— On the Method of Dijfiilling at Chatra 
perhaps, if I may be allowed a conjeéture, of the air which 
it contains; and all fluids, as he has clearly demonftrated, 
on their becoming fuch, abforb a certain quantity of heat, 
which becomes what he very properly calls latent heat; it 
being heat not appearing either to the fenfes or to the ther- 
mometer while they remain in that liquid ftate, but fhowing 
itfelf immediately by its effects on whatever is near It; upon 
their changing their form from fluid to folid, as on water 
becoming ice, or metals fixing, and the like. In the folu- 
tion of falts, alfo, there is an ablerMign of heat, as we daily 
experience in the ooling of our liquors by diffolving falt- 
petre in water; and this he has found to be the cae with 
water itfelf, and other-fluids, when paffing into a ftate of 
vapour by boiling. . From the moft accurate and judicious 
experiments, indeed, he infers, and with the greateit appear- 
ance of truth, that the heat thus concealed in vapour raifed 
by boiling, from any given bulk of water, would be fully 
fufficient, if colle&ted in a piece of iron of the like fize, to 
make it perfe&tly red hot. What then mutt be the effect of 
fo much heat communicated in our way of diftilling to the 
worm, and to the water in the tub, will be fufficiently evi- 
dent, from what has been faid, to prove, I think, that we 
have hitherto employed a worfe and more defeétive method 
than we might have done with refpeét to ccoling at leaft, 
both in the making of fpirits, and in other diftillations of the 
like kind, where a PGnitar mode is adopted. 
The poor ignorant‘Indian, indeed, while he with wonder 
furveys the vaft apparatus of European difiillers, in their 
immenfe large ftills, worms, tubs, and expenfive furnaces, 
and finds that fpirits thus made by them are more valued, 
and fel] much dearer than his own, may very naturally con- 
clude, and will have his competitors joim with him in opi- 
nion; that this muft alone furely be owing to their better 
and more judicious manner of diftilling with all thofe inge- 
nious and expenfive contrivances, which he can no ways 
emulate: but in this, it would appear, they are both equally 
mittaken ; imputing the effeGts, which need not be contro- 
troverted, perhaps, to a caufe from which they by no means 
proceed ; the fuperiority of their fpirits not at all arifing from 
the 
