INVESTIGATIONS CONCERNING- CREOSOTE. 195 
ART. XL VI.— INVESTIGATIONS CONCERNING CREOSOTE. 
BY M. H. DEVILLE. 
The studies concerning the resins and essences which the 
Academy has been kind enough to encourage, have led me to 
think that it is necessary to consider the action of fire on these 
latter as not being a purely disorganising action. This action 
would be, on the contrary, in my opinion, incapable of effect- 
ing a profound change in the state of combination of the sub- 
stances which constitute a body so complex as a resin. As 
it is generally admitted that an essential oil, homogeneous or 
not, has given rise, by its alteration in the vegetable, to the 
resin, the action of the fire on the latter would furnish a prin- 
cipal product identical with the primitive essential oil, or at 
least isomeric with it ; it is thus we may find, or at least re- 
cognize, the essential oils from which benzoin, guaiacum, and 
other resins are procured, in which these oils have entirely 
disappeared. 
This hypothesis, applicable to a certain number of resinous 
Substances, I have already verified as regards some of them : 
creosote again gives me an opportunity of returning to it. 
Indeed, all my experiments lead me to believe that creosote 
is nothing more than an essential oil, or a substance isomeric 
with it, produced in the distillation of the resinous matters 
contained in wood.* We find here the same circumstances 
in which hydroguret of guaiacyle is formed by means of guaia- 
cum. 
Creosote and hydroguret of guaiacyle have analogies which 
are never wanting. The same reactions, the same chemical 
and physical properties correspond in a remarkable manner, 
* It is thus explained how creosote varies in composition with the 
quality of the woods from which it is extracted, and why certain woods 
do not yield it. 
