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222   Art of Travel.

on the average, sixty bottles, or ten gallons, of distilled water in each twenty-four hours. " The iron pot was converted into a boiler to contain salt water; a lid was fitted to it out of the root of a tree, leaving a hole of sufficient size to.receive the muzzle of the gun-barrel, which was to act as a steampipe ; the barrel was run through the stump of a tree, hollowed out in the middle, and kept full of cold water for the purpose of condensation ; and the water so distilled escaped at the nipple of the gun-barrel, and was conducted into a bottle placed to receive it." The accompanying sketch is taken from a model which I made, with a soldier's mess-tin for a boiler, and a tin tube in the place of a gun barrel. The knob represents the breech ; and the projection, through which the water is dropping, the nipple. I may remark that there is nothing in the arrangement which would hurt the most highly-finished gun-barrel ; and that the trough which holds the condensing water may be made with canvas, or even dispensed with altogether.


Condensing Pipe.-In default of other tubes, a reed may be used : one of the long bones of an animal, or of a wading bird, will be an indifferent substitute for a condensing pipe.

Still, made with Earthen Pots and a Metal Basin.-A very
simple distilling apparatus is used in Bhootan ; the sketch
will show the principle on which
it is constructed. Salt water is
placed in a pot, set over the fire.
Another vessel, but without. top or
bottom, which, for the convenience
of illustra1fn, I have indicated in
the sketch by nothing more than a
dotted line, is made to stand upon
the pot. It serves as a support
for a metal basin, s, which is filled
with salt water, and acts as a
condenser. When the pot boils, the
_ steam ascends and condenses itself
on the under surface of the basin
s, whence it drops down and is

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