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 possible to reunite alkohol and carbonic acid together, we ought to form sugar. It is evident that the charcoal and hydrogen in the alkohol do not exist in the state of oil, they are combined with a portion of oxygen, which renders them miscible with water; wherefore these three substances, oxygen, hydrogen, and charcoal, exist here likewise in a species of equilibrium or reciprocal combination; and in fact, when they are made to pass through a red hot tube of glass or porcelain, this union or equilibrium is destroyed, the elements become combined, two and two, and water and carbonic acid are formed.