e
or fermentable matter, the process is finished sooner or later, and
usually in proportion to the degree of saturation, and the being
conducted with more or less vigour under a well regulated temperature;
for the more a fluid abounds with this matter, the grosser and denser
it must necessarily be, and the longer will the attenuation be
protracted; the longer it is protracted, in air-tight vessels, and in a
healthy and vigourous state of decomposition, the more spiritous and
strong will that wash turn out, and the greater the produce of spirit
in distillation; hence, it is both protracted and assisted by its
density.

A languid may be truly called an unhealthy decomposition, it being
productive of diseases common to misconducted fermentation, acidity,
putridity, and lack of spirits, with a tendency to precipitate and burn
upon the bottom of the still; hence, all the decompositions are
confounded together, as in spontaneous fermentation.

The formation of acidity during the process, is not of that injury to
the distiller that it is to the brewer, nor is this recent acidity
vinegar, as has been supposed by some chemists, but the incipient state
of combination of resolving elements, whose particles are in that
juxtaposition best suited to absorb developing hydrogen in a nascent
state, and intimately to combine with it into vinous spirit, the
approximation to which is promoted by time and incumbent pressure:
these positions shall be explained as I proceed.

The reason that putridity is so rarely discovered in excited
fermentation, is, that it is usually counteracted by the previously
evolved acidity, and corrected, but not saturated or neutralized; for,
were that the case, the putrid could not immediately succeed the
acetous process in the same fluid, nor exist together, as they are
known to do in declining beer, vinegar, &c.

The reason that acidity is not more frequently observed and attended to
than it is, is because of its being sheathed or covered by the
unattenuated sweets, or fermentable matter of the wash that remains
undecomposed.

On the other hand, when acidity is very prevalent, it may be mistaken
for unattenuated fermentable matter, acidity increasing the density and
specific gravity of the fluid.

Putridity, from the avolation of its products, promotes levity, and
that in proportion as its increase surpasses that of the general acid;
and it is not until the action of the acetous becomes languid, that t