ALCOHOL. Spirits of wine. It is formed during the vinous fermentation. The pure spirit has a specific gravity of 0.792, and consists, chemically, of Ct, 116, 02. It is present in brandy, whisky and strong spirits, to the extent of fifty per cent., twenty-five per cent. in strong wines, ten per cent. in eider and ales, and six per cent. in beer. It is of great use in the laboratory as a solvent of resins, etc., and for the hot flames it produces when burned in lamps. The history of alcohol is as follows: Alcohol is the name first given by the alchemists to the liquid obtained by the distillation of wine, beer and other fermented spirits. These seein to have been known in the earliest ages. Noah, who planted a vineyard, drank wine, and the heathen writers deemed the invention worthy of being ascribed to their greatest king:s and heroes. Beer, there is little doubt, was invented by the Egyptians. They certainly used it in the days of Herodotus. The Germans drank it extensively when Taeitus wrote. These were probaby the purest varieties of alcohol then generally made, although they were known in the dark ages, and it is probable have been employed in the north of Europe from a very remote period. The process, however, of separating the impure alcobol from these is very easy; upon subjecting the wine or " wash " to a moderate heat, the spirit arises, and is easily collected in a worm surrounded by cool water. It is in this way that gin is procured from the distillation of fermented barley or other grain, rum from molasses, brandy from wine. It must not be supposed, however, that the product of these distillations is pure alcohol, for even the strongest brandy contains between forty and fifty per cent. of water. The first who procured alcohol in a state of tolerable purity is supposed to have been Arnold, of Villa Nova, a celebrated alchemist of the fourteenth century. When
impure alcohol is concentrated by repeated dis tillations, and by mixing it with some salt, like the salt of tartar, that has a strong attraction for water, it gradually parts with a considerable por tion of its water and becomes reduced in specific gravity to about 0.820; that of commerce, however, is rarely of less specific gravity than 0.8371. At the greatest strength, however, at which it has been observed, such as that of 0 792, which M. Lowitz obtained by repeatedly distilling rectified spirits from potash, it pos sesses the following properties: it is transparent, colorless, of a strong, agreeable, penetrating taste, and produces, when swallowed, intoxica tion. It does not freeze, even by exposure to the most intense cold; it is very volatile, boiling at 176° of Fahrenheit, and in a vacuum at 56°. It unites with water in all proportions, and is entirely combustible — burning without leaving any residuum. It is, however, not found in commerce pure, since the cost of making it chemically 'so is too expensive. Hence it is never found pure, except when wanted for special scientific purposes. Alcohol, according The spirits distilled from different fermented liquors, says Davy, differ in their flavor, for peculiar odorous matters or oils rise in most cases with the alcohol. The spirit from malt usually has an empyreumatic taste, like that of -oil formed by the distillation of vegetable sub stances The best brandies seem to owe their flavor to a peculiar oily matter, formed probably by the action of tartaric acid upon alcohol; and rum derives its characteristic taste from a prin ciple in the sugar cane. The cogniac brandies contain prussic acid.