90 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



of the average French and German wines, for which elaborate 

 data have been published l)y various French Chemists (Faure, 

 Analyse chimique et comparce des Vins dc la Girojide ; Gayon, 

 Blarez, and Dubourg, Analyse chimique des Vitis de la Girofide, 

 1888 ; Fortes and Ruyssen, Traitc de la Vigne et de ses Froduits, 

 1886 ; Documents du Laboratoire Muncipal ; and analyses by 

 Houdart, Girard, and others given in Yiard's Traite General de 

 la Vigne et des Vins, 1892), and the German Impei'ial Commission 

 for Wine Statistics, appointed in 1884. (Zeit. fiir Anal. Chemie., 

 21, et seq). 



It was shown in the second part that the sugar strength of 

 Victorian musts corresponds closely with the alcoholic strength 

 of Victorian wines, in other words, that the average Victorian 

 must contains nearly half as much sugar again as the average 

 French and German. The determinations for 1894 bear out this 

 interesting result, and show that, on the whole, the alcoholic 

 strength of Victorian wines is fully accounted for by the high 

 sugar strength of the musts. Some earlier investigations of the 

 sugar strength of Australian musts had been made by the 

 Hunter River Vineyard Association, commencing in 1847 ; 

 Muspratt, 18.57, and Dr. A. C. Kelly, 1867, also the South 

 Australian Royal Commission in 1874, and by H. Lumsdaine, 

 Chief Inspector of Distilleries, New South Wales, in 1875, and 

 had proved the high specific gravity and therefore high sugar 

 strength of Australian musts (for instance the South Australian 

 Royal Commission found an average specific gravity of 1-118 for 

 seventeen samples of grapes, representing 28-4 grannnes of sugar 

 per 100 cub. cent.) On account of the limited number of the 

 earlier determinations, these two series of 1893 and 1894 were 

 undertaken by me in order to have data as similar as possible to 

 the systematic statistics being gathered for France and Germany, 

 and especially the latter by the labours of the Imperial German 

 Commission. 



In the Victorian vintage of 1893 the number of samples of 

 musts examined was 119, while in the present year it was 196, 

 representing the chief wine-growing areas. Each sample was 

 examined on the vineyard where produced, having been pressed 

 by myself, the specific gravity and acidity of each being then 

 taken immediately ; the results of the measurements of specific 



