4 B HISTORY OF THE [book v. 
I now return to the curing-house, which is a 
large airy building, provided with a capacious mel- 
lasses cistern, the sides of which are sloped and 
lined with terras, or boards. Over this cistern 
there is a frame of massy joist-work without board¬ 
ing. On the joists of this frame, empty hogsheads, 
without headings, are ranged. In the bottoms of 
these hogsheads eight or ten holes are bored, 
through each of which the stalk of a plantain leaf 
is thrust, six or eight inches below the joists, and 
is long enough to stand upright above the top of 
the hogshead. Into these hogsheads the mass 
from the cooler is put, which is called potting; and 
the meJJasses drains through the spongy stalk, and 
drops into the cistern, from whence it is occasion¬ 
ally taken for distillation. The sugar in about 
tt parates at the bottom. I am well satisfied that a little experience 
“ will enable you to judge what appearance the whole skip will put 
« on when cold , by this specimen, which is also cold. This method 
« is used by chemists, to try evaporated solutions of all other salts; 
“ it may seem, therefore, somewhat strange, it has not been long 
“ adopted in the boiling-house.”—I cannot mention Mr. Baker’s 
Treatise, without observing, that I am con idei ably indebted to it in 
the course of this chapter, having adopted (with some small varia¬ 
tions, founded on late improvements), his account of the process of 
boiling sugar. But the inhabitants of th- sugar islands are under still 
greater obligations to Mr. Baker;—for it appears to me, that the pre¬ 
sent improved system of clarifying the c«ne-liquor, by means of ves¬ 
sels hung to seperate fires, and provided with dampers to prevent ebul¬ 
lition, was first suggested to Mr. Sainthill (who three years after¬ 
wards claimed the merit of the invention) by the treatise in question; 
a performance that, for useful knowledge, lucid order, and elegance, 
both in arrangement and composition, would have done honour to the. 
first writer of the age. 
