WHEAT SUGAR. 93 



de Chemie, as abridged by M. Boullon-Lagrange from M. Vogel's 

 more elaborate detail. 



No chemist has hitherto been able to form sugar by chemical 

 agents. It is true, that Fourcroy and some others supposed that at 

 some time or other we should perhaps effect the conversion of starch 

 into sugar, as the component parts of these two substances very 

 nearly approach each other. 



Starch, says Fourcroy, announces itself as a little less carbonated 

 than gum : we may say, that it comes very near to saccharine mat- 

 ter ; and we shall see hereafter, that it appears in fact capable of 

 forming it by a particular alteration of its own substance *. 



Under the head gum, the same chemist expresses himself as fol- 

 lows : It is not improbable, that art may effect the conversion of 

 gums into saccharine matter ; and it has been several times remark- 

 ed, that an aqueous solution of gum, through which oxymuriatic 

 gass is passed, acquires a saccharine taste, mixed with a strong 

 bitterness. This view of the subject, at present quite novel, will 

 lead to many researches, and to useful results. 



It is even pretended, that several authors say they have effected 

 this transmutation of fecula into saccharine matter; but how is it 

 possible, that they should have succeeded, aud been silent on a fact 

 of such importance 1 



On looking over what has been published by natural philosophers, 

 it appears incontestible, that it was reserved for M.KirchofF, of 

 the imperial academy of St. Petersburg, to convert starch into gum- 

 my matter, and this into saccharine matter. 



His discovery, which opens a new career to vegetable "analysis, 

 and may lead to interesting results, has induced M. Vogel to pur- 

 sue these new facts. His first experiments, some particulars of 

 which he has given in the Journal de Physique, differ scarcely in 

 any thing from those of M. Kirchoff, except iu his observing, that 

 part of the saccharine matter is formed in the course of two hours 

 boiling, and that the proportion of two hundredths of sulphuric 



* According to Messrs. Gay-Lussac and Tbenard, starch is composed of 



Carbon 43.55 



Oxygen ....49.68 



Kydrogen 6.77 



10.000 



