Method of making a WINE, &c. 1 79 



which men of learning are too often apt to indulge, in rejecting 

 as incredible whatever does not coincide with their own pre- 

 conceived opinions. 



ON confulting the authors who have made mention of this 

 fubject, I find, that they give little fatisfaclory information 

 concerning it. They all agree, that a vinous liquor, from 

 mares milk, was ufed by fome of the Tartar nations, under the 

 name of KOUMISS ; but none of them enter into a detail of 

 the procefs by which that wine was prepared, much lefs does 

 any one of them point out the purpofes, either in ceconomy or 

 medicine, to which it may be applied. 



MARCUS PAULUS VENETUS gives fome account of it in his 

 Hiftory of the Eaftern Nations *, which was publifhed as long 

 ago as the thirteenth century. He fays, it was ufed by the 

 Tartars as their common beverage, but makes no mention of 

 the method of preparing it. 



STRAHLENBERG, in his defcription of the Ruffian empire f, 

 relates fame circumftances of the preparation ; but his method, 

 if followed, could not be attended with fuccefs ; for he men- 

 tions, that the Kalmucks take off the thick fubftance, which, in 

 confequence of fouring, rifes to the top of the milk, and em- 

 ploy this in their food, while they ufe the remaining li- 

 quor either for drink or diftillation. Now, this is not only 

 contrary to the ufage of that people, when they wifh to obtain 

 a fermented liquor of any ftrength ; but experience proves, that 

 no perfe:cT: fermentation can be produced, unlefs all the parts of 

 the milk be left united in their natural proportion. 



GMELIN, in his Hiftory of a tour which he made through 

 Siberia J, pays more attention to the Tartar method of diftilling 

 a fpirit from the wine of milk, than to the fermenting procefs 

 by which that wine is procured. 



Z. 2. THE 



*-De Region. Oriental, lib. I. cap. 57. 



J-. Befchreibung des Ruflichen Reichs, p. 319. 



GMELIN'S Reifle durch Siberien^ t. I; p. 273. 



