1857.] Chemical Tranxformatioiis. 37 



products are agaia treated with beat, or electricity, or the presence 

 of other bodies, an endless succession of new compounds, astonishes 

 the experimenter himself; for the greatest cause of wonder, is, that 

 all these products, so diiferent in their nature and general properties, 

 are all composed of but two or three elements ; the same that we find 

 in charcoal and water — sugar, has nothing else in it ; neither has al- 

 cohol, nor the fats, oils, wax and an almost endless variety of sub- 

 stances. Heat converts starch into gum ; sulphuric acid changes it 

 into sugar, and it is possible, that some day, we shall discover the 

 art of so mixing the carbon and water, that the coal heap and the 

 pump shall furnish us all the sweets we need. 



But, so far, nothing but the vital power has been able to take the 

 initiatory steps in these changes. We can make sugar from starch, 

 but we can not form the starch, although we well know the elements 

 of which it is composed. The crude mineral element must be first 

 breathed upon by the breath of life, ere it yields to the devices of 

 man, and enters into such new compounds, as he may desire. How 

 curiously this vital power goes to work ! Look at several plants 

 growing side by side, upon the same kind of soil, and watered by 

 the same showers. Yet from these self-same materials, one manu- 

 factures, in its hidden laboratory, ojjium; another, sugar; another, 

 prussic acid; another, turpentine; another, starch; still another, a 

 fragrant essence ; and another, a nauseous, sickening oil ; and al- 

 though we watch the process with all the aids of the greatest magni- 

 fying powers, we can not learn how it is done, but we can take these 

 products when formed, and obtain secondary ones by thousands. 



In the manufacture of perfumes and essences, some almost in- 

 credible transformations, occur. Two distinguished chemists. Dr. 

 Hoffman and Mr. De La Rue, on one of the juries of the great 

 London Exhibition, ascertained that some of the most delicate per- 

 fumes, were made by chemical artifice, and not, as of old, by distil- 

 lating them from flowers. The perfume of flowers often consists of 

 oils and ethers, which the chemist can compound artificially in his 

 laboratory. Commercial enterprise availed itself of this fact to send 

 to their exhibition in the form of essences, perfumes thus prepared. 

 Singularly enough, they are generally derived from substances of an 

 intensely disgusting odor. A peculiarly foetid oil, named 'fusel oil,' 

 is formed in making brandy and whisky. This fusel oil, distilled 

 with sulphuric acid, and acetate of potash, gives the oil of pears. 

 The oil of apples, is made from the same fusel oil, by distillation 



