Beer, wine, cider, malt and molasses wash, and other product by
distillation; spirit consists of these three elastic fluids or airs, in
composition with various proportions of water. Water itself is a
compound of vital and inflammable air; a proof of this, and of the
indestructibility of matter, these two elastic fluids burned together,
in certain proportions, and in a proper apparatus, reproduce water. By
another chemical process, this very water is reducible to these two
substances, vital and inflammable air; hence, we see, that all
saccharine and fermentable matter, and their products, by fermentation,
are composed of the same materials, and resolvable into the same
elements.

It is scarcely necessary to give any definition of spontaneous
fermentation, after what has been said on the subject; if it was, I
would say it is that tendency which all fermentable matter has to
decomposition, attended with intestine motion or ebullition, when
sufficiently diluted with water, under a certain temperature of the
atmosphere, the rapidity of which motion is always accompanied by an
increase of temperature, or the change to a greater degree of heat
generated within the body of the fermenting fluid, in proportion to the
rapidity or augmentation of motion or ebullition excited. Fermentation
produced by the addition of yest, or any other suitable ferment, in a
fluid duly prepared, is governed by the same laws, and under the same
influence of temperature, except when it is accelerated or protracted
by the management of the operator, or by the changes induced by the
influence of the atmosphere, rendered more or less subservient to his
purposes, and produces a similar kind of spirit by distillation,
possessing in common the properties of vinous spirit, or is converted
to vinegar by the subsequent process of acetous fermentation, but much
more productive in quantity and quality, so as to answer commercial
purposes. In both spontaneous and excited fermentation, there is a
similar escape of a large quantity of elastic fluid, or carbonic acid
gas, with a considerable proportion of spirit, and some of the water of
the fermented fluid. This gas is known to form a considerable part of
mucilaginous substances, as sugar, molasses, honey, malt, and other
saccharine and fermentable matter.

Although the doctrine of fermentation, as a science, does not enable us
to alter the spontaneous course of nature; yet if, by the assistance of
the instrum