DISTILLATION. 255 



bites was introduced, that the distilled spirit might be more 

 pure ; and that they were covered with a cap which was 

 cooled with wet cloths. He advises the use of large caps, as 

 increasing the surface. (Cap. V.) 



The same author says, that the neck uniting the boiler 

 and the head should be as long as possible, in order that the 

 spirit may be produced at once, and adds, that one of hie 

 friends placed the boiler on a level with the ground, and the 

 cap upon the roof of the house. 



Amongst the various means which he gives us, by which 

 we may judge of the degrees of strength of distilled spirit, 

 he mentions the following as being practised in his time. 

 1st. Cloth or paper is dipped in the liquor, and then set on 

 fire ; if the flame of the liquor burns the cloth or paper, the 

 liquor is said to be of a good quality. 2d. The liquor is 

 mixed with oil to see if it will swim. 



Savonarola treats at length of the virtues of distilled spir- 

 it, and gives some processes for combining with it the aroma 

 of different plants and some other principles, both by mace- 

 ration and by distillation, and for thus making what he calls 

 aqua ardens composita. 



Jerome Rubeus, who made many experiments in the way 

 of distillation, describes two very curious processes, which 

 he found, in fact, in ancient works : one of these processes 

 consisted in receiving the steam into long, twisted tubes 

 plunged in cold water ; the other, in placing over the cucur- 

 bite a cap of glass, with a beak. It is remarkable that Je- 

 rome Rubeus preferred the apparatus with the long tube, as 

 he obtained by it, with a single distillation, -very pure spirit 

 of wine, which could only be obtained, with the other kind, 

 by repeated distillations. (Z)e Distillatione, § ^, cap. II. 

 edit, de Bale, de 1568.) 



John-Baptist Porta, a Neapolitan, who lived towards the 

 end of the sixteenth century, published a treatise, De Dis- 

 tillationibus, in which he viewed the operation in all its 

 connections, and as applied to all the substances, which are 

 capable^ of undergoing it ; he described the different kinds 

 of apparatus by which there might be obtained at pleasure, 

 and by a single heat, distilled spirit in all its degrees of 

 strength. 



The first kind of apparatus consists of a tube twisted 

 spirally, and fitted to the top of the boiler ; the second is 

 composed of caps placed one over the other, each one 

 being furnished with an opening in the side, to which w 



