beneath, and is thence transferred to large fixed copper cylinders, tinned inside, and perforated at the bottom with numerous minute orifices, like a kitchen drainer.  Within these cylinders, wooden paddles are made to revolve with great velocity, by the power of a water-wheel, at the same time that a stream of pure water is admitted from above.  The paddle-arms beat out the fecula from the fibres and parenchyma of the pulp, and discharge it in the form of a milk through the perforated bottom of the cylinder.  This starchy water runs along pipes, and then through strainers of fine muslin into large reservoirs, where, after the fecula has subsided, the supernatant water is drawn off, and fresh water being let on, the whole is agitated and left again to repose.  This process of ablution is repeated till the water no longer acquires anything from the fecula.  Finally, all the deposits of fecula of the day’s work are collected into one cistern, and being covered and agitated with a fresh change of water, are allowed to settle till next morning.  The water being now let off, the deposit is skimmed with palette knives of German silver, to remove any of the superficial parts, in the slightest degree colored; and only the lower, purer, and denser portion is prepared by drying for the market.

On the Hopewell estate, in St. Vincent, where the chief improvements have been carried out, the drying-house is constructed like the hot-house of an English garden.  But instead of plants it contains about four dozen of drying pans, made of copper, 71/2 feet by 41/2 feet, and tinned inside.  Each pan is supported on a carriage having iron axles, with lignum vitae wheels, like those of a railway carriage, and they run on rails.  Immediately after sunrise, these carriages, with their pans, covered with white gauze to exclude dust and insects, are run out into the open air, but if rain be apprehended they are run back under the glazed roof.  In about four days the fecula is thoroughly dry and ready to be packed, with German silver shovels, into tins or American flour barrels, lined with paper, attached with arrowroot paste.  The packages are never sent to this country in the hold of the ship, as their contents are easily tainted by noisome effluvia, of sugar, &c.

Arrowroot is much more nourishing than the starch of wheat or potatoes, and the flavor is purer.  The fresh, root consists, according to Benzon, of 0.07 of volatile oil; 26 of starch (23 of which are obtained in the form of powder, while the other 3 must be extracted from the parenchyma in a paste, by boiling water); 1.48 of vegetable albumen; 0.6 of a gummy extract; 0.25 of chloride of calcium; 6 of insoluble fibrine; and 65.6 of water.

Arrowroot is often adulterated in this country with potato flour and other ingredients.

Dr. Lankester asserts that the value of arrowroot starch, as an article of diet, is not greater than that of potato starch, and that the yield of starch is not greater from the arrowroot than from potatoes; but this I must decidedly deny.  Chemical analysis and experience are proofs to the contrary.