674 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to the injurious nature of the impurities of plastered wines, endeavors 

 have been made to free them from these by a method called * deplas- 

 tering,' but the remedy proves worse than the defect." The samples 

 analyzed by Carles contained barium salts, barium chloride having 

 been used to remove the sulphuric acid. In some cases excess of the 

 barium salt was found in the wine, and in others barium sulphate was 

 held in suspension. 



Closely following the abstract of this paper, in the " Journal of 

 the Chemical Society, is another from the French " Journal of Phar- 

 maceutical Chemistry," vol. v, pp. 581-583, to which I now refer, by- 

 the-way, for the instruction of claret-di-inkers, who may not be aware 

 of the fact that the phylloxera destroyed all the claret grapes in cer- 

 tain districts of France, without stopping the manufacture or dimin- 

 ishing the export of claret itself ! In this paper, by J. Lefort, we are 

 told, as a matter of course, that " owing to the ravages of the phyl- 

 loxera among the vines, substitutes for grape-juice are being intro- 

 duced for the manufacture of wines ; of these, the author specially 

 condemns the use of beet-root sugar, since, during its fermentation, 

 besides ethyl, alcohol, and aldehyde, it yields propyl, butyl, and amyl 

 alcohols, which have been shown by Dujardin and Audige to act as 

 poisons in very small quantities." In connection with this subject I 

 may add that the French Government carefully protects its own citi- 

 zens by rigid inspection and analysis of the wines offered for sale to 

 French wine-drinkers ; but does not feel bound to expend its funds 

 and energies in hampering commerce by severe examination of the 

 wines that are exported to " John Bull et son lie," especially as John 

 Bull is known to have a robust constitution. Thus, vast quantities of 

 brilliantly-colored liquid, flavored with orris-root, which would not be 

 allowed to pass the barriers of Paris, but must go somewhere, is drunk 

 in England at a cost of four times as much as the Frenchman pays 

 for genuine grape-wine. The colored concoction being brighter, and 

 skillfully cooked, and duly labeled to imitate the products of real or 

 imaginary celebrated vineyards, is preferred by the English gourmet 

 to anything that can be made from simj^le grape-juice. 



I should add that a character somewhat similar to that of natural 

 dryness is obtained by mixing with the grape-juice wine a secondary 

 product, obtained by adding water to the marc — i. e., the residue of 

 skins, etc., that remains after pressing out the must or juice ; a mini- 

 mum of sugar is dissolved in the water, and this liquor is fermented. 

 The skins and seeds contain much tannic acid or astringent matter, and 

 this roughness imposes upon many wine-drinkers, provided the price 

 charged for the wine thus cheapened be sufficiently high. After this, 

 according to Gardner (Churchill's " Technological Handbook," *' The 

 Brewer, Distiller, and Wine Manufacturer"), "the same marc is treated 

 in a similar manner with a fresh quantity of sugar solution, and some- 

 times undergoes as many as three or four separate macerations, each 



