276 On Alcohol or spirituous Liquors. 
seems also very convenient for taking up the superabundant wa- 
ter in the composition of alcohol: in consequence I added one 
part in powder to two of this liquor marking 36°. After two 
days, the whole was distilled in the vapour-bath, and this spirit 
of-wine then yielded 5$°. It had a very agreeable taste, but I 
was much surprised at the new property which it had acquired: 
it reddened strongly the aqueous tinctures of turnsole and flowers 
of violet. I then rectified a third time this last alcohol over varied 
proportions of calcined sulphate of alumine, and obtained ¢on- 
stantly nothing but a liquer from 39 to 40 degrees. Hence I con- 
cluded that alum depriv ved of its water of crystallization does not 
take up the phlegm which is foreign to pure alcohol, without act- 
ing directly on its constituent principles ; but a: weak portion of 
this salt is also volatilized during the operations, and held in so- 
lution, or in a state of minute division, by the spirituous fluids ; 
for not only does it redden the blue vegetable colours, but it is 
also evidently disturbed by the water of. barytes; effects which in- 
dicate the presence of alum in this alcohol. 
I have also rectified alcohol at 39 degrees over gray calcined 
muriate of soda: we know that this salt retains a great part of 
its weight ‘in water of crystallization, and that a red heat long 
continued can remove it: it was in this state that I presented it to 
pure spirit of wine, hoping to give it a superior degree of purity: 
but after several rectifications and distillations in succession of 
these two substances iv the vapour-bath, the alcohol remained 
in its primitive state, and with all the properties which charac- 
terize it; which proves that the muriate of soda, even when de- 
prived of water, does not act in any way upon the spirituous fluid 
at a strong degree :—only like the sulphates of soda and of 
alumine, a feeble portion of this salt is volatilized by the caloric 
and the alcohol during the operation; for this liquor becomes 
sensibly whiter by the addition of some drops of nitrate of mer- 
cury and silver, an effect which does not take place when the 
spirit of wine is very pure. It seems very astonishing that salts 
equally well fixed as alum is in the fire, the sulphates and the 
muriates of soda, should be volatilized during the distillation of 
the alcohol, and by a heat so moderate: but something analogous 
has been already noticed in No. 163 of the Annales de Chimie. 
Messrs. Dabit and Ducommun of Nantz found muziate of am- 
monia, carbonate and sulphate of lime, in the distilled water pro- 
ceeding from a reservoir which had previously contained animal 
substances, Kirwan and Lavoisier also say that the nitrate of 
potash is volatilized with boiling water. I can alse say that I 
collected very often the vapours which emanate during the pre- 
paration of the alkaline salts, or of tartar emetic, kermes mi- 
neral, sulphate of iron, acetate of lead prepared on a very een 
scale, 
