Birds are snared or limed.
In Cuba, Martinique, Peru and elsewhere the old-fashioned double-bottomed defecator is used, into which the juice is run direct, and there limed and heated.
It is then treated with sulphurous acid gas, for the purpose of decolorization, again limed to neutralize the acid, and then passed through a third saturator wherein all traces of lime and sulphur are removed.
The carbonic acid gas injected into the highly limed juice in the saturators is made by the calcination of limestone in a kiln provided with three cleaning doors, so arranged as to allow the lime to be removed simultaneously from them every six hours.
A sheet iron case is then placed within the furnace, and the space between it and the walls rammed with limed charcoal; the interior is filled with fragments of the iron or copper to be alloyed, mixed with alumina and coarse charcoal, broken pieces of carbon being placed in position to connect the electrodes.
