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IjXV. On the Comlination of Acids with Animalf and 

 Vegetable Sulstances. By M. Thenard, 



J\j.Y researches upon the nitric, muriatic, and acetic ethers, 

 and upon those obtained by treating alcohol with nniriate 

 of tin and oxy-inuriatic acid*, have naturally led me to 

 examine if it was possible to form them with the other 

 acids. I have tried the action of these, acids upon alcohol; 

 and it was in making and varying tbtse experiments I ar- 

 rived at the singular result which I have had the honour to 

 communicate to the Institute f; a discovery, that when 

 the vegetable acids are pure, none of them, excepting the 

 acetic, combine with alcohol with the loss of their acid 

 properties: baton the contrary, when mixed with a mi- 

 neral acid capable of condensing alcohol strouely, they all 

 form with that body a combination in which their acid 

 properties disappear, without the mineral acid taking any 

 part in this combination. 



It is evident then, that whatever may be the mode of the 

 combination of alcohol with a vegetable or mineral acid, 

 the alcohol produces in these compounds the effect of a true 

 saline base. 



Now the question is, whether the property of combining 

 with acids, and also of neutralizing them, does not belong 

 to all animal and vegetable substances. It is very possible 

 that this is the case; for, since alcohol possesses this pro- 

 perty, all these substances may also possess it. It was 

 with a view to solve this question that the following experi- 

 ments were made. 



I passed over 300 grammes of alcohol, oxy-muriatic acid 

 gas made from a mixture of 1750 graninies of muriate of 

 soda, of 450 grammes of black oxide of manganese, of SOO 

 of concentrated sulphuric acid, and of 800 grammes of 

 •water. 



Almost all the acid and the principal part of the alcohol 

 were mutually decomposed, and either generated or libe- 

 rated a large quantity of water, of matter having an oily 

 appearance, of muriatic acid, and a small quantity of ear- 

 bonic acid, and a sul)3tance abounding in carbon ; a result 

 that agrees with what has already been published either by 

 M. Btrlhollet in the Memoirs of (he Academy, or by mv- 

 feclf m the first volume of the Mcmoires d'ylrc/ieil. All 

 thcee products have been separated with carCj as I have 



• Vol. i. ties Mcmoirts d'.4nudt. 

 f See the preceding Memoir. • 



Eel nuiiccd 



