Conversations on Chemistry Part 94

We may now take our leave of the vinous fermentation, of which, I hope, you have acquired a clear idea; as well as of the several products that are derived from it.

CAROLINE.

Though this process appears, at first sight, so much complicated, it may, I think, be summed up in a few words, as it consists in the conversion of sugar and fermentable bodies into alcohol and carbonic acid, which give rise both to the formation of wine, and of all kinds of spirituous liquors.

MRS. B.

We shall now proceed to the _acetous fermentation_, which is thus called, because it converts wine into vinegar, by the formation of the acetous acid, which is the basis or radical of vinegar.

CAROLINE.

But is not the acidifying principle of the acetous acid the same as that of all other acids, oxygen?

MRS. B.

Certainly; and on that account the contact of air is essential to this fermentation, as it affords the necessary supply of oxygen. Vinegar, in order to obtain pure acetous acid from it, must be distilled and rectified by certain processes.

EMILY.

But pray, Mrs. B., is not the acetous acid frequently formed without this fermentation taking place? Is it not, for instance, contained in acid fruits, and in every substance that becomes sour?

MRS. B.

No, not in fruits; you confound it with the citric, the malic, the oxalic, and other vegetable acids, to which living vegetables owe their acidity. But whenever a vegetable substance turns sour, after it has ceased to live, the acetous acid is developed by means of the acetous fermentation, in which the substance advances a step towards its final decomposition.

Amongst the various instances of acetous fermentation, that of bread is usually cla.s.sed.

CAROLINE.

But the fermentation of bread is produced by yeast; how does that effect it?

MRS. B.

It is found by experience that any substance that has already undergone a fermentation, will readily excite it in one that is susceptible of that process. If, for instance, you mix a little vinegar with wine, that is intended to be acidified, it will absorb oxygen more rapidly, and the process be completed much sooner, than if left to ferment spontaneously.

Thus yeast, which is a product of the fermentation of beer, is used to excite and accelerate the fermentation of malt, which is to be converted into beer, as well as that of paste which is to be made into bread.

CAROLINE.

But if bread undergoes the acetous fermentation, why is it not sour?

MRS. B.

It acquires a certain savour which corrects the heavy insipidity of flour, and may be reckoned a first degree of acidification; or if the process were carried further, the bread would become decidedly acid.

There are, however, some chemists who do not consider the fermentation of bread as being of the acetous kind, but suppose that it is a process of fermentation peculiar to that substance.

The _putrid fermentation_ is the final operation of Nature, and her last step towards reducing organised bodies to their simplest combinations.

All vegetables spontaneously undergo this fermentation after death, provided there be a sufficient degree of heat and moisture, together with access of air; for it is well known that dead plants may be preserved by drying, or by the total exclusion of air.

CAROLINE.

But do dead plants undergo the other fermentation previous to this last; or do they immediately suffer the putrid fermentation?

MRS. B.

That depends on a variety of circ.u.mstances, such as the degrees of temperature and of moisture, the nature of the plant itself, &c. But if you were carefully to follow and examine the decomposition of plants from their death to their final dissolution, you would generally find a sweetness developed in the seeds, and a spirituous flavour in the fruits (which have undergone the saccharine fermentation), previous to the total disorganisation and separation of the parts.

EMILY.

I have sometimes remarked a kind of spirituous taste in fruits that were over ripe, especially oranges; and this was just before they became rotten.

MRS. B.

It was then the vinous fermentation which had succeeded the saccharine, and had you followed up these changes attentively, you would probably have found the spirituous taste followed by acidity, previous to the fruit pa.s.sing to the state of putrefaction.

When the leaves fall from the trees in autumn, they do not (if there is no great moisture in the atmosphere) immediately undergo a decomposition, but are first dried and withered; as soon, however, as the rain sets in, fermentation commences, their gaseous products are imperceptibly evolved into the atmosphere, and their fixed remains mixed with their kindred earth.

Wood, when exposed to moisture, also undergoes the putrid fermentation and becomes rotten.

EMILY.

But I have heard that the _dry rot_, which is so liable to destroy the beams of houses, is prevented by a current of air; and yet you said that air was essential to the putrid fermentation?

MRS. B.

True; but it must not be in such a proportion to the moisture as to dissolve the latter, and this is generally the case when the rotting of wood is prevented or stopped by the free access of air. What is commonly called dry rot, however, is not I believe a true process of putrefaction. It is supposed to depend on a peculiar kind of vegetation, which, by feeding on the wood, gradually destroys it.

Straw and all other kinds of vegetable matter undergo the putrid fermentation more rapidly when mixed with animal matter. Much heat is evolved during this process, and a variety of volatile products are disengaged, as carbonic acid and hydrogen gas, the latter of which is frequently either sulphurated or phosphorated. --When all these gases have been evolved, the fixed products, consisting of carbon, salts, potash, &c. form a kind of vegetable earth, which makes very fine manure, as it is composed of those elements which form the immediate materials of plants.

CAROLINE.

Pray are not vegetables sometimes preserved from decomposition by petrification? I have seen very curious specimens of petrified vegetables, in which state they perfectly preserve their form and organisation, though in appearance they are changed to stone.

MRS. B.

That is a kind of metamorphosis, which, now that you are tolerably well versed in the history of mineral and vegetable substances, I leave to your judgment to explain. Do you imagine that vegetables can be converted into stone?

EMILY.

No, certainly; but they might perhaps be changed to a substance in appearance resembling stone.

MRS. B.

It is not so, however, with the substances that are called petrified vegetables; for these are really stone, and generally of the hardest kind, consisting chiefly of silex. The case is this: when a vegetable is buried under water, or in wet earth, it is slowly and gradually decomposed. As each successive particle of the vegetable is destroyed, its place is supplied by a particle of siliceous earth, conveyed thither by the water. In the course of time the vegetable is entirely destroyed, but the silex has completely replaced it, having a.s.sumed its form and apparent texture, as if the vegetable itself were changed to stone.

CAROLINE.

That is very curious! and I suppose that petrified animal substances are of the same nature?