Alcohol can be obtained only by fermentation.  By fermentation we mean the change which takes place when a juice containing sugar decays, or goes to pieces.  You know decay always makes things fall to pieces.

You ask, what pieces is sugar made of?  Very, very little pieces, called atoms.  There are different kinds of sugar.  In that made from grapes, called grape sugar, there are six atoms of carbon, twelve of hydrogen, and six of oxygen.  What are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen?  Oxygen is the kind of gas which keeps animals alive, and makes things burn.  Hydrogen is another kind, which you have smelled perhaps when water has been spilled on a hot stove; the gas burned in street-lamps is hydrogen that has been driven out of coal.  Carbon you see in charcoal and soot; the black lead of your lead-pencils is mostly composed of carbon and iron; lamp-black is pure carbon, without form or shape.

We will let these circles of colored paper stand for the atoms of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in grape sugar,—­the largest, which are red, for the oxygen; the second size, which you notice are black, will represent atoms of carbon; while the little blue ones will make you think of hydrogen.

If you remember that it takes one atom of carbon and two of oxygen to make carbonic acid gas; also, that two atoms of carbon, one of oxygen, and six of hydrogen to form alcohol, you can easily find that two atoms of carbonic acid gas and two atoms of alcohol may be formed from an atom of sugar.  So the more sugar a juice contains the more alcohol may be formed from it.

CIDER.—­Cider is made by pressing the juice out of apples.  This sweet cider ferments, and the sugar part of it changes into carbonic acid gas and alcohol.  People who do not understand this go on drinking cider, not knowing that it makes drunkards of those who drink much of a beverage which seems so pleasant and harmless.

WINES.—­Wines are made from the juices of fruits which have sugar in them, especially grapes.  Sometimes people have what they call home-made wines, which they make from blackberries, currants, elderberries, gooseberries, cherries, or other fruits.  They may ask you to take some, saying, “This will do you no harm; we did not put any alcohol into it.”  They do not know what you have learned, that alcohol is always formed in fermented juices which contain sugar.  It does not wait to be put into the home-made wines; it quietly comes in as they are getting made, at home or any other place, and will make people drunk as surely as when it is found in brandy or any other liquor.

Some of the wines in the stores are made from grape juice, but many more are made by mixing hurtful and poisonous things together to make the liquor strong, and give it what is called a fine color and good taste.