DISCUSSION. 243 



against the use of hops in beer, but the use of hops has so grown 

 that the use of beer without is now almost unknown. Beer was 

 a complex liquid containing various ingredients which made it', 

 palateable, some of them affected the sense of taste and others tl.e 

 sense of smell, these were called sapors and odours and together 

 flavor. The bitter of hops and the salt affected the taste, some 

 people liked more of the latter some less, but the quantity present 

 could scarcely produce thirst. The ingredients which affected the 

 organs of smell were, the oil of hops and the small quantities of 

 those higher alcohols which were present, and if these were left 

 out the beer would be undrinkable. What Mr. Hamlet had said 

 with regard to the water here being particularly soft, and therefore- 

 taking up a large quantity of albuminous matter, was perfectly 

 correct, and the brewer got rid of that difficulty by the use of 

 sugar, as otherwise the beer would never be bright. The waters 

 used in the brewing of some of the English beers contained besides 

 the sulphate of calcium mentioned, sulphate of potassium, and 

 both these were absent in Sydney waters. British beers contained 

 from 200 to 300 grains of inorganic matter per gallon, which was 

 more than in Sydney beer. With regard to the intoxicating 

 effects of amylic alcohol, lie did not think much dependence would 

 be placed upon experiments made on animals. The effect of 

 experiments made on different men might be very different, and 

 the difference might be still greater between experiments made 

 upon a man and a dog. For example, give a glass of rum to a 

 blackfellow and he would be hopelessly drunk, but on most white 

 men it would have no effect one way or the other. Various, 

 people had given different accounts of the effects of amylic alcohol; 

 some said that it was fifteen times as intoxicating as ordinary 

 alcohol ; others said three grains produced decided effects. He 

 knew of a case in which a man took a jar of fusel oil, thinking it 

 was brandy and took a mouthful of it : it made him drunk but 

 he soon got over it. Even if beer contained one grain of fusel oil 

 per gallon, he did not think that was sufficient to condemn it, but 

 he had not found nearly as much. As a chemist he thought that. 

 too much importance was often attached to minute chemical 

 analysis and in a general way he considered that what would pass 

 his sense of taste and smell Mas good enough. 



The Rev. S. Wilkinson said he had been enabled to make some 

 observations of the evil effects of fusel oil. There was one part 

 of this colony in which wine was very extensively produced and 

 to his certain knowledge considerable quantities of very coarse 

 sugar was used in fermentation in order to produce the wine ; that 

 he knew to be a fact, and it was a certainty from that fact that a 

 considerable quantity of fusel oil is generated by fermentation to 

 produce the wine he alluded to. But what was the result of it ? 



