172 FREEZING OF ALCOHOL. 



collar flavour, and that, according as the one or other pre- 

 dominates, the flavour of the alcohol is agreeable, or other- 

 wise. 



Last autumn I resumed this subject, and my attention 

 was chiefly directed to the habitudes of these, impurities with 

 the chemical re-agents. This I found attended with consi- 

 derable difficulties, none of the least of which was to procure 

 a sufficient quantity of these impurities in a separate state. 

 The series of experiments I proposed to myself on this sub- 

 ject have not yet "been completed j but I may remark, that the 

 result of some of those I have made, promises to afford practi- 

 cal hints of considerable importance to those brewers whose 

 products are intended to afford spirituous liquors. 



From this notice it will be observed, that I have scarcely yet 

 entered on the wide field of inquiry, for cultivation of which, 

 the method alluded to appears to offer so powerful an instru- 

 ment. Alcohol only has been snbjected to experiment ; it was 

 the only liquid which had resisted all attempts to reduce it to 

 the solid state by the abstraction of caloric. If these experiments 

 be correct, we may now pronounce it a general law, to which 

 there is no exception, that all liquids with which we are ac- 

 quainted may be reduced to the solid state by a suitable abstrac- 

 tion of caloric. Whether all gases may be susceptible of re- 

 duction to the solid state, by-abstraction of caloric, remains to 

 be ascertained ; although, as I have mentioned, analogy ren- 

 ders it in the highest degree probable. 



The examination of the singular substances, which alcohol 

 prepared by Ri teller's process contains, has drawn me aside 

 from the course of experiments I prescribed to myself, and 

 taken up that time which I intended to have devoted to the exa- 

 mination of the effects of cold on the gaseous bodies. Whe- 

 ther I shall proceed to these bodies, or resume the examination 

 of the habitudes of the alcoholic impurities with the re-agents, 

 will much depend on the leisure which I can obtain ; but to 

 whichever of them I may direct my attention, I shall not fail 

 to give the earliest information of the result to the Institute. 



Annotation. — W. N. 

 Remark upon As Mr. Hutton's experiments and observations and perhaps 



more 



