M. Biot has discovered the same properties in a variety of liquids. Oil of turpentine, and an essential oil of laurel, cause the plane of polarization to turn to the left, whereas the syrup of sugar-cane, and a solution of natural camphor, by alcohol, turn it to the right. A compensation is effected by the superposition or mixture of two liquids which possess these opposite properties, provided no chemical action takes place. A remarkable difference was also observed by M. Biot between the action of the particles of the same substances when in a liquid or solid state. The syrup of grapes, for example, turns the plane of polarization to the left as long as it remains liquid; but, as soon as it acquires the solid form of sugar, it causes the plane of polarization to revolve towards the right, a property which it retains even when again dissolved. Instances occur also in which these circumstances are reversed.
A ray of light passing through a liquid possessing the power of circular polarization is not affected by mixing other fluids with the liquid—such as water, ether, alcohol, &c.—which do not possess circular polarization themselves, the angle of deviation remaining exactly the same as before the mixture. Whence M. Biot infers that the action exercised by the liquids in question does not depend upon their mass, but that it is a molecular action exercised by the ultimate particles of matter, which depends solely upon the individual constitution, and is entirely independent of the positions and mutual distances of the particles with regard to each other. These important discoveries show that circular polarization surpasses the power of chemical analysis in giving certain and direct evidence of the similarity or difference existing in the molecular constitution of bodies, as well as of the permanency of that constitution, or of the fluctuations to which it may be liable. For example, no chemical difference has been discovered between syrup from the sugar-cane and syrup from grapes. Yet the first causes the plane of polarization to revolve to the right, and the other to the left; therefore some essential difference must exist in the nature of their ultimate molecules. The same difference is to be traced between the juices of such plants as give sugar similar to that from the cane, and those which give sugar like that obtained from grapes.