of the fire may concentrate, but not volatilize them.

The liquor is now changed by the fermentation; it contains no longer the same principles, but has acquired those which it had not, which are volatile, and evaporate easily. They must therefore be managed carefully, in order not to lose the fruits of an already tedious labor. The spirit already created in the fermented liquor, must be collected by the distillation; but in transporting it to the still, the action of the external air must be carefully avoided, as it would cause the evaporation of some of the spirit. A pump to empty the hogsheads, and covered pipes to conduct the liquor into the still, is what has been found to answer that purpose. A good distilling apparatus is undoubtedly the most important part of a distillery. It must unite solidity, perfection in its joints, economy of fuel, rapidity of distillation, to the faculty of concentrating the spirit. Such are the ends I have proposed to myself in the following apparatus.

The usual shape of stills is defective; they are too deep, and do not present enough of surface for their contents. They require a violent fire to bring them to ebullition; the liquor at bottom burns before it is warm at the top.

My still is made upon different principles, and composed of two pieces, viz. the kettle, and its lid. The kettle, forming a long square, is like the kettle of infusion, already described, and only differs from it in being one foot deeper. The lid is in shape like an ancient bed tester; that is to say, its four corners rise into a sharp angle, and come to support a circle 16 inches diameter, bearing a vertical collar of about two inches. This collar comes to the middle of the kettle, and is elevated about 4 feet from the bottom. The lid is fastened to the kettle. The collar receives a pewter cap, to which is joined a pipe of the same metal, the diameter of which decreases progressively to a little less than 3 inches: this pipe, the direction of which is almost horizontal, is 5 feet long.

My still, thus constructed, is established upon a furnace like that of the infusion room. I observe that the side walls are only raised to the half of the height of the kettle. A vertical pipe is placed on the side opposite to the pewter one, and serves to fill up the still: it is almost at the height of the fastening of the lid, but a little above. On the same side, on a level with the bottom, is a pipe of discharge, passing across the furnace: this pipe must project enough to help to receive or to direct the fluid residue of the distillation; its diameter must be such as to operate a prompt discharge of the still.

OF THE URNS.

These are copper vessels, thus called from their resembling those funeral vases of the ancients. Mine have a bottom of about 18 inches diameter; they are two feet high, have a bulge of 6 inches near the top, and then draw in to form an overture of about 8 inches.

On one side, towards the top, there is a copper pipe 2 inches diameter, projecting externally 2 or 3 inches, and bent in an elbow: it enters the internal part of the urn, and descends towards the bottom, without touching it; there it is only a slight curve, and remains open.

The external part of that pipe is fitted to receive the pewter pipe of the still; they are made so as to enter into one another, and must fit exactly. The round opening at the top of the urn receives a cap with a pewter pipe, made like that of the still. It is likewise five feet long, and its size in proportion to the opening: this goes and joins itself to the second urn, as the still does to the first. The pipe of this second goes to a third, and the pipe of this last to the worm. The three urns bear each a small pipe of discharge towards the bottom.

This apparatus must be made with the greatest care. Neither the joints, the different pipes of communication, nor the nailings, must leave the smallest passage to the vapors. The workman must pay the greatest attention to his work, and the distiller must lute exactly all the parts of the apparatus that are susceptible of it: he must be the more careful as to luting it, as this operation is only performed once a week, when the apparatus is cleaned. At the moment of the distillation, the master or his foreman must carefully observe whether there is any waste of vapors, and remedy it instantly. The still and urns ought to be well tinned.

CHAPTER XII.

EFFECTS OF THIS APPARATUS.

Although the still might contain 400 gallons, there must be only 200 gallons put into it: the rest remaining empty, the vapors develops themselves, and rise. In that state, the vinous liquor is about one foot deep, on a surface of 20 feet square: hence two advantages—the first, that being so shallow, it requires but little fuel to boil; the second, that the extent of surface gives rise to a rapid evaporation, which accelerates the work. This acceleration is such, that six distillations might be obtained in one day. The spirit contained in the vinous liquor rises in vapors to the lid of the still, there find the cap and its pipe, through which they escape into the first urn, by the side pipe above described, which conducts them to the bottom, where they are condensed immediately.

But the vapors, continuing to come into the urn, heat it progressively: the spirituous liquor that it contains rises anew into vapors, escapes through the cap and pipe, and arrives into the second urn, where it is condensed as in the first. Here again, the same cause produces the same effect: the affluence of the heat drawn with the vapors, carries them successively into the third urn, and from thence into the worm, which condenses them by the effects of the cold water in which it is immersed.

The urns, receiving no other heat than that which the vapors coming out of the still can transmit to them, raise the spirit; the water, at least the greatest part of it, remains at the bottom: hence, what runs from the worm is alcohol; that is, spirit at 35°. It is easily understood how the vapors coming out of the still are rectified in the urns, and that three successive rectifications bring the spirit to a high degree of concentration: it gets lower only when the vinous liquor draws towards the end of the distillation. As soon as it yields no more spirit, the fire is stopped, and the still is emptied in order to fill it up again, to begin a new distillation.

Each time that the vinous liquor is renewed in the still, the water contained in the urns must be emptied, through the pipes of discharge at the bottom.

Metals are conductors of the caloric. The heat accumulated in the still, rises to the cap, from whence it runs into the urns: with this difference—that the pewter, of which the cap and pipes are made, transmits less caloric than copper, because it is less dense: and that bodies are only heated in reason of their density.

However, a great deal of heat is still communicated to the worm, and heats the water in which it is immersed. I diminish this inconvenience by putting a wooden pipe between the worm and the pipe of the third urn. Wood being a bad conductor of caloric, produces a solution of continuity, or interruption between the metals. The wood of this pipe must be soft and porous, and not apt to work by the action of the fire: however, to avoid its splitting, I wrap it up in two or three doubles of good paper, well pasted, and dried slowly. This pipe is one foot long, and hollowed in its length, so as to receive the pewter pipe of the third urn at one end, and to enter the worm at the other; thereby the worm is not as hot, since it only receives the heat of