MRS. B.
They are composed of alcohol, sweetened with syrup, and flavoured with volatile oil.
The different kinds of odoriferous spirituous waters are likewise solutions of volatile oil in alcohol, as lavender water, eau de Cologne, &c.
The chemical properties of alcohol are important and numerous. It is one of the most powerful chemical agents, and is particularly useful in dissolving a variety of substances, which are soluble neither by water nor heat.
EMILY.
We have seen it dissolve copal and mastic to form varnishes; and these resins are certainly not soluble in water, since water precipitates them from their solution in alcohol.
MRS. B.
I am happy to find that you recollect these circumstances so well. The same experiment affords also an instance of another property of alcohol,—its tendency to unite with water; for the resin is precipitated in consequence of losing the alcohol, which abandons it from its preference for water. It is attended also, as you may recollect, with the same peculiar circumstance of a disengagement of heat and consequent diminution of bulk, which we have supposed to be produced by a mechanical penetration of particles by which latent heat is forced out.
Alcohol unites thus readily not only with resins and with water, but with oils and balsams; these compounds form the extensive class of elixirs, tinctures, quintessences, &c.
EMILY.