NATURAL PRODUCTION OF ALCOHOL. 



239 



He has submitted to distillation some fifteen or twenty litres, or 

 quarts, of snow-, rain-, or sea-water in the apparatus which is repre- 

 sented in Fig. 1. This apparatus consists of a milk-can, B, which is 

 made to serve as a boiler, in which the liquid to be distilled is put. 

 The vapors disengaged by the heat pass through a worm about thirty 

 feet long, in which they are resolved ; thence through a tube incased 

 in a refrigerating envelope, T, which is kept constantly cool by a cur- 

 rent of cold water ; and are then condensed in the glass receiver, R. 

 The operation is arrested as soon as one hundred or one hundred and 

 fifty cubic centimetres of liquid which will contain all the alcohol 

 have been condensed. The resultant liquid is again distilled in an 



Fig. 2. Cktstals op Iodoform obtained by Synthesis (greatly magnified). 



apparatus similar to the former one, but smaller. The latter opera- 

 tion is arrested when some five or six cubic centimetres of liquid have 

 been condensed in a closed receiving-tube, which takes the place of 

 the receiver R in the former apparatus. The tube is then taken away, 

 and to its contents are added a little iodine and carbonate of soda ; on 

 heating it slightly, small crystals are precipitated of iodoform, a sub- 

 stance which could not be produced unless alcohol were present. M. 

 Miintz has verified the results of this process by other test experi- 

 ments. When distilled water, chemically pure, was heated in the same 

 apparatus, the addition of iodine and carbonate of soda was not fol- 

 lowed by any reaction. A second verification was obtained by dis- 

 tilling fifteen litres of pure water, to which one millionth part of alco- 

 hol had been added ; the addition of iodine and carbonate of soda 

 caused a precipitation of iodoform precisely like that which was ob- 



