£6 On Vegetable and Animal Analysis « 
One hundred parts of acetic acid contain : 
Carbon . 
Oxygen . . 
Hydrogen 
50.224 
44.147 
5.629 
100 
"Carbon ..... 
Oxygen and hydrogen 
in the proportions in 
which they exist in 
water ..... 
Oxygen in excess 
50.224 
46.911 
2.865 
l 
100 
The oxalic acid contains, therefore., more than half its 
weight of oxygen in excess, in proportion to the hydro* 
gen, whereas in the acetic acid this excess is not quite 
three centiemes. 
These two acids occupy the extremes of the series of 
the vegetable acids : of all the acids the one is the most, 
and the other is on the contrary the least oxygenated : this 
is the reason why it requires so much nitric acid to con- 
vert sugar and gum, &c. into oxalic acid ; and this is the 
reason, on the contrary, that so many vegetable and ani- 
mal substances produce so easily acetic acid in a great 
many circumstances, and that wine in particular is chang- 
ed into vinegar without any intermediate acid being form- 
ed ; a phenomenon which had not been hitherto explain- 
ed, because vinegar has been regarded as the most highly 
oxygenated of all the acids. 
One hundred parts of common resin contain : 
Carbon .................. 75,944 
Hydrogen and oxygen in the proportions in which they 
exist in water ............... 15.156 
Hydrogen in excess ............. 8.900 
100 
One hundred parts of olive oil contain : 
Carbon .................. 77.213 
Hydrogen and oxygen in the proportions in which they exist 
in water ................ 10.712 
Hydrogen in excess ........... 12.075 
100 
