~*4 .EXPOSITION. 



position of the substrata or beds on which the soil rests, and 

 on which culture can have no effect, as the effects of labour do 

 not extend to a sufficient depth. It has been suggested, 

 however, that possibly the vines of the several parts are not 

 all of the same age, and a great difference in this point is 

 known to carry with it important variations in the results, as 

 will be shown hereafter. For my own part, I do not put 

 much faith in those miraculous accounts ; and am fully per- 

 suaded that where real differences exist, they may be readily 

 traced to a plain and adequate cause, and that the mystery 

 which some lovers of the marvellous have long delighted to 

 hang over nature's simplest operations will, when they are sub- 

 jected to suitable investigation, be no longer allowed to ob* 

 scure our vision and to deprive us of real light. 



CHAPTER VIL 



Exposition. 



Even the same climate, the same culture, and the same soil, 

 often produce wines of very different qualities ; and it frequent- 

 ly occurs in wine countries, that the summit of a mountain, 

 whose surface is completely covered over with vineyards, yields 

 in its various aspects an astonishing variety of wines. Were 

 we to judge of places by comparing the nature of their pro- 

 ductions, we should be led to suppose that every climate and 

 every species of soil had combined to furnish the various arti- 

 cles which are frequently in fact but the produce of contiguous 

 soils, possessing different exposures. 



This variation in the productions of the earth arising from 

 exposition alone, is perceptible in all the results which depend 

 on vegetation ; the wood cut in that part of a forest which 

 fronts the north, is much less combustible than that of the same 

 kind which grows on the south. Odoriferous and sweet tasted 



