Now the improvements claimed under the present patent, are exhibited in [figs. 1064], [1065], and [1066.] [Fig. 1064.] represents the external appearance of a still, the head of which is made very capacious, to guard against over-boiling by any mismanagement of the fire; [fig. 1065.] is the same, partly in section. On the top of the still-head is formed the first-described rectifying apparatus, or series of condensing boxes. The vapour from the body of the still filling the head, meets with the first check from the dish or lower vessel i, and after passing under its edges, ascends and strikes against the lower part of the second dish or vessel i, and so on, till it ultimately leaves the still-head by the pipe at top.
This part of the apparatus is slightly altered from the former, by the substitution of hollow convex vessels, instead of the inverted dishes before described, which vessels have rims descending from their under surfaces, for the purpose of retaining the vapour. The cold water, which, as above described, flowed over the tops of the boxes f, for the purpose of cooling them, now flows also through the hollow convex vessels i, within the boxes, and by that means greatly assists the refrigerating process, by which the aqueous parts of the vapour are more readily condensed, and made to fall down and flow back again into the body of the still, while the spirituous parts pass off at top to the worm, in a very high state of rectification.
After the water employed for the refrigeration has passed over all the boxes, and through all the vessels, it is carried off by the pipe m, through the vessel n, called the wash-heater; that is, the vessel in which the wash is placed previous to introducing it into the still. The pipe m, is coiled round in the lower part of the vessel n, in order that the heated water may communicate its caloric to the wash, instead of losing the heat by allowing the water to flow away. After the heated water has made several turns round the wash heater, it passes out at the curved pipe o, which is bent up, in order to keep the coils of the pipe within always full of water.
Instead of the coiled pipe n, last described, the patentee proposes sometimes to pass the hot water into a chamber in a tub or wooden vessel, as at n, in [fig. 1061.], in which the wash to be heated occupies the upper part of the vessel, and is separated from the lower part by a thin metallic partition.
The swan-neck h, [figs. 1064.] and [1065.], which leads from the head of the still, conducts the spirit from the still through the wash-heater, where it becomes partially cooled, and gives out its heat to the wash; and from thence the spirit passes to the worm tub, and being finally condensed, is passed through a safety tube, as ([fig. 1058.]) before described, and by the funnel is conducted into the cask below.
