54 HISTORY OF THE [book. v. 
flour. It is the lees or feculencies of former distil¬ 
lations ; and some few planters preserve it for use, 
from one crop to another; but this is a bad prac¬ 
tice. Some fermented liquor, therefore, compo¬ 
sed of sweets and water alone, ought to be distilled 
in the first instance, that fresh dunder may be ob¬ 
tained. It is a dissolvent menstruum, and certain¬ 
ly occasions the sweets with which it is combined, 
whether mellasses or scummings, to yield a far 
greater proportion of spirit than can be obtained 
without its assistance. The water which is added, 
acts in some degree in the same manner by dilu¬ 
tion. 
In the Windward Islands the process, according 
to Colonel Martin, is conducted as follows: 
Scummings one-third. 
Lees, or dunder one-third. 
Water one-third. 
When these ingredients are well mixed in the 
fermenting cisterns, and are pretty cool, the fer¬ 
mentation will rise, in twenty-four hours, to a pro¬ 
per height for admitting the first charge of mellas¬ 
ses, of which six gallons* for every hundred gal¬ 
lons of the fermenting liquor, is the general pro¬ 
portion to be given at twice, viz. three per cent, at 
I 
*This quantity of mellasses, added to a third of scummings, gives 
eleven and a half per cent, of sweets, six gallons of scummings be¬ 
ing reckoned equal to one gallon of mellasses. 
