fS Relation hetireen the Specific Gravities and 



imfortunately not hitherto been the case in this countn', 

 and \s still less so in anv other : the cares of government, 

 in general, aftbrd to tho*e who are occupied by them but 

 little leisure for abstruse research ; and the appreciation of 

 quantity and qualitv in general has hitherto, therefore, been 

 in a creat measure left to individuals. 



§ 4. Flavour, odour, colour, and consistence, are the 

 objects of our external senses, and the quality of a liquor in 

 the^c respects is discoverable by their assistance alone 5 but 

 a minute diflerence in the strengths of two kinds of spirit, 

 Txhich arc otherwise similar, is not so easily detected : there 

 are means of communicating to a liquor an apparently dif- 

 ibrent strength from that which it really possesses, so long 

 as its taste, smell, and appearance, arc relied on as criteria 

 by which it is to be estimated. 



§ 5. Water and spirit of wine are of very different spe- 

 cific trravities : that of the former beino:, in a great n)easurc, 

 fixed and invariable at given temperatures, whilst that of 

 the latter is liable to so much unccrtaintv that it has not 

 hitherto been ascertained what is the real weight of alcohol, 

 properly so called ; the thing itself being, as wc have before 

 gtatcd, scarcely known. A very few years ago it was con- 

 ceived that a spirit whose specific gravity was 820* at 6o* 

 of Fahrenheit's thermometer was as perfectly free from any 

 admixture of water as it was possible to render it ; and yet 

 wc are now able with e;ise to procure it lighter : the specific 

 gravity of the best alcohol from Apothecaries' Hall being 

 very commonly considerably less. In sonje cases even a 

 piuch greater degree of dephh-gmation has been attained. 

 Mr. Lewis, of Holborn, a very scientific rectilicr, has ob- 

 tained spirit whose specific gravity was less than 81 1 at GC; 

 and Dr. Black is said to have procured it so light as 800, or 

 weighing only l-oths of the weight of an equal measure of 

 water. 



§ 6. When two fluids of different weights arc mixed to- 

 gether, we may easily conclude that the specific gravity of 

 the compound will bear some relation to that of its compo- 

 nent ingredients ; and it appears, therefore, to have been a 

 very obvious idea that the relative proportion of each in sucli 

 a mixture would be thus to be discovered. In the present 

 improved state of science we see so much further than our 



• It h»s been most usual with writers on specific gravities to consider 

 til It of disiiiltd water as unity : we, however, have fomul it inore con- 

 <Jucivt to the facility of dcniMninating them, to consider it ns 1000, and 

 vhich it accordingly done tliroughout ti.is tract. " Eight hundred and 

 twenty," for example, u njcre easily expressed in words than i so. 



predecessors. 



1 



