Similar phenomena occur in the fermentation of 
the sugar in the juice of apples and other ripe fruits. 
It appears that fermentation depends entirely upon 
a new arrangement of the elements of sugar ; part 
of the carbon uniting to oxygene to form carbonic 
acid, and the remaining carbon, hydrogene, and 
oxygene combining as alcohol ; and the use of the 
gluten or yeast, and the primary exposure to air, - 
seems to be to occasion the formation of a certain 
quantity of carbonic acid; and this change being 
once produced is continued ; its agency may be 
compared to that of a spark in producing the 
inflammation of gunpowder ; the increase of tem- 
perature occasioned by the formation of one quan- 
tity of carbonic acid occasions the combination of 
the elements of another quantity. 
From the experiments of M. Theodore de Saus- 
sure it appears that alcohol is composed of 100 
parts of olefiant, (or percarburetted hydrogene 
gas,) and of 63.58 water or oxygene and hydro- 
gene, in the proportions necessary to form water. 
Alcohol, in its purest known form, is a highly 
inflammable liquid, of specific gravity 796, at the 
temperature of 60° ; it boils at about 170 ° Fahren- 
heit. This alcohol is obtained by repeated distil- 
lation of the strongest common spirit from the salt 
called by chemists muriate of lime, it having been 
previously heated red hot. 
The strongest alcohol obtained by the distillation 
of spirit without salts has seldom a less specific 
gravity than 8 25 at 60° ; and it contains, according 
to Lo witz’s experiments, 89 parts of the alcohol of 
796, and 1 1 parts of water. The spirit established 
