C82 3 



X. Additional Remarks on the State in which Alcohol exists in 

 fermented Liquors. By William Thomas Brande, Esq .F.R,S, 



Read December 17, 1812. 



1 H E experiments and observations contained in this paper, 

 are intended as supplementary to a communication on the 

 same subject, which the Royal Society has done me the ho- 

 nour to insert in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 

 1811.* 



On that occasion, I endeavoured to refute the commonly 

 received opinion respecting the production of alcohol during the 

 distillation of fermented liquors, by shewing, that the results 

 of the process are not affected by a variation of temperature 

 equal to twenty degrees of Fahrenheit's scale ; that is, that 

 a similar quantity of alcohol is afforded by distilling wine at 

 i8o* and at 200'. 



I also conceived that any new arrangement of the ultimate 

 elements of the wine, which could have given rise to the for- 

 mation of alcohol, would have been attended with other symp- 

 toms of decomposition, that carbon would have been deposited, 

 or carbonic acid evolved, which in the experiments alluded to, 

 was not the case. Upon such grounds I ventured to conclude, 

 that the relative quantity of alcohol in wines, might be esti- 

 mated by submitting them to a careful distillation, and by as- 

 certaining the specific gravity of the distilled liquor with the 

 precautions which I have formerly described. 



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