STRUCTURE OF WOOD, &C. 
10Cf 
fact I was very desirous to verify, on account 
importance to science. 
It is not, therefore, mere carbon which furnished 
of its orreat Combustion of 
wood and of 
charcoal. 
all the heat 
developed in the combustion of woods : of' this important fact 
we shall shortly have an additional proof. 
As the great quantity of azote carried along with the' pro- 
ducts of the combustion, and which, after having passed through 
the worm, was lost in the atmosphere, also, without doubt, took 
with it a little more moisture than it had brought into the 
apparatus j a calculation of the quantity of water formed in the 
combustion of wood, grounded only on that found in the worm, 
would be erroneous : though there was always considerably 
more than necessary to demonstrate that water had been 
formed. 
Before we close this paper, we shall point out a mode 
whereby the quantity of water thus formed may be estimated, 
even to such a degree of precision as to leave nothing more to 
be desired. But it is first necessary to determine the quantity of 
heat developed in the combustion of the carbon found in this 
wood, and which was totally consumed. 
Although our experiments on the carbonisation of wood, i n 
close vessels, by a moderate fire, leave no doubt as to the 
quantities of charcoal which the woods therein employed were 
capable of producing $ still the knowledge of this fact is not 
alone sufficient to enable us to determine the quantity of carbon 
contained in the wood. 
As 100 parts of wood are required for 43 of charcoal, it is 
evident that the seer-wood is at least pa.tially decomposed, 
when the charcoal is produced in the process of carbonisation 5 
that is to say, when the skeleton of the wood is deprived of its 
flesh, and left naked 5 and it is well known that a great quantity 
of pyroligneous acid is formed in the carbonisation of wood, and 
this acid contains carbon. 
From the process employed by Messrs. Gay Lussac and 
Thenard, in their learned analysis, there can be no doubt that 
they discovered, and kept an account of all the carbon found in 
the woods analysed by them ; and as there was no pyroligneous 
acid formed in my experiments, when the wood was totally con- 
sumed without either smoke or smell, it is manifest that in this 
case, all the carbon contained in the wood was burned. 
According 
