^B'^^'i^^t^M^m^^: 
0/7 faw% Rum and its Alleged Cause. 
By J. B. Harrison^ M.A.f F.I.C., F.C.S., Government Analyst, and 
F. I. Scard, Chemist' in^Chief to the Colonial Com,pany^ Ld. 
HE following appeared in the Sugar Cane on 
page 350 of the July number of last year, under 
the heading of " A Microbe in Rum": — " It is 
well known that the shipments ot rum from British 
Guiana, especially during the past year, have for some 
reason not unfrequently been more or less " faulty'' and 
very considerable loss has resulted to owners of estates. 
We are informed that Mr. V. H. Veley, F.R.S. and Mrs. 
Veley of Oxford have discovered a species, probably 
new, of a bacterium, which not only lives, but multiplies 
rapidly in certain samples of rum from the Colony. The 
discoverers are now engaged upon a study of the life- 
history and the chemical transformations effe6led by the 
microbe and have already obtained results of some im- 
portance." In a more recent number a further commu- 
nication appeared of which the following is an extra6l : — 
" It has been shown in the course of some investigations 
on this subje6l that the apparent turbidity known to the 
trade as " faultiness'' arises not from any precipitate or 
suspended substances of a chemical nature or lifeless 
A 
