eager 
Distillation of Ardent Spirit. 249 
gravities, including the strongest and weakest worts 
with which the experiments were made. It begins 
with o, and proceeds by equal divisions to 80°; a 
density which cannot be properly attenuated with- 
out repeated fermentations with large quantities of 
yest. In the middle of the plate stands a ther- 
mometer, graduated from © to 100°; the use of 
which will be explained by and by. The divisions 
in the scale were made ona supposition that malt 
was about two pounds the quarter, whereby every 
varying degree that should be found in two worts, 
where equal quantities had been drawn from two 
different kinds of malt, would indicate a difference 
in value of so many sixpences. 
The saccharometer ought to be accompanied by 
an assay vessel, which is nothing more than a cylin- 
drical jar of tin. 
When it is to be used, fill the assay jar with wort, 
and reduce it to sixty degrees of heat. Then leave 
the instrument at full liberty in the jar of wort, and 
it will rest at the proper degree of density, which 
will be found upon the scale.* 
* I believe this saccharometer will be found pretty ac- 
curate; yet, “there are other principles in fluids besides 
their‘ gravity, by which they resist the admission of a de. 
scending body, and the first of these is that of attraction; 
which operating powerfully on bodies composed of he- 
terogencous particles, must have considerable influence 
in such a fluid as wort. A tendency to coagulate in the 
higher temperatures, and an approach to congelation in the 
VOL. V. HH 
