FREEZING OF ALCOHOL. }J\ 



Uppermost stratum, has a strong and very offensive smell, and 

 a very sharp nauseous taste. It dissolves in alcohol, to which 

 it communicates its peculiar flavour j its disagreeable smell is 

 considerably heightened by this combination. It dissolves in 

 water, though less readily than the substance last treated of. 

 The compound, when much diluted and heated, has very much 

 the flavour of the low wine of our lowland distillers, at the 

 time it issues from the still. 



The two last mentioned substances, or those of which the 

 two upper strata are composed, when mixed together and 

 greatly diluted with water, have very nearly the flavour of alco- 

 hol. They have rather more volatility than water; for when 

 half a solution of them has been distilled over, the distilled 

 part has a much stronger smell than that which remains in the 

 retort. 



It may be proper to mention, that from the circumstance of 

 my sense of smell having been for some time extremely obtuse, 

 I have been under the necessity of trusting to others for the 

 facts regarding the flavour or these new substances and mix- 

 tures ; from the uniformity of the reports, however, which I 

 have received from different persons, I have no doubt that these 

 facts are correct. 



Besides that from which I filled the thermometer in the Alcohols of 



first experiment, I have operated on alcohol of the specific le " strength 



.. w i L^i i •/• • /- . , frozen with si* 



gravities 802, 797, and 784 $ the specific gravity of the last m ilar results. 



was taken when its temperature was 66 deg. and it is probably 

 the most concentrated that lias ever been obtained. But with 

 alcohol of all these different strengths, the g.neral results were 

 similar. In alcohol obtained from different sources, the pro- 

 portions of the impurities were different, both with regard to 

 the pure alcohol, and to one another, but I have met with none 

 that did not: contain both. 



From these experiments I think it is ascertained -, 



1st. That ths strongest alcohol which we are able to obtain, Recapitula- 

 may be frozen by the method alluded to. tl0n - 



2d. That this alcohol contains at least two foreign substances, 

 which are highly volatile, and, so far as is known, can only be 

 separated by freezing. 



3d. That it is to those substances that alcohol owes its pe- 

 culiar 

 N2 



