on eschwege’s wood naphtha. 
175 
This spirit was as odourless as ordinary spirit of wine, and as free from any 
disagreeable taste. It was, in fact, so totally unlike the ordinary wood-spirit 
or naphtha of commerce, that I felt it to be my duty to ascertain positively 
that it was one of the many products of the destructive distillation of wood, 
before making any extended trials of its solvent powers on various bodies. X 
should, perhaps, here state that naphtha or wood spirit can, w hen not mixed 
with fermented spirit, be readily detected by means of oxalic acid, the naphtha 
being converted into crystals of the oxalate of oxide of methyl, solid at all 
ordinary temperatures, whilst fermented spirit is by the same treatment only 
converted into a liquid, heavier than and a little soluble in water. On sub¬ 
mitting this new 7 spirit to the action of oxalic acid, the formation of these 
crystals of methyl-oxalic ether, thoroughly proved it to be wood spirit with 
which I had to deal. 
This patent wood naphtha is obtained from the commercial article by 
largely diluting it w ith water, filtering the diluted spirit through large cylin¬ 
ders of granulated charcoal, and then distilling, some portions of the first and 
last runnings being rejected. It is finally rectified, and sent into commerce 
as a nearly absolute spirit. 
Since the publication of my former paper, I have made many trials on a 
larger scale of the pure wood spirit, and find its solvent powders to be remark¬ 
ably similar to fermented spirit, so that it will become of very great impor¬ 
tance in those arts and manufactures requiring spirituous menstruums, free 
from any disagreeable smell, and capable of dissolving the gums, resins, oils, 
alkaloids, etc. etc., used in their various processes. Ordinary crude naphtha 
w as formerly almost always used in the making of French polish, and for dis¬ 
solving the lac used in stiffening the basis of silk hats, and in the manufacture 
of spirit varnishes generally. The great reason for naphtha being so exten¬ 
sively used, and its disgusting odour and injurious effects on the eyes and 
body generally being submitted to, was on account of the enormous price of 
fermented spirit, the only other solvent that was at all available, -the price of 
naphtha at this time being about nine shillings, and fermented spirit nineteen 
shillings the gallon. In many cases, this high price of fermented spirit ope¬ 
rated very injuriously upon the British manufacturers, especially in cases 
where the lower-priced naphtha could not be used on account of its abomina¬ 
ble odour. This evil became at length so great, that, as is vvell known, the 
Legislature wisely permitted methylated spirit, or spirit of wine, duty-iree to 
be used, it being, however, first mixed with ten per cent, of ordinary naphtha, 
in order to render it unfit for use as a beverage, and thus prevent injury to 
the revenue. 
Although this was a very wise and liberal measure, and a great boon to 
many arts and manufactures, still there are others to wdiich it is of no service 
w T hatever. The odour of ten per cent, of ordinary naphtha is, and even if it 
were only one per cent., would be quite sufficient to effectually shut it out 
from being used in perfumery, in making the various flavouring essences, and 
the finer kinds of spirit varnishes. Piesse says, in his ‘ Art of Perfumery, 
speaking of transparent hard soap,—“ Until the Legislature allow s spirit to be 
used free of duty for manufacturing purposes, we cannot compete with our 
neighbours in this article ; the methylated spirit has such an abominable odour 
that it cannot be used for making scented soaps^ for the toilet. It would, 
indeed, be a great boon to pharmaceutists, as w r eil as perfumers, and I hear¬ 
tily wish that some plan could be devised, whereby a spirit of wine, without 
disagreeable odour or injurious admixture, might be allowed duty-free for 
their respective uses. I feel convinced, too, that the Board of Inland Ive- 
venue would be in favour of such a measure for a duty-free spirit, if we could 
first prove to them that the revenue would not be injured thereby, and in this 
lies the difficulty. 
