Dr. Lucius Nicholls 249 
temperature is best dealt with by actual experi- 
ments to decide the temperature at which the 
best sample is produced. 
It will be found that the use of yeast cultures 
produces a uniform sweating with a uniform 
temperature. 
Cacao Sweatings.. 
The juice which runs away from the sweating 
beans is on almost all estates allowed to waste. 
Mr. Hudson has caiculated that for every 
100 bags of 200 lb. which an estate produces 
there are 600 gallons of this fluid. 
From the nature of the fluid, containing about 
12 per cent. of sugar, so far as I can see at 
present only two commercial preparations could 
be prepared—an alcoholic beverage or an acetic 
acid condiment, that is, vinegar. The former 
would be extremely difficult to prepare, whereas 
a high-class vinegar can be made with ease. 
Here, again, much depends upon the pre- 
sence of the right organisms, as the following 
experiment shows: Four samples of the same 
sweatings were placed in equal-sized vessels, 
to three were added various cultures of acetic 
acid-forming bacilli and cocci, to the fourth 
nothing was added (it must be remembered 
that acetic acid-producing organisms are always 
present in sweatings). The tops of the vessels 
were protected by tying cloth over them. At 
the end of three weeks they were estimated 
for acetic acid; one gave 2°8 per cent., another 
3,1 per cent., a third 4’I per cent., and the 
last, to which no culture had been added, a*s 
