320 On the Manufacture of Muscovado Sugar. 



nourable gentlemen of the committee, a simple instrument, 

 which the negroes have since used with the greatest ease. 



It is nothing more than a tube of tinned iron or sheet 

 copper, about six feet and a half in length, with a bore of 

 one-half or three-fourths of an inch in diameter, delivering 

 a spray of water on the bottom and sides of the skipping- 

 teach during the short time of skipping, and cooling it suf- 

 ficiently and equally with a very sniall quantity of water. 



Upon the common shed or arched covering which shelteri* 

 the stoker, a cask of water is placed, and a slend<!r hose or 

 leathern tube inserted in the cask, delivers the high column 

 of water into the metallic tube through a small stop-cock ; 

 and the other end of the metallic tube being provided with 

 six small holes, like those in the top of a pepper-box, and 

 looking upwards when the tube is held horizontal, the water 

 is squirted in the form of spray by the heavy pressure of the 

 high column to the extent of tlie bottom and sides of the 

 teach only, and the spray ceases when the cock is closed. 



The direction of the spray requires no skill of the negro ; 

 for a spur ori the titmed iron tube stops it at the proper 

 place; and he has only to hold the tube straight forward, 

 while he grasps it near the spur and near the mouth-piece of 

 the fire-place with one hand, and holds or turns the cock 

 with the other. 



The fire is not disturbed, and no wet trash is allowed to 

 chill the furnace and clot upon the grating. The spray eva- 

 porates as it touches and cools the teach ; and as the fire- 

 face of the furnace remains untouched and red hot, the fresh 

 charge boils in the first teach in half a minute after the spray 

 is stopped, and the instrument now shut at the cock is with- 

 drawn. 



The advantage of this Instrument is not confined to the 

 prevention of empyreuma and colour; for it serves to make 

 all the portions of the skipped mass equal in spissitude, or, 

 as the workmen say, equally boiled, and enables the work- 

 man to defer the skipping until the proof is perfectly deci- 

 sive; and these purposes are answered at the expenditure 

 of two or three quarts of water. 



Sulscrviencr 



