236 CHEMICAL TRANSFORMATIONS 



diluted, the sugar is converted into two brown sub- 

 stances, both of them containing carbon and the 

 elements of water. Again, when sugar is subjected 

 to the action of alkalies, a whole series of different 

 new products are obtained, while oxidizing agents, 

 such as nitric acid, produce from it carbonic acid, 

 acetic acid, oxalic acid, formic acid, and many other 

 products which have not yet been examined. 



If from the facts here stated we estimate the 

 power with which the elements of sugar are united 

 together, and judge of the force of their attraction 

 by the resistance which they offer to the action of 

 bodies brought into contact with them, we must 

 regard the atom of sugar as belonging to that class 

 of compound atoms, which exist only by the vis 

 inertice of their elements. Its elements seem 

 merely to retain passively the position and condi- 

 tion in which they had been placed, for we do not 

 observe that they resist a change of this condition 

 by their own mutual attraction, as is the case with 

 sulphate of potash. 



Now it is only such combinations as sugar, com- 

 binations therefore which possess a very complex 

 molecule, which are capable of undergoing the 

 decompositions named fermentation and putrefac- 

 tion. 



We have seen that metals acquire a power which 

 they do not of themselves possess, namely, that of 

 decomposing water and nitric acid, by simple contact 

 with other metals in the act of chemical combination. 



