ESTERS

or ETHEREAL SALTS, in chemistry, a general term for substances formed by the union of an acid and an alcohol with elimination of water. Thus ethyl acetate is formed from ethyl alcohol and acetic acid. Many of them are volatile, pleasant smelling substances, ESTHER, BOOK OF, book of the Old Testament. It narrates an episode at the court of the Persian King Ahasuerus (Xerxes) in Susa, 5th cen 227 ESTIMATE tury B.c. The royal consort Vashti was deposed, and her place taken by Esther, related to a Jewish exile, Mordecai. Esther and Mordecai frustrated the plots of the grand vizier, Haman, against the Jewish people, whose deliverance was thereafter commemorated by the Purim festival. Written aiter 390 B.c., the Book of Esther was expanded by Maccabean additions Wiitich form a separate section of the Old Testament Apocrypha.