180 New Process of Vinegar Making. 



second, or German method, the liquid to be acetified is allowed 

 to trickle over shavings of beech wood contained in large 

 barrels to which the air has access. This plan is rapid, but 

 not applicable to wine, nor to beer in its natural state, and its 

 product is of inferior quality, especially when derived from 

 alcohols with a bad flavour. The wine-vinegar of Orleans in 

 part owes its fine qualities to the presence of aromatic sub- 

 stances, which are carried off by the high temperature and the 

 strong current of air which are permitted in the German 

 method. There is, however, a singular inconvenience in the 

 Orleans mode, which gives rise to myriads of the so-called 

 vinegar eels.* These little creatures require air in order to 

 live, and the film of the vinegar plant tends to deprive them of 

 it. M. Pasteur says, — " My experiments have shown that aceti- 

 fication only takes place at the surface of the liquid in the thin 

 film of mycoderma aceti that is incessantly renewed. Sup- 

 pose this pellicle well formed, and the work of acetification 

 actively proceeding, all the oxygen that arrives at the surface 

 of the liquid is employed by the plant, and none is left for the 

 eels. The latter finding themselves deprived of the possibility 

 of respiration, and guided by one of those marvellous instincts 

 of which all animals, in different degrees, offer us such singular 

 examples, take refuge on the sides of the casks, where they 

 form a thick white crawling mass/'' From this position they 

 carry on war with the vinegar plants, often getting the upper 

 hand, and forcing the latter downwards below the surface of 

 the fluid, and thus more or less completely arresting the fer- 

 mentation. In M. Pasteur's process the eels are not admitted, 

 and as the acetification takes place at a low temperature, the 

 aromatic elements are not destroyed. We believe the " Fleur du 

 Vinaigre," or " Mother of Vinegar," although not presenting 

 the same external appearance, is substantially identical with the 

 solid leathery fungus that, under the name of the " Vinegar 

 Plant/' is often used by English families to induce the acetic 

 fermentation in solutions of treacle and sugar. 



* Anguillula aceti. 



