428 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



trated when both differences and agreements Lave to be noted. They 

 would have to be resumed after the discussion of the intellectual force 

 of agreement or similarity. The chief stress of the present explana- 

 tion lies in regarding discrimination as the necessary prelude of every 

 intellectual impression, as the basis of our stored-up knowledge, or 

 memory. Agreement is presupposed likewise; but there is not the 

 same necessity, nor' is it expedient, to follow out the workings of 

 agreement, before considering the plastic power of the intellect. 



-- 



THE PRODUCTION OF COGNAC BRANDY. 



T F^HERE is a small district in the south of France known as the 

 -*- Deux Charentes, which has a commercial centre called Cognac. 

 From the grapes of this district there comes a wine, and from this 

 wine there is distilled a celebrated liquor which is named after the 

 place, and called Cognac brandy. This spirit, eau de vie superie'ure, 

 as the French call it, is liked by a great many people, and hated by a 

 great many more, so that it may fairly be assumed as an object of 

 general interest. A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette has been at the 

 pains to collect a large amount of information concerning it, to which 

 we are indebted for the substance of the following statements. 



England consumes by far the greater part of the supply ; English 

 firms practically control the export trade ; and English influence is 

 so potent in Cognac, that the rural population of the department 

 speak jocularly of the place as the " little English town on the river 

 Charente." 



The Cognac-brandy district begins at Angouleme, about three 

 hundred miles south of Paris, and comprises from fifty to sixty square 

 miles. It is divided into five parts, and is cut in two from east 

 to west by the river Charente. The parts are, in the order of their 

 importance as established by the quality of the brandy they produce, 

 though in the inverse order as to size, as follows : the Grande Cham- 

 pagne ; the Petite Champagne ; the Borderies, a strip of land along 

 the banks of the Charente opposite the Grande Champagne ; the Fins 

 Bois ; and the Bon Bois. The country is undulating. The surface, 

 dotted with towns and villages, and diversified by occasional tracts of 

 woodland between bright-green pastures on either bank of the river, 

 is divided into fields spotted with walnut-trees and vineyards, with 

 red-roofed farm-houses, and traversed by broad roads lined with rows 

 of tall elms and poplars. The soil is principally clayey and flinty 

 rock, supported by a bed of chalk or limestone, and occasionally of 

 marl, that in the Grande and Petit Champagnes being of the best 

 quality. 



