Page images
PDF
EPUB

rich, full-bodied wines of the warmer wine countries will yield as much as a third of ardent spirit; while the thin light wines will often give no more than about one sixteenth of the same strength. (See the articles, Alcohol and Brandy.) 3. Tartar or Super-tartrate of potash, is incrusted on the bottom and sides of the cask. It is afterwards purified by dissolving it in boiling water, and filtering it while hot. On cooling, it deposits the pure salt in very irregular crystals. In this state it is sold under the name of crystals or cream of tartar. 4. Extract. Must contains an abundance of extractive matter, which materially assists the fermentation, and is afterwards found, in part at least, in the lees, but another portion may be obtained from the wine, by evaporation. It is also extract that mixes with and colours the tartar. 5. Aroma. All wines possess a peculiar and grateful smell, which would indicate a distinct aromatic principle, but it has never been exhibited in the form of essential oil, or condensed in any smaller quantity by distillation or any other mode. To give wine all its aroma it should be fermented very slowly. 6. Colouring matter. The husk or pellicle of the red grape contains a good colour, which is extracted when the entire fruit is pressed, and becomes dissolved in the wine when the fermentation is compléte.

The saccharine part resides in the cells of the grapes, while the fermenting or glutinous matter is lodged on the exterior membranes that separate the cells. White wines may, therefore, be prepared from red grapes, if the juice be carefully expressed and the husk rejected. There would be no colour, unless the husks were fermented, and mixed up with the grapes. The natural colour of wine may be entirely and speedily destroyed, by the addition of hot well burnt charcoal in pretty fine powder.

1. Portugueze Wines. From Portugal we receive Red Port, so much drunk in England. The best vino tinto, a blackish-red wine, used to colour other wines, is said to be the produce of Portugal. This kingdom also deals largely in Madeira wine.

2. Spanish Wines are composed of fermented or halffermented wine, mixed with inspissated must, and variously manufactured, or of an infusion of dried grapes in weak must. Of these wines there are a few in Germany, as the

Alicant, which is a thick, strong, and very sweet wine. Sherry is prepared near Xeres in Spain, and hence called, according to our orthography sherries or sherry. The Spanish wines are, most of them, very rich and sweet, contain much undecomposed sugar and mucilage, and only a small quantity of malic acid and spirit. They are not sufficiently fermented, and do not, therefore, keep well.

3. Greek Wines. The wines of Candia and Greece are commonly used in Italy. Malmsey was formerly the produce of these parts only, but is now brought chiefly from Spain; it is a sweet wine, of a golden, or brownishyellow colour. Italy produces the vino greco which is a gold-coloured, unctuous wine, the growth of Mount Vesuvius.

4. French and German Wines. The most celebrated are, Champagne, Burgundy, Frontiniae, Hermitage, &c. Among the more esteemed German wines, may be reckoned Rhenish, Mayne, Moselle, and Neckar; Hock is esteemed a very fine wine. The wines of Germany are full of spirit, and will keep for a long time.

5. Madeira Wines. The Madeira Islands and Palma, one of the Canaries, afford two kinds; the first called Madeira sec; the latter, which is the richest and best of the two, Canary or Palm sec. The name sec (corruptly written sack) signifies dry; those wines being made from halfdried grapes.

WOOLLEN MANUFACTURE. 1. The importance of the woollen manufacture, both to the commercial and labouring classes, has long been felt; yet it is only within the last fifteen or twenty years that the subject has been scientifically considered, or any efficient measures have been taken to improve the quantity and quality of British wool. The growth of wool is always completed in one year, at the expiration of which it spontaneously decays, and is naturally renewed. In this respect, indeed, the covering of sheep bears a close resemblance to the hair of most of the lower animals, though it differs widely in the following particu lars the wool is considerably finer, grows with more uniformity, each filament advancing at an equal distance, separating from the skin nearly at the same time, and if it be not previously shorn, it falls off naturally; the animal being

already provided with a short coat of young wool. Another peculiarity in wool is, the different degree of thickness which prevails in various parts of the same sheep, being closer at the extremities than at the roots; and the part that grows during winter, being of a much finer quality than that produced in the summer.

2. The names given to wool vary according to its state or relative degree of fineness. When first shorn it is called a fleece, and every fleece is divided into three kinds, namely, the prime or mother-wool, which is separated from the neck and back; the seconds, or that obtained from the tail and legs; and the thirds, which is taken from the breast and beneath the belly. This general classification of wool corresponds with the Spanish method of sorting into rafinos, or prime; tinos, or second best; and terceras, or an inferior sort. But the wool staplers in the eastern part of this island, distinguish not less than nine different sorts broken out of small fleece.* Till within these few years, the finest wool manufactured in this country, was obtained exclusively from Spain :-next to Spanish wool, the English sheep, perhaps, furnish the finest commodity of the kind in Europe. Previously to the introduction of Spanish sheep, the finest and most esteemed sorts of British wool were the Ryeland, South-down, Shetland, Coteswold, and Cheviot fleeces; but by the judicious crossing of Merino rams with the choice British sheep, particu larly of the Ryeland breed, wool of the fourth descent has been obtained, which, in point of fineness and texture, has proved equal to the best Spanish wool. For these interesting facts, the British nation is indebted to the patriotic exertions of Lord Somerville, (who, about eight years since, imported from Spain, at a vast expense, eight Merino rams,) of the British Wool Society - the Board of Agriculture-and Dr. Parry of Bath. And with the same noble views, his Majesty annually permits some of his Spanish sheep to be sold at reasonable prices, under the auspices of Sir Joseph Banks.

The sorts, however, vary according to the quality of sheep. A true bred Ryeland, without cross, will divide into six or seven sorts; a Leicester or Coteswold, into not more than two; and so on according to the quality of the sheep.

Within the last four years cloth made from Saxon wool has been introduced, and it is now more highly esteemed than that made of Spanish wool, and bears a higher price. The emperor of Saxony raises a large quantity of wool and sends it to England.

3. Till the year 1331, the wool of England was sold in the fleece, to the French, the Flemings, and the Dutch; and particularly the merchants of Ghent and Louvain, who took vast quantities to supply two manufactories that had flourished in those two cities from the tenth century; and had furnished the greatest part of Europe, and even England itself, with all sorts of woollen cloths. But the rich ness of the manufactories of Ghent, and the incredible number of persons employed, having induced the inhabitants to revolt, frequently against their sovereigns, on ac count of taxes, which they refused to pay; the seditious were at length punished and dispersed, and part of them took refuge in Holland, and the rest in Louvain. Many of these last, to avoid the punishment they had deserved for killing some of the magistrates, fled to England, where they instructed us in the manufactory of woollen cloth.

4. Some sort of woollen cloth must have ever been made in all civilized countries;-wherever the Romans planted colonies, they there introduced the weaving of cloth. Camden, in his Britannia, speaking of the antiquity and eminence of the city of Winchester, says, there the Roman emperors seem to have had their imperial weaving-house for cloths both of woollen and linen, for most probably that necessary art was preserved in Britain after the Romans had quitted it, though, perhaps, of a plainer sort, till the fourteenth century, when Edward III. introduced the fine manufacture from the Netherlands.

5. The year 1614, produced the discovery of a new species of woollen manufacture in England. The States General of the Netherlands, having prohibited the importation of any English woollen cloth, that was dyed in the cloth, the English clothiers ingeniously devised the method of making mixtures dyed in the wool, rather than lose all the profits of dyeing and dressing. This has since obtained the name of medley cloth; all woollen cloth before this time being only of one single colour, dyed in the cloth; as black, blue, red, &c.

The Woollen Manufacture includes the several commodities into which wool is wrought; as broad cloths, kerseymeres, baize, serges, flannel, says, stuffs, frize, stockings, caps, rugs, &c.

6. Cloths. The word cloth is more particularly applied to a web, or tissue of woollen threads, interwoven; of which some, called the warp, are extended longitudinally, from one end of the piece to the other; the 'rest, called woof, are disposed across the first, or the breadthway of the piece. Cloths are woven on the loom, as well as linens, druggets, serges, camblets, &c. The goodness of cloth depends on many peculiar circumstances. The cloth should be well wrought and beaten on the loom, so as to be every where equally close and compact. The wool must not be finer and better at one end of the piece than the rest. The lists should be sufficiently strong, and of the same length with the stuff. For coarse cloth they should consist of coarse wool and cow hairs from Scotland; for fine cloth, of Vigonia, or Alpaca wool (taken from the lama,) from South America. The cloth must be well cleared of the knots and other imperfections; be well scoured with good fuller's earth, then fulled with the best white soap, and washed in clear water. The hair, or nap, must be well rowed, or drawn out with the teazle (dipsacus fullonum, L.) without being too much opened; it must be shorn close, yet without laying the ground or thread bare ; be well dyed; not stretched or pulled, further than is necessary to bring it to the just length and breadth; and lastly, it must be properly pressed.

The different processes in the manufacture of cloth, are (in Gloucestershire) as follow:

1. Scouring. When taken out of the packs, the wool is scoured in a liquor composed of three parts of clear water and one of urine, to which soap is added; it is then drained, washed in a running water, and dried.

2. Beating and Picking. It is beaten with rods on hurdles of wood, or on ropes, to clear out the dust and grosser filth. After beating it is well picked, to clear the rest of the filth that has escaped the rods.

3. Oiling and Scribbling. When the cloth is oiled with the oil of olives, the best for this purpose, it is carried to the scribbling-mill, which consists of a system of

« PreviousContinue »