letter to Richard Taylor, Esq., one of the editors of the Lond. and Edinb. philosophical magazine, occasioned by M. Melloni's paper on the polarization of heat in the Annales de Chimie for May 1837

LXXVII. <i>Letter to</i> Richard Taylor, <i>Esq., one of the editors of the Lond. and Edinb. philosophical magazine, occasioned by</i> M. Melloni's <i>paper on the polarization of heat in the</i> Annales de Chimie <i>for May</i> 1837

XXXIII. Researches into the cause of voltaic electricity

Abstract AT the commencement of 1828°, in a memoir entitled, Analysis of the circumstances which determine the direction and intensity of the electric currents in a voltaie pair, I showed by several experiments the impossibility of explaining the production of voltaic electricity by the theory of contact, and the necessity for having recourse to chemical action. At the end of the same year I published an abstract of the researches which form the subject of this article, in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique‡, which appeared in three parts in the memoirs of the Société de Physique el d'Histoire Naturelle of Geneva, in 1829, 1832, and 1835. These three parts, especially the last, were enriched with new facts not contained in the abstract which I had given in 1828; but the principles were then stated, and the new details that I added have only had the effect of proving their exactitude. Thus in 1828, that is long before the labours of Messrs. Ohm, Fechner, and Faraday, I had already given the theory of the pile, founding it upon principles which have been confirmed by the important researches of the physicists whom I have just mentioned. But I ought to acknowledge that these researches, particularly those of Mr. Faraday, have led not only to the discovery of new laws of great value, but in addition, have given, by the discovery of those laws, a more solid basis to the chemical theory of the pile than was afforded by my own labours. As my memoir forms a volume of 170 pages, and consequently cannot be inserted entire in a scientific journal, I have endeavoured to give an abstract of it, as complete as is possible, for the Philosophical Magazine, and I have taken advantage of this circumstance to add to it a few facts which I have not hitherto had an opportunity of publishing.

XIX. On the mutual action of sulphuric acid and alcohol, and on the nature of the process by which ether is formed

1. I was some time since engaged in an investigation of the nature of oil of wine and of the salts called sulphovinates: the results I obtained were considered of sufficient importance to be honoured with a place in the Philosophical Transactions. The oil of wine and sulphovinic acid are substances produced during the mutual action of sulphuric acid and alcohol in the well-known process adopted for the preparation of ether; and an important point with me, during the above investigations and since that time, has been to develop the particular changes which take place when ether is formed from sulphuric acid and alcohol. I perceive by the Annales de Chimie for November last, that MM. Dumas and Boullay have been engaged on the same subject, and have experimented on and considered, not only the formation of ether, but also the nature of sulphovinates, and, as they supposed, though incorrectly, of oil of wine. That our results with regard to sulphovinates and oil of wine differ, may be seen from the published accounts; and there is not less difference between their conclusions with regard to etherification, and the results I have obtained, which I have now to describe. 2. When alcohol and sulphuric acid in equal weights are put together without the application of any heat beyond that generated during the mixture, the most abundant and important product is sulphovinic acid, above one half of the sulphuric acid being converted into that peculiar acid by union with hydro-carbon. But when such a mixture containing so large a proportion of sulphovinic acid is distilled, the most important product is a new substance, namely ether, and the sulphovinic acid disappears. The questions which then arose were, whether the ether was formed altogether from the direct action of the remaining alcohol and sulphuric acid in the mixture, or whether the sulphovinic acid might not also assist, or whether it might not be an essential state of the elements intermediate between the mixture of the acid and alcohol and the development of the perfectly formed ether. MM. Dumas and Boullay, who have considered the same questions, or at least some of them, —decide, that the portions of materials which form ether, are altogether independent of those which produce sulphovinic acid: but the following facts prove in my opinion the contrary of this conclusion.