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VIII. An Account of the Artificial Formation of a Fegeto- Alkali. 



By George Fownes, Pk*D., F.R.S., Chemical Lecturer in the Middlesex Hospital 



Medical School. Communicated by Thomas Graham, Esq., F.R.S., S^c. 



Received January 9, — Read January 23, 1845. 



A FEW months ago Mr. Morson very kindly put into my hands, for examination, a 

 quantity of dark-coloured, viscid oil, amounting- to six or seven ounces, which was 

 said to have been produced by the action of sulphuric acid upon bran. The tarry 

 appearance of the oil was evidently the result of oxidation, for the bottle in which it 

 had been preserved during a period of five years was very imperfectly closed, while 

 a second and smaller portion, which had been kept in a stoppered bottle the same 

 length of time, although dark in colour, was perfectly thin and fluid. 



A portion of the oil was introduced into a retort, together with a quantity of water, 

 and the whole submitted to distillation ; water, accompanied by a heavy, pale-yellow 

 volatile oil, came over. At the close of the process the retort was found to contain 

 a solid, pitchy residue, insoluble in water, but dissolved in great measure by caustic 

 potash, and again precipitable by the addition of an acid. 



The distilled oil, separated by a funnel from the w.iter under which it rested, after 

 having been left a few days in contact with fused chloride of calcium, was distilled 

 alone in a small retort fitted with a thermometer, the bulb of which dipped into the 

 liquid. A little water came over at first with the oil, but this quickly ceased to ap- 

 pear, and then the temperature of ebullition remained quite constant to the close of 

 the distillation, which was conducted nearly to dryness. It was inferred from this 

 experiment that the oil was a single substance, and not a mixture of two or more 

 different bodies. 



The water which came over with the oil in the first distillation contained a very 

 considerable quantity of that substance in a state of solution ; it was strongly acid 

 besides, from the presence of formic acid. 



The purified oil was next submitted to analysis in the usual manner, by combustion 

 with oxide of copper. The following were the results : — 



(1.) (2.) (3.) 



Oil^employed .... 5*73 grs. 7*79 grs. 5*547 gi'S. 



Carbonic acid produced 13' 18 grs. 17*74 grs. 12*64 grs. 



Water produced . . . 227 grs. 2*96 grs. 2*12 grs. 



Hence the composition in 100 parts*, nitrogen being altogether absent, — 



* The equivalent of carbon is taken throughout =6. 

 2 l2 



