Great Britain and Ireland. 29 



paratus, was by no means so important in a corn as in a 

 wine distillery. 



3. Corn wash is not so well adapted to the new process as 

 wine ; it always contains a great quantity of vegetable 

 matter, mechanically suspended in it while in motion, but 

 which, when the wash is in a quiescent state, rapidly falls 

 in a thick sediment on the condensing surfaces of the appa- 

 ratus, and destroys their power. Dr. Derosne's apparatus, 

 the most perfect of all those heretofore invented in France, 

 is not at all fit for the distillation of thick corn wash. A 

 modification of it is used in several of the corn distilleries 

 of Holland and Belgium, but its advantages are not com- 

 parable to those it affords in the distillation of wine. 



It is probable that these causes would have prevented 

 the introduction of the new system of distillation to these 

 islands up to this day, were it not for a great change which 

 took place in the Excise law in 1823. Previously to that 

 date, the processes of brewing and distilling were carried 

 on simultaneously ; but, for the more effectual collection of 

 the duty, a law was then passed, requiring that the distiller 

 should suspend altogether the mashing of corn, or making 

 of new wort, so soon as he began to distil the wash then 

 in his possession ; and forbidding him to resume the making 

 or brewing any more wort or wash, until all he had on hand 

 when he commenced distilling had been worked up. His 

 manufacturing processes were thus divided into two distinct 

 periods, as to time, technically called, by the Excise officer, 

 the Brewing period, and the Distilling period. In conse- 

 quence of this division, the water heated by the vapours of 

 his wash and low wine stills, became useless to him ; and 

 it was not until then that the distillers of these countries 

 shewed any disposition to adopt the improvements of their 

 continental neighbours. 



The first apparatus submitted to them was introduced by 

 a M. St. Marc, who took out a patent for it about 1827. 

 It is, however, the invention of M. Alegre, a gentleman 

 whose talents are highly spoken of in some of the works on 

 distillation to which we have referred our readers. It is a 

 very ingenious machine, and well adapted to the distillation 

 of clear wine, but, like all the others invented in France, is ill 

 fitted for the distillation of corn wash. Some of St. Marcs 



