CENTURY VIII. 51 



Experiment solitary touching the correcting of wine. 



782. It is said they have a manner to prepare their 

 Greek wines, to keep them from fuming and inebriat 

 ing, by adding some sulphur or alum : whereof the one 

 is unctuous, and the other is astringent. 1 And certain 

 it is that those two natures do best repress fumes. 

 This experiment would be transferred unto other wine 

 and strong beer, by putting in- some like substances 

 while they work ; which may make them both to 

 fume less, and to inflame less. 



Experiment solitary touching the materials of wild-fire. 



783. It is conceived by some (not improbably) that 

 the reason why wild-fires (whereof the principal in 

 gredient is bitumen) do not quench with water, is, for 

 that the first concretion of bitumen is a mixture of a 

 fiery and watery substance : so is not sulphur. This 

 appeareth, for that in the place near Puteoli, which 

 they call the Court of Vulcan, you shall hear under 

 the earth a horrible thundering of fire and water con 

 flicting together ; and there break forth also spouts of 

 boiling water. 2 Now that place yieldeth great quan 

 tities of bitumen ; whereas ^Etna and Vesuvius, and 

 the like, which consist upon sulphur, shoot forth smoke, 

 and ashes, and pumice, but no water. It is reported 

 also, that bitumen mingled with lime, and pub under 

 water, will make as it were an artificial rock ; the 

 substance becometh so hard. 



1 Sandys, p. 203. Sandys is speaking of the Greek wines made on the 

 sides of Vesuvius. 



2 Id. p. 210-. 



