108 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS OF DISTILLATION. 



Messieurs Pierre and Puchot have been prosecuting some 

 researches into the alcoholic products of distillation, and find 

 that these consist, first, of aldehyde; second, of ethylic ace- 

 tate ; third, of propylic alcohol ; fourth, of butylic alcohol ; 

 fifth, of amylic alcohol ; and sixth, of essential oils. 



For the purpose of determining the existence of these va- 

 rious products as chemical substances, and formed at the ex- 

 pense of sugar during fermentation, the authors above named 

 have submitted them to numerous chemical tests, and have 

 also sought for the means of depriving vinous alcohol, prop- 

 perly speaking, of these various substances, for the practical 

 purposes of purification, as it is to the presence of one or oth- 

 er of them that the defective taste of certain forms of spirits 

 is attributed. 



Among the indirect results reached in their inquiries, the 

 authors maintain that it is incorrect to say, when two non- 

 miscible liquids are boiled together, that the atmospheric 

 pressure is equal to the sum of the elastic forces of the va- 

 pors of the two liquids, estimated separately at the tempera- 

 ture at which the mixture boils; but that, first, when two 

 non-miscible liquids are boiled together, one of them being 

 water, the boiling-point of the mixture is below that of the 

 liquid that boils most readily ; second, this boiling-point of 

 the mixture continues absolutely constant as long as there 

 remains an appreciable quantity of each of the two liquids ; 

 third, this constancy is independent of the relative propor- 

 tions of the two liquids ; fourth, the mixed vapors condensed 

 during distillation have a direct relation to each other, inde- 

 pendently of the relative proportions of the two liquids 

 brought together in the distilling apparatus. 1 B, June 23, 

 1872,209. 



MINERAL WORKS AT STASSFURT. 



Few more happy illustrations of the valuable practical ap- 

 plications of chemistry have ever been given than in the 

 treatment of a substance, at first believed to be worthless, 

 found at the village of Stassfurt, about twelve miles from 

 Magdeburg, in Germany, in the course of borings for rock 

 salt, which were first made in 1839, but were not brought to 



