334 Mr Conneuu on the Action of 
binations. These different views, however, are rather to be con- 
sidered as more or less probable inferences from experimental re- 
sults, than as such experimental results themselves. Even the 
fact which they nearly all assume, that alcohol is a hydrate, is 
merely an inference like the rest; for, when in the process of 
etherification, the ultimate result is, that sulphuric acid takes wa- 
ter from alcohol, we cannot tell whether this water existed as 
such in the ether, or arose from a new arrangement of its ele- 
ments by the affinities brought into play. 
We are led, then, to inquire how far the researches detailed in 
the first parts of this paper are capable of increasing the proba- 
bility of this inference, or of affording more direct experimental 
proof of the existence of water in alcohol ? I confess I do not see 
how it is possible to avoid admitting that water was the imme- 
diate subject of voltaic decomposition in the experiments detailed. 
The hydrogen was evolved from the negative pole, in the same 
proportion as from water; the disappearance of the oxygen was 
accounted for; and, by particular arrangements, that element 
could even be made visible. ‘The only remaining point, there- 
fore, is, Is that water a constituent of the alcohol employed, or is 
its presence accidental ? This point was investigated as carefully 
as was in my power. The alcohol acted on had, I have reason to 
believe, .as low a specific gravity as alcohol from grain has ever 
been obtained, without decomposition,* and yet it still yielded 
hydrogen at the negative pole, under powerful voltaic agency, 
and more freely when its conducting power was improved by an 
insignificant morsel of potash. The legitimate conclusion, there- 
fore, seems to be, that the water decomposed entered as such 
into the constitution of the alcohol acted on. I have not, how- 
ever, the least wish to press this latter view farther than the cir- 
cumstances may be supposed to warrant; and, if it can be after- 
wards shewn that it is possible to prepare alcohol which will 
* See Note, p.921, 
SS ee 
