and the Method of Making Wines . 435 
vessels are the most favourable, because, besides their 
presenting no principle soluble in wine, they shelter it 
from the contact of the air, from moisture, and the prim 
cipal variations of the atmosphere. Care must be taken 
to shut these vessels very closely with good cork ; and 
to lay the bottles on their sides, that the cork may not 
dry, and facilitate the access of the air. For the greater 
safety, the cork may be covered with a coating of wax, 
applied by means of a brush ; or the neck of the bottle 
may be immersed in a mixture of melted wax, resin, and 
pitch. Borne people cover the wine with a stratum of oil ; 
this process is recommended by Baccius. The neck is 
then covered with an inverted glass tumbler, a vessel of 
tin plate, or any matter capable of preventing insects or 
mice from falling into the wine. 
The vessels most generally employed for keeping wine 
are casks, which for the most part are made of oak. They 
vary in size, and are known by different names, such as 
pipes, hogsheads, &c. The great inconvenience of casks 
is, that they not only present to the wine substances which 
are soluble in it, but that they are affected by the varia- 
tions of the atmosphere, and afford a passage both to the 
air which endeavours to escape from them, and to that of 
the atmosphere which penetrates them. 
Glazed earthen vessels have the advantage of retaining 
a more equal temperature ; but they are more or less 
porous, and at length the wine in them must become dry. 
In the ruins of Herculaneum vessels were found in which 
the wine had dried. Hozier speaks of a similar urn dis- 
covered in a vineyard in the territory of Vienne in Ban- 
phiny, in a place where the palace of Pompey had for- 
merly stood. The Romans remedied the porosity of 
earthen vessels by covering them with wax on the inside, 
and pitch on the outside : they covered also the whole 
surface with wax cloths, w hich they applied with great 
care. 
