llest 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 deg.. 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