In 1850-60 Wöhler and Buff obtained an alloy of silicon and magnesium by the action of sodium on a molten mixture of magnesium chloride, sodium silicofluoride, and sodium chloride. The sodium then simultaneously reduces the silicon and magnesium. Friedel and Ladenburg subsequently prepared silicon hydride in a pure state, and showed that it is not spontaneously inflammable in air, at the ordinary pressure, but that, like PH_{3}, and like the mixture prepared by the above methods, it easily takes fire in air under a lower pressure or when mixed with hydrogen. They prepared the pure compound in the following manner: Wöhler showed that when dry hydrochloric acid gas is passed through a slightly heated tube containing silicon it forms a very volatile colourless liquid, which fumes strongly in air; this is a mixture of silicon chloride, SiCl_{4}, and _silicon chloroform_, SiHCl_{3}, which corresponds with ordinary chloroform, CHCl_{3}. This mixture is easily separated by distillation, because silicon chloride boils at 57°, and silicon chloroform at 36°. The formation of the latter will be understood from the equation Si + 3HCl = H_{2} + SiHCl_{3}. It is an anhydrous inflammable liquid of specific gravity 1·6. It forms a transition product between SiH_{4} and SiCl_{4}, and may be obtained from silicon hydride by the action of chlorine and SbCl_{5}, and is itself also transformed into silicon chloride by the action of chlorine. Gattermann obtained SiHCl_{3} by heating the mass obtained after the action (Note 4) of Mg upon SiO_{2}, in a stream of chlorine (with HCl) at about 470°. Friedel and Ladenburg, by acting on anhydrous alcohol with silicon chloroform, obtained an ethereal compound having the composition SiH(OC_{2}H_{5})_{3}. This ether boils at 136°, and when acted on by sodium disengages silicon hydride, and is converted into ethyl orthosilicate, Si(OC_{2}H_{5})_{4}, according to the equation 4SiH(OC_{2}H_{5})_{3} = SiH_{4} + 3Si(OC_{2}H_{5})_{4} (the sodium seems to be unchanged), which is exactly similar to the decomposition of the lower oxides of phosphorus, with the evolution of phosphuretted hydrogen. If we designate the group C_{2}H_{5}, contained in the silicon ethers by Et, the parallel is found to be exact: 4PHO(OH)_{2} = PH_{3} + 3PO(OH)_{3}; 4SiH(OEt)_{3} = SiH_{4} + 3Si(OEt)_{4}.