334 Mr Connell on the Action of 



binations. These different views, however, are rather to be con- 

 sidered as more or less probable inferences from experimental re- 

 sults, than as such experimental results themselves. Even the 

 fact which they nearly all assume, that alcohol is a hydrate, is 

 merely an inference like the rest ; for, when in the process of 

 etherification, the ultimate result is, that sulphuric acid takes wa- 

 ter from alcohol, we cannot tell whether this water existed as 

 such in the ether, or arose from a new arrangement of its ele- 

 ments by the affinities brought into play. 



We are led, then, to inquire how far the researches detailed in 

 the first parts of this paper are capable of increasing the proba- 

 bility of this inference, or of affording more direct experimental 

 proof of the existence of water in alcohol ? I confess I do not see 

 how it is possible to avoid admitting that water was the imme- 

 diate subject of voltaic decomposition in the experiments detailed. 

 The hydrogen was evolved from the negative pole, in the same 

 proportion as from water ; the disappearance of the oxygen was 

 accounted for ; and, by particular arrangements, that element 

 could even be made visible. The only remaining point, there- 

 fore, is, Is that water a constituent of the alcohol employed, or is 

 its presence accidental ? This point was investigated as carefully 

 as was in my power. The alcohol acted on had, I have reason to 

 believe, as low a specific gravity as alcohol from grain has ever 

 been obtained, without decomposition,* and yet it still yielded 

 hydrogen at the negative pole, under powerful voltaic agency, 

 and more freely when its conducting power was improved by an 

 insignificant morsel of potash. The legitimate conclusion, there- 

 fore, seems to be, that the water decomposed entered as such 

 into the constitution of the alcohol acted on. I have not, how- 

 ever, the least wish to press this latter view farther than the cir- 

 cumstances may be supposed to warrant ; and, if it can be after- 

 wards shewn that it is possible to prepare alcohol which will 



* See Note, p. 321. 



