Full text: Vol. I (1)

ACETOUS ACID. 
1408 
mon uſes, it is only purified by distillation, and it is then known by 
the name of Distilled Vinegar. It resembles the fossil acids by effre 
vescing with alkalis in their ordinary state, and by uniting with them, 
and with absorbent earths, and some metals, though weakly. Like 
thofe acids, it changes vegetable colours to red, but it has little effect 
upon inflammable bodies, though it may be combined with them, nôr 
is it so acrid and corrosive, even when equal in strength. 
But there is another remarkable particular by which it differs from 
the fossil acids, viz. by being easily destructible by the action of 
heat, if the heat to which it is exposed ever rises to the point of igni 
tion. We may observe the effects of this heat upon it, by joining to 
it some fixed substance that can retain it, and repress its volatility with 
proper force, such as a fixed alkali. If it be united to one of these, and 
the compound exposed to heat in close vessels, as soon as the com 
pound salt approaches to a red heat, the acid begins to be totally de 
stroyed. The principles of it are disarranged, and made to enter in 
to new combinations with one another, so that we never can recover 
it again. It is scorched, burned, and destroyed by the heat, and con 
verted into foetid, watery, and oily steams, and a black coaly matter 
adheres to the alkali. 
The fame change is produced by fire on all vegetable matter in ge 
neral; and as all other vegetable matter is inflammable, so is also this 
acid. 
SPECIES V.—ACID OF TARTAR. 
The other species of vegetable acid, which is known by the name 
of the acid of tartar, or the tartarous acid, is still more gross, and far 
ther removed from the nature of the more pure and perfect salts. For 
although we can reduce it to a dry state, and crystallize it, it is nei 
ther a fusible nor a volatile substance. I mean that, except a watery
	        
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