If the sulphur should contain arsenic, the wine is thereby rendered arsenical.

It is stated in many books, but I am of opinion that it originated in a misprint, which, as is often the case, has been sedulously transcribed, that in old times the Dutch exposed the casks, in which they exported wine to the East Indies, to the fumes of sulphur, arsenic, and antimony. I doubt this exceedingly, for our ancestors were no fools, especially in matters concerning their profit, and this was not likely to be promoted by the addition of arsenic to wine.

In the process of sulphurising, cloves, cinnamon, lavender, thyme, and other aromatic substances, are sometimes put with the strips of linen which are dipped in melted sulphur and allowed to burn. They cannot, however, destroy the smell of the sulphurous acid, although they may well impart a peculiar odour to the wines, in the sulphurising of which they are employed.

Sulphurising is particularly applied to sweet white wines, which, possessing an excess of sugar and albuminous matter, and but a small amount of tannic acid, are easily decomposed. The same process applied to red wine makes them rather lighter coloured.

One great advantage gained from sulphurising the casks in which wine is to be stored, is that it prevents the formation of mould, which afterwards imparts a musty taste to the wine.

Wine intended for exportation to warm countries is in general more strongly sulphurised.

Sometimes a portion of the wine is strongly sulphurised, and added to a certain quantity of the wine which is to be sulphurised. Sometimes sulphurous acid, dissolved in water, is employed; and sulphite or bisulphite of potash are occasionally used for the same purpose.

Another method is employed in some districts of France, which answers the same purpose as sulphurising—that is, hinders the fermentation of sweet wine, and preserves the greatest amount of sugar. It consists in putting robo pulverized mustard-seed into the wine, but I do not know how this acts.

CHAPTER V.

CELLARING OF WINE.

ROGIER applies the proverb, "Everything which lives is born dying," to wine, by saying, "That every wine bears within itself the germ of corruption!" As a rule, we may say, "Everything which is organic perishes," the cause of its destruction is to be looked for in itself.

A complex mixture of organic substances may be enclosed in hermetically sealed vessels, and withdrawn. as much as possible from external influences; but even if alcohol, a substance peculiarly opposed to decay, be contained in it, time will still produce an effect,-which means that chemical rest is impossible in a complex mixture. Though the action cannot be observed at any moment, yet the effect of what has been carried on during hours, days, and months, is perceptible at the end of years. You do not see the wood from which ships are built, and buildings erected, dissolved into gas, but chemical change is ever going on, and at the end of years or centuries it has become volatilized, and no longer exists as wood. So all wine must eventually be spoilt; but some kinds acquire, as a first consequence

of the operation of that cause which afterwards destroys them, and which is neither more nor less than the chemical alteration in their constituents, properties which render them more agreeable both to smell and

taste.

As it is very seldom possible to analyse wine after it has attained a great age, the few analyses we possess of this nature are of extreme value. Some Malaga wine which was buried during the conflagration of London, A.D. 1666, and only dug up 40 years since, though nearly 200 years old, was found perfectly good and well flavoured.*

We have traced the chemical history of wine from its first beginning to the time when, having been clarified in casks, and poured into wooden vessels and bottles, it is fit for use; and we must now endeavour to make ourselves acquainted with the operation of that slow process to which I have already alluded, and with the circumstances which may expose wine to its influence.

As a general rule, wines which have retained a considerable portion of albuminous matter, and possess but little tannic acid, cannot resist the influence of time. They become acid, or undergo some other change. This occurs in the case of Rhine wines, which contain but little alcohol; and all those wines. which contain much sugar, or but little tannic acid, cannot be kept long.

Wines which can be cellared are those which improve, or to speak more correctly, those wines are stored which do improve with age. In these, odoriferous substances are formed, the wine becomes less acid and better tasted; such as is coloured often deposits a considerable amount of sediment, and if the wine be stored in casks, there is constant increase of alcohol.

We must begin by considering the change which takes place in the wine.

The ancients knew that wine improved if kept in leathern bottles, and the same result is obtained by keeping it in wooden vessels: for both leather and wood are more easily penetrated by water than by alcohol; evaporation ensues from both, but more freely from water, and the wine consequently becomes richer in alcohol. Sömmering's experiments rendered this very intelligible; since, by putting weak spirit into a bladder, and hanging it in a warm place, he increased its strength. Later observations have caused Sömmering's result to be received with modification, so that the simple evaporation of water is no longer spoken of, since it has been ascertained that a certain quantity of alcohol, though proportionately less, evaporates with the water.

Even supposing equal quantities of alcohol and water to be evaporated, the wine would still be improved, as all the other constituents would remain undiminished. But Graham* a short time since