1868 The complete Practical Distiller

33

CONTINUOUS DISTILLATION.

time, and is again continued by opening tie cock p, to supply the apparatus with a continuous stream of wine this is only done when the wine ia the still has been entirely deprived of its alcohol, and when the wine which is in the condenser is sufficiently hot to be introduced into the column. Then begins in reality the continuity, and all the pre- vious work is only preparatory, although distillation has already begun. There are two very distinct parts in this apparatus ; one is that in which the steam, mixed with the boiling wine, or with the low wines also boiling, un- dergoes, by means of this mixture, a change which is the most conformable to the object of distillation; the other is that in which the vapours are only in contact with the wine through the intermediacy of the worms in which they are condensed, and their heat is abandoned in favour of the wine intended for distillation. The first is evi- dently composed of the distilling column and of the rec- tifier; the condenser and the refrigerator constitute the second. To account for the efi'ect of the first part, the rules laid down on the various capacities of water, of alco- hol, and of their vapours for heat, must be borne in mind. Water when arrived at 212° cannot take any more heat without being transformed into steam ; it occupies then a volume one thousand seven hundred times greater, and although the steam possesses the same temperature as the water by which it has been produced, that is to say, that it does not cause the thermometer to rise above 212°, yet it contains eight times more heat than water ; for about two pounds of steam mixed with fourteen of cold water gives sixteen pounds at 212°, When pure, alcohol- -