408 New Inquiries inio the Nature of the Liquor obtained 
the accuracy of other parts of the work, if time would permit 
the investigation. . 
I am, sirs, 
Your obedient servant; 
To Messrs. Nicholson and Tilloch. Critricus SEcuNDUs. 
LXXXVIII. New Inquiries, into the Nature of the Liquor ob- 
tained ly the reciprocal Action of Sulphur and Charcoal. 
By M. Ciuzer*. Read before the Institute. 
I, 1796, M. Lampadius having had oceasion to distil iron py- 
Nites with charcoal, in order to extract more sulphur than by 
the common process, obtained a liquor to which he gave the 
name of alcohol of sulphur, and which he regarded as being 
formed of sulphur and hydrogen. Messrs. Clement and Des- 
ormes some years afterwards obtained the same liquor by passing 
sulphur into a porcelain tube made red hot through charcoal 
» previously calcined: they submitted it to a great number of ex- 
periments, which induced them to regard it as carburetted sul- 
phur; they thought that this liquor resulted from the combina- 
tion of one-third in weight of charcoal and two-thirds sulphur : 
they admit of no hydrogen. Subsequently, M. Amadée Ber- 
tholiet, ina very excellent paper inserted in the first volume of 
the Mémoires a’ Arcuetl, has communicated a series of re- 
searches on this same liquor, which led him to conclude that it 
did not contain an atom of charcoal, and that it resulted from 
the union of sulphur and. hydrogen in variable proportions, but 
always, with respect to hydrogen, less considerable than in the 
sulphuretted hydrogen gas, and stronger than in the hydroge- 
nated sulphur obtained from the hydrogenated sulphurets by 
M. Berthollet’s process. M. Vanuquelin at the same time made 
inquiries into those bedies, which led him to consider them also 
as hydrogenated sulphur. 
Struck with the variety of opinions of chemists so eminent, 
and whose observations merit so much confidence, I thought 
that this liquor must be variable’ in its composition, and that 
probably some circumstances had hitherto escaped the authors 
to whom | have alluded. I thought that it would be interesting 
for science to undertake once more some fresh inquiries re- 
specting this singular liquor. Circumstances prevented me 
from carrying my labours so far as I could have wished, al- 
though I made a great number of experiments; but I am of 
opinion that the facts which I have had occasion to observe will 
be agreeable to the class. 
* Annales de Chimie, tome Ixxxiv. p. 72. 
My 
