of the French Chemists, 91 



Cahours represents potatoe oil by the formula C 10 H n O l 

 + H O, which makes it as to composition perfectly analogous 

 to ordinary alcohol. The carbo- hydrogen C, H 10 he insu- 

 lated by distilling the oil from anhydrous phosphoric acid. 

 He calls it amylene, and finds the specific gravity of its vapour 

 to be 4j'904>, so that an atom of it gives but one volume of 

 vapour, a circumstance in which, as Cahours observes, it agrees 

 with Dr. Kane's mesitylene, C e H 3 , but differs from the car- 

 bohydrogens which occur in alcohol and pyroxylic spirit. 

 By acting on potatoe oil with sulphuric acid and chlorine, Ca- 

 hours obtained compounds corresponding perfectly with those 

 yielded by alcohol when similarly treated. These researches 

 give additional interest to the discovery of this fluid in grain- 

 fermented wash, and in such quantity as to be much more 

 than adequate to meet any demand for it with a view to the 

 interests of science. 



I may here observe, that I should have long since presented 

 this notice to the Academy, but for the following reasons. 



There is another oily substance having, at common tem- 

 peratures, the consistence of butter, which is long known to 

 exist in the faints of grain spirit, and in smaller quantity in 

 the spirit itself. Upon looking through systematic treatises 

 on chemistry, I found that this oil had been but very imper- 

 fectly described, and that, in particular, no experiments had 

 been made with the view of determining its composition. 1 had 

 therefore resolved to submit it to an accurate examination and 

 analysis, and to keep back what I had ascertained in reference 

 to the fluid oil until I had completed my investigations into 

 the nature and constitution of that which is a soft solid at 

 common temperatures. In this investigation I had made 

 some progress, when my attention was directed to a paper by 

 Liebig and Pelouze, in the 63rd volume of the Ann. de Chi?n. 

 et de Phys.) in which, with their usual ability, they develope the 

 nature of a butyraceous or fatty product which they had re- 

 ceived from M. Deleschamps, and which comes over towards 

 the close of the process of distilling wines with a view to the 

 production of eau de vie or brandy. This oil they found to be a 

 mixture of an acid which they called cenanthic acid, and of a 

 compound of this acid with the oxide of aethyle, that is of cenan- 

 thic acid and oenanthic aether. Upon perusing this paper I saw 

 at once, from the experiments I had already made, that the 

 fatty oil of grain spirit was identical with this mixture, with the 

 exception that some third oleaginous material was present, 

 which Liebig and Pelouze had not found in what they had 

 operated upon. Upon this third substance I have made some 

 experiments, the results of which I shall probably at some 



