3 O FORMA TION OF A CE TIC A CID 



" The chemist, like the plant, is capable of producing from 

 carbonic acid and water a whole host of organic bodies." 

 Such a comparison is as useless and misleading as would be 

 such an announcement as " the man, like the cork, is capable 

 of floating." "Like the plant!" while every one knows 

 that the plant's way of working is very different indeed from 

 the chemist's way. The more one thinks over the facts the 

 more one feels astonished that the chemist should not be 

 convinced of the existence of some internal force or power 

 in the plant which more than supersedes his intelligence, his 

 knowledge, his experience and skill, and all his transforming 

 apparatus. 



But what is the plant, and how does it work ? The 

 plant may consist of a minute particle of living, clear, 

 transparent, structureless, soft, semifluid matter, which, 

 under certain conditions, takes up the water and carbonic 

 acid, and lo ! the complex organic bodies are formed or 

 form themselves ! Now let us see how the chemist pro- 

 ceeds to form by the synthesis of its component elements 

 such a comparatively simple organic substance as acetic 

 acid. Dr. Odling tells us how Kolbe effected the formation 

 of this substance from carbon by a series of inorganic reac- 

 tions : " Bisulphide of carbon CS 2 was first obtained by 

 the combustion of charcoal in sulphur vapour. This com- 

 pound was acted upon by chlorine at a high temperature, 

 whereby it was converted into chloride of sulphur and 

 chloride of carbon CCU Then, by transmission through 

 red-hot tubes this last product was transformed ! with evolu- 

 tion of chlorine into the so-called susquichloride of carbon 

 2CC1 4 = C1 2 + C 2 C1 6 , and eventually into the so-called 

 bichloride of carbon or tetrachlor-ethylene C 2 C1 6 = C1 3 + 



