By rectifying the ardent spirit, which came over in distilling the above-mentioned mixture, a very singular liquor is obtained, which differs essentially both from oils and from ardent spirits, though in certain respects it resembles them both. This liquor is known in Chymistry by the name of _Æther_, and its chief properties are as follow. Æther is lighter, more volatile, and more inflammable, than the most highly rectified spirit of wine. It quickly flies off when exposed to the air, and suddenly catches fire when any flame approaches it. It burns like spirit of wine without the least smoke, and consumes entirely without leaving the smallest appearance of a coal or of ashes. It dissolves oils and oily matters with great ease and rapidity. These properties it has in common with an ardent spirit. But it resembles an oil in that it is not miscible with water; and this makes it essentially different from spirit of wine, the nature of which is to be miscible with all aqueous liquors. Another very singular property of Æther is its great affinity with gold, exceeding even that of _aqua regis_. It does not indeed dissolve gold when in a mass, and in its metalline form; but if a small quantity of Æther be added to a solution of gold in _aqua regis_, and the whole shaken together, the gold separates from the _aqua regis_, joins the Æther, and remains dissolved therein. The reason of all the phenomena above-mentioned, resulting from the mixture of spirit of wine with oil of vitriol, is founded on the great affinity between this acid and water. For if the vitriolic acid be weak, and as it were over-dosed with watery parts, neither oil nor Æther can be obtained by means thereof: but when highly concentrated, it attracts the aqueous parts very powerfully; and therefore, being mixed with spirit of wine, lays hold of most of the water contained in it, and even robs it of some portion of that which is essential to its nature, and necessary to constitute it spirit of wine: whence it comes to pass, that a certain quantity of the oily particles in its composition being separated from the watery particles, and so brought nearer to each other, they unite and assume their natural form; and thus the oil that swims at top of the sulphureous phlegm is produced. The vitriolic acid moreover thickens and even burns some of this oil; and hence comes the bituminous residuum left at the bottom of the still, which looks like the result of a vitriolic acid combined with common oil. Lastly, the vitriolic acid becomes sulphureous, as it always doth when united with oily matters, and also very aqueous, on account of the quantity of phlegm which it attracts from the spirit of wine.