STRONG DRINK AND TOBACCO SMOKE. 59 



meets with the surfaces of the pipe containing the 

 descending wash, and as these surfaces are necessarily 

 coklest at the top (because there exposed less to the 

 heating effect of the rising vapour), they act as more 

 powerful condensers than the lower ones in separating 

 the vapour of water from the spirit and the feints. 

 So much of the spirit and feints vapours as are not 

 condensed at the plate to which the spirit pipe is 

 attached are so either at the top of the rectifier from 

 which they fall to the spirit plate, or else pass on as 

 vapour to the refrigerator, where they are condensed 

 into the liquid state and collected in separate vessels. 

 Whilst the process is going on, the feints fall from 

 plate to plate of the rectifier in a condensed state, and 

 are collected through a syphon pipe passing from the 

 bottom of the rectifier to the hot feints receiver. From 

 this vessel they are pumped up through a pipe and 

 discharged nearly on to the top plate of the analyser, 

 and are redistilled from the down-flowing wash, with 

 w^hich they mix. As the wash in the analyser becomes 

 deprived of its spirit, or " spent " as it is called, it 

 passes to the spent-wash tank, from which it is deli- 

 vered to be used as a useful drink for cows and pigs. 

 The real merits of this very ingenious contrivance 

 are a saving of time, labour, and fuel, and in addition 

 a more complete separation of the spirit from its im- 

 purities and from water. The time and labour attached 

 to a second distillation (the low wines), as in the 

 ordinary still, are both saved, the comparatively low 



