343 
Steam Engine, 
by the quantity of steam which will be coudciisecl in the 
same before the process be ended. The vessels into 
wliich the steam is thrown may be either open or close, 
as the nature of circumstances may require : but where 
extracts are to be made from vegetable or other matters 
from which extracts are or may be made, as from hops, 
bark, drugs and dye-stuffs, for brewing, tanning, dyeing 
and other processes, the materials will be much more 
completely exhausted of all their valuable parts ; and in 
many instances they will be completely dissolved by em- 
ploying close vessels, which in that case must be made 
very strong, — -a thing not difficult to be accomplished, 
when it is recollected that they may be at a distance from, 
and consequently out of the power of being deranged by, 
the fire, and that they may be surrounded with, and as it 
were buried in, massy stone or brick work, in addition to 
other and obvious means of securing them. My appa» 
ratus so employed becomes, in fact, an improved Papin’s 
digester on a large scale. I do not wish to be understood 
as claiming the merit of having been the first who applied, 
steam in the manner just described to boil water and other 
fluids, but merely as pointing out an important use to 
wliich my apparatus is applicable, and in which the effect 
d)tained will be much greater than by any other means. 
Another important use to which my invention can be 
applied widi better eftect tlian the means now in use, is 
that of distillation on the large scale, and that by either 
sending the steam directly into and among the contents of 
the still or alembic, or by inclosing the still in another 
vessel, and making the steam of a high temperature, to cir«* 
dilate in and to occupy the space between the exterior 
surface of the still and the interior surface of the contain- 
ing vessel. In either case, all danger of burning or singe- 
ing the materials operated upon is done away, and a much 
more peasant and pure spirit will be obtained than by the 
