what takes place in the process. He impregnated some water with about its own bulk of carbonic acid gas, procured from beer vats in fermentation; and placed this water in a cellar, in vessels communicating with the air, and in a short time the whole was converted into acetous acid. This car honic acid gas, procured from beer vats in fermentation, is not perfectly pure, but contains a great quantity of alcohol in solution; wherefore water impregnated with it contains all the materials necessary for forming the acetous acid. The alcohol furnishes hydrogen and one portion of carbon; the carbonic furnishes oxygen, and the rest of the carbon; and the air of the atmosphere furnishes the rest of the oxygen necessary for changing the mixture into acetous acid. From this observation it follows that nothing but hydrogen is wanting to convert carbonic acid into acetous acid; or, more generally, that by means of hydrogen, and according to the degree of oxydation, carbonic acid may be changed into all the vegetable acids: and, on the contrary, that, by depriving any of the vegetable acids of their hydrogen, they may be converted into carbonic acid.

A process still frequently used in making vinegar consists in fixing two casks in a warm room or place, to which two false bottoms of basket-work are fixed at a certain distance, upon which the refuse of grapes and vine twigs are placed. One of these tuns is filled with wine, and the other only half filled. The fermentation begins in this last; and, when it is in full action, it is checked by filling the cask up with wine out of the other. The fermentation then takes place in the last mentioned cask, that remained half filled; and this is checked in the same manner by pouring back the same quantity of liquid out of the other: and in this way the process is continued till the vinegar is made, which is usually in about fifteen days. When the fermentation developes itself, the liquid becomes heated and turbid; a great number of filaments are seen in it; it emits a lively smell; and much air is absorbed, according to the observation of the abbé Rozier. A large quantity of lees is formed, which subsides when the vinegar becomes clear. This lees is very analogous to the fibrous matter. Vinegar is purified by distillation. The first portions which pass over are weak; but soon afterwards the acetous acid rises, and is stronger the later it comes over in the distillation. This fluid is called distilled vinegar; and is thus cleared of its coloring principle, and the lees, which are always more or less abundant. Vinegar may likewise be concentrated by exposing it to the frost. The superabundant water freezes, and leaves the acid more condensed.

Take however a middling sort of beer, indifferently well hopped; into which, when it has worked well and grown fine, put some rape, or husks of grapes, usually brought home for that purpose; mash them together in a tub: then, letting the rape settle, draw off the liquid part, put it into a cask, and set it in the sun as hot as may be; the bung being only covered with a tile, or slate-stone and in about thirty or forty days it will become a good vinegar, and may pass in use as well as that made of wine if it be refined, and kept from turning musty. Or thus:-To every gallon of spring-water add three pounds of Malaga raisins; which put into an earthen jar, and place them where they may have the hottest sun from May till Michaelmas; then pressing all well tun the liquor up in a very strong iron-hooped vessel, to prevent its bursting: it will appear very

thick and muddy when newly pressed; but will refine in the vessel, and be as clear as wine. Thus let it remain untouched for three months before it is drawn off, and it will prove excellent vinegar. Method of making cyder into vinegar.—The cyder (the meanest of which will serve the purpose) is first to be drawn off fine into another vessel, and a quantity of the must of apples to be added: the whole is set in the sun, if there be conveniency for it; and at a week or nine days end it may be drawn off.

Method of making wine into vinegar.—Any sort of vinous liquor being mixed with its own fæces, flowers, or ferment, and its tartar first reduced to powder; or else with the acid and austere stalks of the vegetable whence the wine was obtained, which hold a large proportion of tartar; and the whole being kept frequently stirring in a vessel which has formerly held vinegar, or set in a warm place full of the steams of the same, will begin to ferment anew, conceive heat, grow sour by degrees, and soon after turn into vinegar. The remote subjects of acetous fermentation are the same with those of vinous; but the immediate subjects of it are all kinds of vegetable juices, after they have once undergone that fermentation which reduces them to wine; for it is absolutely impossible to make vinegar of must, the crude juice of grapes, and other ripe fruits, without the previous assistance of vinous fermentation. The proper ferments for this operation, whereby vinegar is prepared, are, 1. The fæces of all acid wines. 2. The lees of vinegar. 3. Pulverized tartar, especially that of Rhenish wine, or the cream or crystals thereof. 4. Vinegar itself. 5. A wooden vessel well drenched with vinegar, or one that has long been employed to contain it. 6. Wine that has often been mixed with its own fæces. 7. The twigs of vines, and the stalks of grapes, currants, cherries, or other vegetables of an acid austere taste. 8. Bakers' leven, after it has turned acid. 9. All manner of ferments, compounded of those already mentioned.

Acetic acid is the chemical name of the same acid which, in a very dilute and somewhat impure state, is called vinegar.

This acid, says Dr. Ure, is found combined with potash in the juices of a great many plants; particularly the sambucus nigra, phoenix dactilifera, galium verum, and rhus typhinus. Sweat, urine, and even fresh milk contain it. It is frequently generated in the stomachs of dyspeptic patients. Almost all dry vegetable substances, and some animal, subjected in close vessels to a red heat, yield it copiously. It is the result likewise of a spontaneous fermentation, to which liquid vegetable and animal matters are liable. Strong acids, as the sulphuric and nitric, develope the acetic by their action on vegetables. It was long supposed, on the authority of Boerhaave, that the fermentation which forms vinegar is uniformly preceded by the vinous. This is a mistake. Cabbages sour it water, making sour crout; starch in starch-makers sour waters; and dough itself, without any previous production of wine.

The varieties of acetic acids known in commerce are four :-1. Wine vinegar; 2. Malt vinegar; 3. Sugar vinegar; 4. Wood vinegar. We shall describe first the mode of making these commercial articles, and then that of extracting the absolute acetic acid of the chemist, either from these vinegars, or directly from chemical compounds, of

which it is a constituent. The following is the plan of making vinegar at present practised in Paris:-The wine destined for vinegar is mixed in a large tun with a quantity of wine lees, and the whole being transferred into cloth sacks, placed within a large iron-bound vat, the liquid matter is extruded through the sacks by superincumbent pressure. What passes through is put into large casks, set upright, having a small aperture in their top. In these it is exposed to the heat of the sun in summer, or to that of a stove in winter. Fermentation supervenes in a few days. If the heat should then rise too high, it is lowered by cool air and the addition of fresh wine. In the skilful regulation of the fermentative temperature consists the art of making good wine vinegar. In summer the process is generally completed in a fortnight: in winter double the time is requisite. The vinegar is then run off into barrels, which contain several chips of birch-wood. In about a fortnight it is found to be clarified, and is then fit for the market. It must be kept in close casks.

The manufacturers at Orleans prefer wine of a year old for making vinegar. But if by age the wine has lost its extractive matter, it does not readily undergo the acetous fermentation. In this case acetification, as the French term the process, may be determined by adding slips of vines, bunches of grapes, or green woods. It has been asserted that alcohol, added to fermentable liquor, does not increase the product of vinegar. But this is a mistake. Stahl observed, long ago, that if we moisten roses or lilies with alcohol, and place them in vessels in which they are stirred from time to time, vinegar will be formed. He also informs us, if after abstracting the citric acid from lemon juice by crabs' eyes (carbonate of lime), we add a little alcohol to the supernatant liquid, and place the mixture in a proper temperature, vinegar will be formed.

Chaptal says that two pounds of weak spirits, specific gravity 0-985, mixed with 300 grains of beer yeast, and a little starch water, produced extremely strong vinegar. The acid was developed on the fifth day. The same quantity of starch and yeast, without the spirit, fermented more slowly, and yielded a weaker vinegar. A slight motion is found to favor the formation of vinegar, and to endanger its decomposition after it is made. Chaptal ascribes to agitation the operation of thunder; though it is well known that, when the atmosphere is highly electrified, beer is apt to become suddenly sour, without the concussion of a thunder-storm. In cellars exposed to the vibrations occasioned by the rattling of carriages, vinegar does not keep well. The lees, which had been deposited by means of isinglass and repose, are thus jumbled into the liquor, and make the fermentation recommence. Almost all the vinegar of the north of France being prepared at Orleans, the manufacture of that place has acquired such celebrity as to render their process worthy of a separate consideration.

The Orleans casks contain nearly 400 pints of wine. Those which have been already used are preferred. They are placed in three rows, one over another, and in the top have an aperture of two inches diameter, kept always open. The wine for acetification is kept in adjoining casks, containing beech shavings, to which the lees adhere. The wine thus clarified is drawn off to make vinegar. 100 pints of good vinegar, boiling hot, are first

poured into each cask, and left there for eight days. Ten pints of wine are mixed in, every eight days, till the vessels are full. The vinegar is allowed to remain in this state fifteen days before it is exposed to sale.

The used casks, called mothers, are never emptied more than half, but are successively filled again, to acetify new portions of wine. In order to judge if the mother works, the vinegar makers plunge a spatula into the liquid; and, according to the quantity of froth which the spatula shows, they add more or less wine. In summer the atmospheric heat is sufficient. In winter stoves heated to about 75° Fahrenheit maintain the requisite temperature in the manufactory.

In some country districts the people keep in a place where the temperature is mild and equable a vinegar cask, into which they pour such wine as they wish to acetify; and it is always preserved full by replacing the vinegar drawn off by new wine. To establish this household manufacture it is only necessary to buy at first a small cask of good vinegar.

At Gand a vinegar from beer is made, in which the following proportions of grain are found to be most advantageous:

1880 Paris pounds of malted barley.
wheat.

700

500

buck wheat. These grains are ground, mixed, and boiled, along with twenty-seven casks-full of river water, for three hours. Eighteen casks of good beer for vinegar are obtained. By a subsequent decoction more fermentable liquid is extracted, which is mixed with the former. The whole brewing yields 3000 English quarts.

In this country vinegar is usually made from malt. By mashing with hot water, 100 gallons of wort are extracted in less than two hours from one boll of malt. When the liquor has fallen to the temperature of 75° Fahrenheit, four gallons of the barm of beer are added. After thirty-six hours it is racked off into casks, which are laid on their sides, and exposed, with their bung holes loosely covered, to the influence of the sun in summer; but in winter they are arranged in a stove-room. In three months this vinegar is ready for the manufacture of sugar of lead. To make vinegar for domestic use, however, the process is somewhat different. The above liquor is racked off into casks placed upright, having a false cover pierced with holes fixed at about a foot from their bottom. On this a considerable quantity of rape, or the refuse from the makers of British wine, or otherwise a quantity of low priced raisins, is laid. The liquor is turned into another barrel every twenty-four hours, in which time it has begun to grow warm. Sometimes, indeed, the vinegar is fully fermented, as above, without the rape, which is added towards the end, to communicate flavor.

Good vinegar may be made from a weak syrup, consisting of eighteen ounces of sugar to every gallon of water. The yeast and rape are to be here used as above described. Whenever the vinegar (from the taste and flavor) is considered to be complete, it ought to be decanted into tight barrels or bottles, and well secured from access of air. A momentary ebullition before it is bottled is found favorable to its preservation. In a large manufactory of malt vinegar, a considerable revenue is derived from the sale of yeast to the bakers.

Vinegar obtained by the preceding methods has more or less of a brown color, and a peculiar but rather grateful smell. By distillation in glass vessels, the coloring matter, which resides in a mucilage, is separated, but the fragrant odor is generally replaced by an empyreumatic one. The best French wine vinegars, and also some from malt, contain a little alcohol, which comes over early with the watery part, and renders the first product of distillation scarcely denser, sometimes even less dense, than water. It is accordingly rejected. Towards the end of the distillation the empyreuma increases. Hence only the intermediate portions are retained as distilled vinegar. Its specific gravity varies from 1.005 to 1.015, while that of common vinegar of equal strength varies from 1.010 to 1.025.

A crude vinegar has been long prepared for the calico printers, by subjecting wood in iron retorts to a strong red heat. The following arrangement of apparatus has been found to answer well. A series of cast-iron cylinders, about four feet diameter and six feet long, are built horizontally in brick work, so that the flame of one furnace may play round about two cylinders. Both ends project a little from the brick work. One of them has a disc of cast-iron well fitted and firmly bolted to it, from the centre of which disc an iron tube about six inches diameter proceeds, and enters at a right angle the main tube of refrigeration. The diameter of this tube may be from nine to fourteen inches, according to the number of cylinders. The other end of the cylinder is called the mouth of the retort. This is closed by a disc of iron, smeared round its edge with clay-lute, and secured in its place by wedges. The charge of wood for such a cylinder is about 8 cwt. The hard woods, oak, ash, birch, and beech, are alone used. Fir does not answer. The heat is kept up during the day time, and the furnace is allowed to cool during the night. Next morning the door is opened, the charcoal removed, and a new charge of wood is introduced. The average product of crude vinegar called pyrolignous acid is thirty-five gallons. It is much contaminated with tar; is of a deep brown color; and has a specific gravity of 1025. Its total weight is therefore about 300 lbs. But the residuary charcoal is found to weigh no more than one-fifth of the wood employed. Hence nearly one half of the ponderable matter of the wood is dissipated in incondensable gases. Count Rumford states that the charcoal is equal in weight to more than four-tenths of the wood from which it is made. The count's error seems to have arisen from the slight heat of an oven to which his wood was exposed in a glass cylinder. The result now given is the experience of an eminent manufacturng chemist at Glasgow. The crude pyrolignous acid is rectified by a second distillation in a copper still, in the body of which about twenty gallons of viscid tarry matter are left from every 100. It has now become a transparent brown vinegar, having a considerable empyreumatic smell, and a specific gravity of 1·013. Its acid powers are superior to those of the best household vinegar, in the proportion of 3 to 2. By redistillation, saturation with quicklime, evaporation of the liquid acetate to dryness, and gentle torrefaction, the empyreumatic matter is so completely dissipated, that on decomposing the calcareous salt by sulphuric acid, a pure, perfectly colorless, and grateful vinegar rises

in distillation. Its strength will be proportional to the concentration of the decomposing acid.

The acetic acid of the chemist may be prepared in the following modes:-1. Two parts of fused acetate of potash with one of the strongest oil of vitriol yield, by slow distillation from a glass retort into a refrigerated receiver, concentrated acetic acid. A small portion of sulphurous acid, which contaminates it, may be removed by redistillation from a little acetate of lead. 2. Or four parts of good sugar of lead, with one part of sulphuric acid treated in the same way, afford a slightly weaker acetic acid. 3. Gently calcined sulphate of iron, or green vitriol, mixed with sugar of lead in the proportion of one of the former to two and a half of the latter, and carefully distilled from a porcelain retort into a cooled receiver, may be also considered a good economical process. Or without distillation, if 100 parts of well dried acetate of lime be cautiously added to sixty parts of strong sulphuric acid diluted with five parts of water, and digested for twenty-four hours and strained, a good acetic acid, sufficiently strong for every ordinary purpose, will be obtained.

The distillation of acetate of copper or of lead per se, has also been employed for obtaining strong acid. Here, however, the product is mixed with a portion of the fragrant pyro-acetic spirit, which it is troublesome to get rid of. Undoubtedly the best process for the strong acid is that first described, and the cheapest the second or third. When of the utmost possible strength its specific gravity is 1.062. At the temperature of 50° Fahrenheit it assumes the solid form, crystallising in oblong rhomboidal plates. It has an extremely pungent odor, affecting the nostrils and eyes even painfully when its vapor is incautiously snuffed up. Its taste is eminently acid and acrid. It excoriates and inflames the skin.

The purified wood vinegar, which is used for pickles and culinary purposes, has commonly a specific gravity of about 1'009; when it is equivalent in acid strength to good wine or malt vinegar of 1014. It contains about one-twentieth of its weight of absolute acetic acid, and nineteen-twentieths of water. An excise duty of four-pence is levied on every gallon of vinegar of the above strength. This, however, is not estimated directly by its specific gravity, but by the specific gravity which results from its saturation with quicklime. The decimal number of the specific gravity of the calcareous acetate is nearly double that of the pure wood vinegar. Thus 1.009 in vinegar becomes 1018 in liquid acetate. But the vinegar of fermentation 1014 will become only 1.023 in acetate, from which, if 0.005 be subtracted for mucilage or extractive, the remainder will agree with the density of the acetate from wood. A glass hydrometer of Fahrenheit's construction is used for finding the specific gravities. It consists of a globe about three inches diameter, having a little ballast ball drawn out beneath, and a stem above of about three inches long, containing a slip of paper with a transverse line in the middle, and surmounted with a little cup for receiving weights or poises. The experiments on which this instrument, called an acetometer, is constructed, have been detailed in the sixth volume of the Journal of Science. They do not differ essentially from those of Mollerat. The following points were determined by this chemist :-The acid of specific gravity 1:063

An acetic acid of very considerable strength may also be prepared by saturating perfectly dry charcoal with common vinegar, and then distilling. The water easily comes off and is separated at first; but a stronger heat is required to expel the acid. Or by exposing vinegar to very cold air, or to freezing mixtures, its water separates in the state of ice, the interstices of which are occupied by a strong acetic acid, which may be procured by draining. The acetic acid, or radical vinegar of the apothecaries, in which they dissolve a little camphor or fragrant essential oil, has a specific gravity of about 1-070. It contains fully one part of water to two of the crystallised acid. The pungent smelling salt consists of sulphate of potash moistened with that acid. Acetic acid acts on tin, iron, zinc, copper, and nickel; and it combines readily with the oxides of many other metals, by mixing a solution of their sulphates with that of an acetate of lead.

This acid, as it exists in the acetates of barytes and of lead, has been analysed by MM. Gay Lussac and Thenard, and also by Berzelius.

Gay Lussac found 50 224 carbon, 5.629 hydrogen, and 44-147 oxygen; or in other terms 50-224 carbon, 46'911 of water or its elementary constituents, and 2.863 oxygen in excess. Berzelius,46.83 carbon, 6·33 hydrogen, and 46.82 oxygen in 100 parts.

By saturating known weights of bases with acetic acid, and ascertaining the quantity of acetates obtained after cautious evaporation to dryness, Berzelius obtained with lime (3:56) 6.5 for the prime equivalent of acetic acid, and with yellow oxide of lead 6-432. Recent researches, which will be published in a detailed form, induce me to fix the prime of acetic acid at 7·0.

Acetic acid dissolves resins, gum resins, cam phor, and essential oils. Its odor is employed in medicine to relieve nervous headache, fainting fits, or sickness occasioned by crowded rooms. In a slightly dilute state, its application has been found to check hemorrhagy from the nostrils. Its anticontagious powers are now little trusted to. It is very largely used in calico printing. Moderately rectified pyrolignous acid has been recommended for the preservation of animal food; but the empyreumatic taint it communicates to bodies im

Acetic acid and common vinegar are sometimes fraudulently mixed with sulphuric acid to give them strength. This adulteration may be detected by the addition of a little chalk, short of their saturation. With pure vinegar the calcareous base forms a limpid solution, but with sulphuric acid a white insoluble gypsum. Muriate of barytes is a still nicer test. British fermented vinegars are allowed by law to contain a little sulphuric acid, but the quantity is frequently exceeded. Copper is discovered in vinegars by supersaturating them with ammonia, when a fine blue color is produced; and lead by sulphate of soda, hydrosulphurets, and sulphuretted hydrogen. None of these should produce any change on genuine vinegar.

Acetic acid dissolves deutoxide of barium without effervescence. By precipitating the barytes with sulphuric acid, there remains an oxygenised acid, which, being saturated with potash, and heated, allows a great quantity of oxygen gas to escape. There is disgengaged at the same time a notable quantity of carbonic acid gas. This shows that the oxygen, when assisted by heat, unites in part with the carbon, and doubtless likewise with the hydrogen of the acid. It is in fact acetic deutoxide of hydrogen.

Salts consisting of the several bases, united in definite proportions to acetic acid, are called acetates. They are characterised by the pungent smell of vinegar, which they exhale on the effusion of sulphuric acid; and by their yielding on distillation in a moderate red heat a very light, odorous, and combustible liquid called pyro-acetic spirit. They are all soluble in water; many of them so much so as to be uncrystallisable. About thirty different acetates have been formed, of which only a very few have been applied to the uses of life.

The acetic acid unites with all the alkalies and most of the earths, and with these bases it forms compounds, some of which are crystallisable. The salts it forms are distinguished by their great solubility: their decomposition by fire, which carbonises them; the spontaneous alteration of their solution; and their decomposition by a great number of acids, which extricate from them the acetic acid in a concentrated state. It unites likewise with most of the metallic oxides.

With barytes, the saline mass, by spontaneous evaporation, crystallises in fine transparent prismatic needles, of a bitterish acid taste, which do not deliquesce when exposed to the air, but rather effloresce.

With potash this acid unites, and forms a deliquescent salt scarcely crystallisable, called formerly foliated earth of tartar, and regenerated tartar. The solution of this salt, even in closely stopped vessels, is spontaneously decomposed.

With soda it forms a crystallisable salt, which does not deliquesce.

The salt formed by dissolving chalk or other calcareous earth in distilled vinegar, has a sharp bitter taste, and appears in the form of silky crystals. The acetate of strontian has a sweet taste, is very soluble, and is easily decomposed by a strong heat.

The salt formed by uniting vinegar with ammonia, anciently called spirit of mindererus, is generally in a liquid state, and is commonly believed not to be crystallisable. It nevertheless may be reduced into the form of small needle-shaped crystals, when

Glucine is readily dissolved by acetic acid. This solution, as Vauquelin informs us, does not crystallise; but is reduced by evaporation to a gummy substance, which slowly becomes dry and brittle; retaining a kind of ductility for a long time. It has a saccharine and pretty strongly astringent taste, in which that of vinegar however is distinguishable.

Yttria dissolves readily in acetic acid, and the solution yields by evaporation crystals of acetate of yttria. These have commonly the form of thick six-sided plates, and are not altered by exposure to the air.

Acetate of alumina is commonly made by adding gradually to a boiling solution of alum in water a solution of acetate of lead, till no further precipitate ensues. The sulphate of lead having subsided, decant the supernatant liquor, evaporate, and the acetate of alumina may be obtained in small needle-shaped crystals, having a strong styptic and acetous taste. This salt is of great use in dyeing and calico-printing.

Acetate of zircone may be formed by pouring acetic acid on newly precipitated zircone. It has an astringent taste. It does not crystallise; but, when evaporated to dryness, forms a powder, which does not attract moisture from the air. It is very soluble both in water and alcohol; and is not so easily decomposed by heat as nitrate of zirM. Vauquelin has found that acetic acid may be combined with volatile oils.

cone.

Vinegar dissolves the true gums, and partly the gum resins, by means of digestion.

VINERY, in horticulture, a sort of garden erection generally consisting of a wall twelve or fourteen feet in height, extending from east to west, furnished with stoves and proper flues, with roof and lights of glass, covering a border of some extent, as ten feet or more in width. When vines are to be forced early, upright glasses, two and a half or three feet in height, are often employed in front to support the roof, and to admit sun and light to the border, which is frequently occupied with low-growing vegetables; but, when they are not wanted early, a low wall will answer equally well. In forcing vines, the following dimensions are supposed to form an improved vinery :-The wall twelve feet high, the breadth ten feet, and the height of the upright wall in front three feet, where the roof will form an angle of about forty-three degrees; which experience has shown to be a suitable pitch. These buildings may also be constructed on a plan somewhat similar to that of a singlepitted pine-stove, having the back wall fourteen feet high; the roof slanting, and covering an extent of about sixteen feet, with a flue running from east to west near the front wall. This is well suited, not only for grapes, but early crops of melons, strawberries, &c.

Where there are peach-houses, the glass frames may be employed for the vinery, when constructed with this intention, and good grapes may be obtained from vines trained against walls about six feet high, by means of melon-frame glasses, where a small slanting roof is made proper to receive them.

But a small degree of fire-heat is of great advantage, and might be applied either by a flued wall, the flue running through the house, or by cast-iron pipes for the purpose.

These sorts of houses, Mr. Nicol remarks, vary exceedingly in their construction; and, although some lay great stress on this article (and there are extremes which ought not to be followed), he is convinced the failure of success in the production of the grape is much less a consequence of bad construction in the house, than in the preparation of the border, the choice of the kinds, and the general management. It has fallen to his lot to have the construction and management of three several and differently constructed grape-houses in the same garden, under his care for years, which have equally and uniformly produced excellent crops. This, in his opinion, is a proof of the necessity of a greater niceness in the formation of the border being observed, than in the construction of the house; the fire-place and flues excepted, which should always be particularly attended to. He also thinks that the scite of a vinery is an object of such consequence to the welfare of the plant, and successful cultivation and production of well-flavoured fruit, that the greatest care should be taken in the choice of it. A gentle hill, having a south aspect, and considerable declivity that way, the soil a strong brown loam of two feet, over a bottom of dry sand, gravel, or soft clay, is, he thinks, the most desirable, and would be the least expensive of all situations. In this case the border requires no paving or draining; and admits of a proper mixture of sandy loam, vegetable mould, marle, and dung, by the removal of two feet of the natural bottom, with the natural soil, to form a border, perfectly adapted to the growth of the vine, in the following proportion, viz. one half strong brown loam, a quarter light sandy loam, an eighth vegetable mould of decayed tree-leaves, and an eighth stable-dung; to which add about a fiftieth part of shell-marle. This is the composition of the vineborders at Wemyss Castle, none of which are less than four feet deep, and one (owing to the accidental situation of the house) is six.

VIO (Thomas de). See CAJETAN.

VIOL, n. s. Fr. violle; Ital. viola. A stringed
VIOLIN'. instrument of music: a fiddle.

Praise with timbrels, organs, flutes;
Praise with violins and lutes.
My tongue's use is to me no more
Than an unstringed viol, or a harp.

Sandys.

Shakspeare.

Loud o'er the rest Cremona's trump doth sound;
Me softer airs befit, and softer strings
Of lute or viol, still more apt for mournful things.

Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs and desperation,
For the fair disdainful dame.

ceæ.

Milton.

Dryden.

VIOLA, in botany, a genus of plants of the class syngenesia, order monogynia; in the natural system arranged under the twenty-ninth order, campanaThe calyx is pentaphyllous; the corolla five petaled, irregular, with a nectarium behind, hornshaped; the capsule is above the germen, threevalved, monolocular. There are twenty-eight species; six of which are natives of Britain. The most important are, 1. V. odorata, purple sweet violet, has leaves heart-shaped, notched: the flowers deep purple, single; creeping scions. The flowers of this plant, taken in the quantity of a dram or two, are said to be gently purgative or laxative, and, ac