e, it is one of these operations in which nature
is continually present, and going on before our eyes; this may be one
reason that a very critical observance of it has escaped our attention.
Fermentation brings us acquainted with this unerring axiom; that
nothing in nature is lost; or that matter, of which all things are
composed, is indestructible. For instance, the vinous process of
fermentation, succeeded by distillation, produces ardent spirits, or
alcohol, the elements of which are here described. If we pass this
alcohol, or spirits of wine, through a glass, porcelain, or metallic
tube, heated right hot, provided with a suitable condenser and
apparatus to separate and contain the parts or products, it will be
decomposed and resolved into its primitive elements, carbonic acid gas,
or fixed air, and hydrogen gas, or inflammable air; the oxygen being
decomposed and united with the oxygen, or vital air, into carbonic acid
gas; the water of the spirit of wine being also decomposed, or resolved
into its first principles as herein is stated, forms a part of the
produce before mentioned.

Hence spontaneous fermentation, vinous, acetous, and putrefactive, is
the natural decomposition of animal and vegetable matters, to which a
certain degree of fluidity is necessary; for where vegetable and animal
substances are dry, as sugar and glue for instance, and are kept so, no
fermentation of any kind succeeds.

There can be no doubt that spontaneous fermentation first taught
mankind the means of procuring wine and other agreeable beverage;
observation and industry the means of making spirit and vinegar, the
first of which is evidently the produce of art, combined with the
operations of nature.

With nature for our guide, and our own ingenuity, fermentation has been
made subservient to the various products we now obtain from saccharine
and fermentable matters, such as sugar, molasses, grain, with which we
have made wine, spirits, bread, beer, malt, &c.; which last has much
facilitated our practice in fermentation, but proved the tide-ending,
or point of stagnation to its further improvement. Relying too much on
malted grain in the operation of fermentation, we are presented with
some of the most pleasing and instructive phenomena of nature; the
resolutions and combinations that are formed during the process of the
vinous and acetous stages of fermentation, are interesting, beyond
comparison, to the brewer, malt and molasses disti