278 On Alcohol or spirituous Liquors. 
and marked 41 degrees: I heated the alumine strongly in order 
to deprive it of about 32 grammes of moisture which it had im- 
bibed from the alcohol, and redistilled the latter over this earth. 
The liquor acquired upon a second rectification a new degree of 
lightness, to the point of marking 42 degrees of strength mean 
temperature. 
This alcohol constantly retains all the properties which cha- 
racterize good spirit of wine: the smell, taste, and far less the 
reagents, do not discover the presence of any foreign body: its 
specific gravity as to that of water is nearly : :8°292 : 10-000. 
We may also obtain alcohol in its highest degree of rectifica~ 
tion, by employing, instead of pure alumine, common potters’ clay 
well washed, then passed through a sieve, and finally well dried 
before using it; but the attempt is vain in this way to give a greater 
degree of lightness to alcohol, as I was convinced after successive 
distillations and rectifications. I conclude therefore that this 
earthy substance has no action upon the elements of alcohol, and 
that it only deprives it of the water which is superabundant to 
its spirituous essence. In consequence of this, and as we are ig- 
norant if this intermedium has already been employed in any si- 
milar case, we suggest this new method to chemists and distillers* 
with confidence, and from our experiments we are of opinion that 
this liquor the most highly rectified, and not at all altered in 
its constituent principles, ought always to mark 42 degrees in 
Baumé’s areometer mean temperature. We may add that al- 
cohols of a higher degree distilled over saline intermedia are more 
or less altered in their constituent principles, that nevertheless 
the practice may be advantageous in the preparation of varnishes 
for the perfumer and watchmaker, and for coating metal work. 
But these liquors can never be called good potable alcohol. 
We are also of opinion that alcohol rectified over saline and al- 
kaline substances, even reduced to a proper degree, cannot be em- 
ployed in the composition of medicines, because every thing in- 
clines us to believe that it thereby acquires new properties which 
might deceive the medical attendant who prescribed it. 
We shall conclude our present paper with some general obser- 
vations upon alcohol, or ardent spirit, produced by the fermenta- 
tion of every kind of mucoso-saccharine substance. 
Since the fine experiments of Lavoisier, and of several chemists, 
we know that the inflammable liquid known by the name of 
spirit of wine is composed of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and a 
little azote according to M. de Saussure. Setting out from 
these data, we may conclude generally that all alcohols, from 
whatever substance produced, ought to be perfectly identical and 
homogeneous in their elementary principles; because, since they 
are 
