On Alcohol or spirituous Liquors, 277 
scale, and 1 found it always easy to discover traces of saline 
metallic substances which form the base of it; which explains in 
some measure the volatilization of salts which*has been mentioned, 
and their solution or mixture in a state of minute division with 
alcohol after the distillation of these substances. 
Reflecting on the hygrometrical properties of charcoal, and on 
the aptitude of pure alumine and common clay for water which 
it retains in abundance and even at a high degree of heat, and 
considering also the inertnes of these substances towards alcohol, 
I employed them successively in the dephlegmation of spirit of 
wine : consequently I made various experiments, the chief of 
which only I shall detail here. 
Ist. By Charcoal. 
In one litre of aleohol, at 36° meun temperature, 1 put four 
ounces 128 grammes of burnt birch wood while yet warm, 
shaking ‘the whole frequently to facilitate the immersion and im- 
hibition of the charcoal: in four days I filtered, and the alcohol 
still marked 36 degrees. A similar operation took place with 
very pure alcohol marking 36 degrees: after several days mace- 
ration over charcoal this spirit of wine had also preserved its pri- 
mitive state. "These effects tend to establish that charcoal ab- 
sorbs both the alcohol, and the water which it contains in super 
abundance. 
The mixtures_of charcoal and of spirituous liquor were after- 
wards distilled to dryness in the water-bath: the alcohol, which 
marked originally 86 degrees, rose one degree by this operation, 
but the latter remained as it was. [ repeated these experiments, 
Ist, upon animal charcoal; 2d, upon the charcoal of various 
woods; but I only obtained alcohol at 39 or 40 degrees even when 
operating on very considerable masses, and by dividing the products 
into fractions in order to establish areometrical points of con-. 
tact ; which proves that charcoals have not more affinity for pure 
water than for alcohol merely (and this has been already re- 
marked). Alcohol, from whatever substance produced, acquires by 
its rectification on charcoal, a sweeter smell and a more agreea- 
ble taste than that which is obtained in the common manuer or 
without intermedium. 
By pure Alumine and common Ciay. 
Into one litre of alcohol at 39 degrees I put eight ounces of 
pure well dried alumine: after two days immersion, and always 
at the same temperature, I decanted with precaution a sufficient. 
quantity of spirit of wine, and observed that it yielded 40 de- 
grees. Afterwards I distilled in the vapour-bath to dryness. 
The fluid which came over had a pungent very disagreeable smell, 
$3 and 
