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Selected Articles. 
ART. LIX.— ON THE PREPARATION OF SYRUPS AND MELLITES* 
By M. Deschamps. 
M. Deschamps has proposed, to prevent the alterations 
which syrups and mellites undergo, to replace the water by a 
liquid formed of eighty-four parts water and sixteen of abso- 
lute alcohol. By means of a displacement apparatus, he 
treats the various substances which enter into the composi- 
tion of syrups with this diluted alcohol, and afterwards dis- 
solves a pound of sugar in every ten ounces of the product. 
For the mellites and oxymellites, he advises the use of pure 
mellite instead of honey which is seldom pure, then to pre- 
pare the compounds in the usual way, adding a certain pro- 
portion of alcohol to prevent fermentation. 
M. Deschamps gives the result of numerous experiments 
on the subject of displacement ; these are as follows : 
1. That pressure accelerates the filtration of fluids through 
powders. 
2. That the displacement of one fluid by another does not 
take place in an exact manner, and a previous maceration is 
sometimes useful. 
He divides pow T ders in several classes as regards displace- 
ment ; according to the facility with which they permit fluids 
to saturate and pass through them, to the degree of their ab- 
sorbing fluids and thus of enlarging, and finally according to 
the quantity of mucilage they contain, which is sometimes so 
great as to totally prevent displacement. 
In the report on this paper, by MM. Chereau & Beral, 
they observe that the credit of first proposing the addition of 
alcohol to syrups to prevent their becoming spoiled, is due to 
one of themselves ; and moreover that it cannot be adopted 
as a general rule, as the administration of an alcoholic syrup 
is often contra-indicated ; and also that a mixture of alcohol 
and water is not precisely equivalent to the wine it is intended 
to replace. 
