44/7 
Telegraphic Communication . 
The art of tempering wine by the addition of one part 
of water was practised among the antients : wine of this 
kind they called vimnn dilutum . Pliny, after Homer, 
speaks of a wine which could bear twenty parts of water. 
The same historian informs us, that in his time wines so 
spiritous were known, that they could not be drunk : nisi 
per vine erentiir aqua et attenuentur aqua calida . 
The antients, who had very just and correct ideas re- 
specting the art of making and preserving wines, seem to 
have been unacquainted with that of distilling spirit from 
them : the first correct ideas respecting the distillation of 
wine are ascribed to Arnaud de Villeneuve, professor of 
medicine at Montpellier. 
The distillation of wines has given a new value to this 
production. It has not only furnished a new beverage 
stronger and incorruptible, but has made known to the 
arts the real solvent of resins and of aromatic principles, 
and, at the same time, a mean as simple as certain for 
preserving animal and vegetable substances from all pu- 
trid decomposition. It is on these remarkable properties 
that the art of the varnisher, the perfumer, the maker of 
liqueurs, and others founded on the same basis, have been 
successively established. 
No. 52. 
(With a Plate.) 
A Mode of conveying Intelligence from a reconnoitring 
party . In a letter from a correspondent , to W. Ni- 
cholson, Esq.* 
Sir— I herewith send you a model, which I denomi- 
nate a Jlippograph , and which appears to me likely to 
be of use in the march of troops, &c. 
It may consist of any number of men and officers, but 
* Nicholson, V. 30. p, 126: 
