{ Residuum of sugar 0 5 1 67
{ Yeast 0 2 2 41
2 gros 37 grs. of azote in the yeast 0 0 2 37
--- ---------------
510 libs. Total 510 0 0 0
In these results, I have been exact, even to grains; not that it is
possible, in experiments of this nature, to carry our accuracy so far,
but as the experiments were made only with a few pounds of sugar, and
as, for the sake of comparison, I reduced the results of the actual
experiments to the quintal or imaginary hundred pounds, I thought it
necessary to leave the fractional parts precisely as produced by
calculation.
When we consider the results presented by these tables with attention,
it is easy to discover exactly what occurs during fermentation. In the
first place, out of the 100 libs. of sugar employed, 4 libs. 1 oz.
4 gros 3 grs. remain, without having suffered decomposition; so
that, in reality, we have only operated upon 95 libs. 14 oz. 3
gros 69 grs. of sugar; that is to say, upon 61 libs. 6 oz. 45
grs. of oxygen, 7 libs. 10 oz. 6 gros 6 grs. of hydrogen, and
26 libs. 13 oz. 5 gros 19 grs. of charcoal. By comparing these
quantities, we find that they are fully sufficient for forming the whole
of the alkohol, carbonic acid and acetous acid produced by the
fermentation. It is not, therefore, necessary to suppose that any water
has been decomposed during the experiment, unless it be pretended that
the oxygen and hydrogen exist in the sugar in that state. On the
contrary, I have already made it evident that hydrogen, oxygen and
charcoal, the three constituent elements of vegetables, remain in a
state of equilibrium or mutual union with each other which subsists so
long as this union remains undisturbed by increased temperature, or by
some new compound attraction; and that then only these elements
combine, two and two together, to form water and carbonic acid.
The effects of the vinous fermentation upon sugar is thus reduced to the
mere separation of its elements into two portions; one part is
oxygenated at the expence of the other, so as to form carbonic acid,
whilst the other part, being deoxygenated in favour of the former, is
converted into the combustible substance alkohol; therefore, if it were
105