‘The fat and volatile oils closely related to naphtha in composition resemble it likewise in their habitudes with the basis of potash. The lightest naphtha that I have been able to procure by double distillation was of spec. gr. 770, water being 1,000, and was almost colourless. In this fluid, confined in close vessels, the globules swam for hours without apparently affecting it, but by degrees a yellow film formed upon them, the naphtha became brown at its point of contact, and the globules sank to the bottom of the vessel. After some days the fluid surrounding the globule appeared black and turbid.
‘The fat and volatile oils approach to naphtha in their habitudes with respect to the basis of potash.
‘The fat oils follow naphtha in the order of bodies that slightly act upon it; and the volatile oils, the fat oils; but they all contain sufficient oxygen to render the basis of potash alkaline, if it is exposed to them for a sufficient time and in proper quantities, and that more or less rapidly, according to the circumstances. When naphtha or the oils are exposed to air they soon alkalise the basis. Oxygen is absorbed from the air, and a soap is formed, brown from the decomposition of the compound fluid during the time of the alkalisation. If air be excluded the process is a much longer time in taking place; no gas is emitted in the fixed oils or in naphtha; but in the volatile oils hydrocarbonate is produced in small quantities, and in all these cases charcoal is deposited. In oil of turpentine the process is more rapid than in any other oil I have tried, and this oil contains either water or the elements of water, and perhaps a larger proportion of oxygen to its inflammable matter.
‘Nor ought we to be surprised that these substances have never been produced in nature. Their strong attraction for oxygen renders it impossible.’
‘The division into two poles:
‘The basis of potash, by its strong attraction for oxygen, decomposes all the metallic oxides which I have exposed to it by a gentle heat.
‘The oxides of lead it instantly acts upon, and the metal is revived and alkali formed. In consequence of this operation it cannot be preserved in tubes of flint glass.
‘Are the bases of the fixed alkalies simple bodies? I perhaps shall be asked.
‘But are these singular bodies themselves compounds? Have we reached the limits of our analysis—More capable of combining with oxygene than the basis of water?