180 Method of making a WINE, 



THE latefl writer that I find mentioning Koumifs, is the cele- 

 brated profeflbr of natural hiftory in St Peterfburgh, DrPALLAS *. 

 His account is as circumftantial as could well be expected from 

 a traveller, whofe object was natural hiftory in general ; yet 

 the principles on which the fermentation depends, as well as 

 the mode of conducting the procefs, are not fufficiently ex- 

 plained in his work. 



THESE accounts, however imperfect, might have led philo- 

 fophers, long before this time, to a difcovery of the true me- 

 thod of fermenting milk, had not the writings of NEWMAN if, 

 an eminent German chemift, contributed to deceive them. 

 He was himfelf impofed upon by one LUCAS, a Dominican 

 monk, who afcribed its fermentation to the flour of millet and 

 the grains of barley, which, he faid, the Tartars added to it, 

 and to the wine-cafk in which the operation was performed. 

 NEWMAN, it would feem, was unwilling to admit of the fer- 

 mentability of milk, becaufe it was contrary to the ideas he 

 had entertained of an animal liquor ; and, therefore, adopting 

 the oppofite opinion, he feems glad to have an authority, how- 

 ever weak, to fupport it. 



YOLTELEN $, too, a chemift of Holland, affords a ftriking 

 example, how eafily men are mifled, even in matters of fcience, 

 by their own prejudices. He had no doubt of the exiftence of 

 a fermentable principle in milk, inafmuch as it contained a 

 certain quantity of a faccharine fubftance. He knew alfo, 

 that the whey contained the fugar in folution ; it was on it, 

 therefore, that he inftituted his experiments ; he added even 

 more iugar to the whey than the natural proportion ; but no 

 vinous fermentation could, by any means, be produced in it. 

 Nor did even his want of fuccefs undeceive him. He never 

 once imagined, that the butyraceous and cafeous parts of the 

 milk were no lefs neceflary to its fermentation than the faccha- 

 rine and ferous. 



Even 



* Fhyficalifh. Reife durch einig. provintz. des Ruflifch. Reichs, t. I. p. 316. 



f NEWMAN, Chem. experimental, t. I. part 2. p. 18. 



J Obfervat. de ladle humane cum afinino et ovillo comparato, p. 54. 



