208 ANNUAL OP SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



"If the change which a momentary heating gives is too slight 

 to give an amelioration that is immediately perceptible, it is quite 

 different when we consider it in reference to the preservation of 

 the wine. It suffices that the wine be heated for a few minutes to 

 the temperature of 140 to 158 F., to give it an extraordinary re- 

 sistance to all the deteriorations to which wine is liable. And that 

 is true of all wines whatever, whether white or red, strong or 

 mild, new or more or less old. I may add from my latest experi- 

 ments that the temperature of 113 F. will suffice ; and that glass 

 vessels may be made in which this heat may be given by the sun, 

 without the expense of artificial heat. 



*' I announced to the Academy on the first of May last that I had 

 made comparative experiments on the wines of Pomard, heated 

 and not heated ; part of the bottles were rather old. All the bot- 

 tles of the two sorts which were not heated are now rapidly 

 changing, as will be seen by these photographs of the parasite 

 ferment which produces the change. On the contrary, the same 

 wines, that had been heated to 149, remain without the least de- 

 posit, while the loose deposit of parasitic vegetation is as thick as 

 a finger at the bottoms of the bottles that were not heated. And 

 all this deposit has been formed in three months. Finally, the 

 wine which was heated has preserved all its qualities, while the 

 other is bitter and disagreeable to the taste. 



"I also announced to the Academy, but diffidently, the opinion 

 that the heated wine had become so little alterable that it might be 

 kept in partly filled vessels, in contact with air. I can now speak 

 positively as to that result. The germs of the vegetations being 

 destroyed by the heat, the w r ine exposed to a limited volume of 

 air, as happens when part of the wine is poured from a bottle, 

 cannot be altered by the propagation of the germs held suspended 

 in that volume of air; and if that volume of air contains nothing 

 of the nature of those which could be developed in the wine, it 

 would remain unaffected by the vegetation, and subject only to 

 the direct chemical action of the oxygen of the air. This is pre- 

 cisely what happens ; and, nine times in ten, the wine which has 

 been heated and put in partly filled vessels does not suffer the 

 least acidification, even when exposed for months in a room at a 

 temperature of 85 to 96. 



"In conclusion, I consider that the problem of the indefinite 

 preservation of wines, and their easy transportation to all coun- 

 tries, is solved completely and satisfactorily. It now remains for 

 wine- producers to profit by these results of science." Druggists' 

 Circular. 



ELECTRIC CURRENT FROM ORGANIC SUBSTANCES WHILE 



DECOMPOSING. 



Experiments on filtering-paper, elder-pith, gum-arabic, wheat 

 starch, albumen, and glue, at the ordinary temperature, under 

 water, prove that evolution of hydrogen gas takes place, the pres- 

 ence of which is ascertainable by the resulting galvanic current, 

 and an indication of from lii to 10 on Llie multipiicator. Lag- 



