200 



HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSS/E. 



GOSSIP ON CURRENT TOPICS. 

 By W. Mattieu Williams, F.R.A.S., F.C.S. 



A BSOLUTE ALCOHOL.— The difficulty of 

 •£*■ obtaining this is considerable. Ordinary dis- 

 tillation separates alcohol from water but imperfectly, 

 the water and the alcohol adhere so firmly that when 

 a mixture of these, such as always is first obtained in 

 the manufacture of alcohol, is distilled, some water 

 comes over with the alcohol although the boiling 

 point of the latter is so much lower than that of the 

 water. Thus, ordinary "spirits of wine" or the 

 " Rectified Spirit " of the pharmacopoeia, contains 

 but 84 per cent, by weight of pure alcohol, and 

 official "Proof Spirit" contains but 49 per cent. 

 This proportion was originally determined by the old 

 method of testing or proving the strength of the 

 mixture. A small quantity of gunpowder was 

 moistened with the liquid to be tested and then a 

 light applied. If it fired the gunpowder, it was said 

 to be "over proof;" if not, "under proof." The 

 weakest spirit that will stand this test is what we now 

 describe as having specific gravity 0*920 at the 

 temperature of 6o°, which is the modern excise proof 

 standard. 



The ordinary method of removing all the water or 

 obtaining absolute alcohol is to invoke the strong 

 affinity of quicklime for water, by adding this, or a 

 mixture of it with alkaline carbonate, to the simply 

 distilled spirit and then to distil again. The lime 

 holds back the water, and if the process is skilfully 

 conducted, absolute alcohol finally comes over from 

 the still, having a specific gravity of 07938. 



Another method of separating the water has been 

 recently devised. Gelatine, in its soluble form, 

 absorbs water very freely, but is a total abstainer 

 from alcohol. By suspending thin sheets of gelatine 

 in diluted alcohol the gelatine will take up the water 

 and leave the alcohol behind, and we are told that in 

 this manner absolute alcohol is obtainable without 

 distillation. The process is curious and interesting, 

 but I do not vouch for its complete efficiency. 



The Purification of Alcohol.— Intimately 

 connected with the above is another recent announce- 

 ment of a new method of removing that bugbear of 

 the distillers — fusel oil — from alcohol. Hitherto this 

 has been practically effected by the very simple yet 

 expensive process of ageing, keeping the spirit — such 

 as whisky — for some years in the cask, during which 

 period the proportion of fusel oil gradually diminishes, 

 and the spirit diminishes in strength from over proof 

 — to much under proof. I have never met with any 

 account of the rationale of this change, but have 

 supposed that between the fusel oil and the wood of 

 the cask there must exist some selective adhesion 

 whereby it enters the pores of the wood, passes slowly 

 through and then evaporates from the outside. This 



theory is supported by the fact that, after bottling, 

 the action is so much reduced that the exosmosis 

 appears to be limited to the cork. 



The new method consists (omitting details) in 

 mixing with the raw spirit a hydrocarbon, i.e. a liquid 

 of the same class as the resin existing between the 

 woody fibres of the cask. 



The fusel oil adheres to the hydro-carbon — i.e. 

 mixes with it, while the alcohol remains unsociably 

 apart, and its purification is thereby effected. High 

 authority is quoted in affirmation of the completeness 

 of this purification. My only difficulty in accepting 

 all that is stated in favour of the process is that a 

 limited company is either afloat or in course of flota- 

 tion. One becomes brutally cynical in these days 

 concerning anything and everything that appears on 

 the prospectus of any such company. 



Volapuk. — The recent agitation in favour of this 

 cacophonous innovation reminds me of an experiment 

 I made about thirty-five years ago in a school which 

 was founded in Edinburgh by the late George Combe, 

 James Simpson, William Ellis, and other advanced 

 educationists. The primary object of the experi- 

 ment was to determine the amount of time that might 

 be saved in learning to read and spell the English 

 language when divested of its barbaric orthography. 



A class was formed of little children of both sexes, 

 taken at random, and who had not yet begun to learn 

 the alphabet. These were taught to read books 

 printed in the phonetic type devised by Mr. Alexander 

 J. Ellis (that in which " The Phonetic News" was 

 printed), by a young pupil teacher in the ordinary 

 school hours. In the course of about eight months 

 they could all read easily and freely Bible selections 

 and other matter printed in the phonetic type. 

 Reading and spelling of course came together, the 

 spelling being merely a natural analysis of the sound 

 of the word. Then came the transition to ordinary 

 type. The resemblance between the forms of whole 

 words in both types rendered this very easy ; it was 

 effected in about two months longer. But the 

 miserable business of ordinary spelling still remained. 

 Herewith commenced the usual training in intellectual 

 degradation, the violation of all logical consistency 

 in the first efforts of intellectual education. The 

 mastering of this abomination demanded as much 

 time as would be necessary for learning altogether one 

 or two modern languages. 



We commonly envy the linguistic attainment of the 

 Germans, but forget that a German child requires no 

 spelling-lessons in his own language beyond learning 

 the phonetic value of the alphabet and the correct 

 pronunciation of the word to be spelled. 



But what is the connection between this and the 

 Volapuk controversy? Simply that when we — or 

 rather the Americans, who are sure to outstrip us in this 

 — adopt a thorough spelling reform, such as Ellis's or 

 that more recently devised by Melville Bell,- the 



