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.
 The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Art of
Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable
Substances for Several Years, 2nd ed.
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: The Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable

Substances for Several Years, 2nd ed.

Author: Nicolas Appert

Release date: July 10, 2016 [eBook #52551]

Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Chris Jordan and the

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ART OF

PRESERVING ALL KINDS OF ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES
FOR SEVERAL YEARS, 2ND ED. ***
 THE
ART OF PRESERVING,
&c. &c. &c.
 THE ART
OF

PRESERVING
ALL KINDS OF

Animal and Vegetable

Substances
FOR

SEVERAL YEARS.

A WORK PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE

FRENCH MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR,
On the Report of the Board of Arts and Manufactures,
BY

M. APPERT.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.

SECOND EDITION.
 LONDON:
PRINTED FOR BLACK, PARRY, AND KINGSBURY,
BOOKSELLERS TO THE HON. EAST-INDIA COMPANY,
LEADENHALL STREET.

1812.

Printed by Cox and Baylis, Great Queen Street.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Page
Explanation of the Plate viii
Advertisement ix
Letter of the Minister of the Interior xxi
Certificate of the Board of Arts xxiii
Letter to General Caffarelli from the Council of Health xxiv
§ 1. The Art of Preserving, &c. 1
2. Description of my Rooms, &c. 11
3. Of Bottles and Vessels 18
4. Of Corks 20
5. Of Corking 22
6. The Means of distinguishing defective Bottles, &c. 37
Description of the Author’s Process 41
§ 7. Boiled Meat 41
8. Gravy 43
9. Broth, or Jelly 46
10. Round of Beef, Fillet of Mutton, Fowls, and young
Partridges 47
11. New-laid Eggs 50
12. Milk 52
13. Cream 55
14. Whey 56
15. Vegetables 57
16. Green Peas 58
17. Asparagus 60
18. Windsor Beans 61
 § 19. Peeled Windsor Beans 63
20. French Beans 63
21. Artichokes 65
22. Cauliflowers 66
23. Sorrel 68
24. Spinage, Succory, and other Herbs 69
25. A Soup called Julienne 71
26. Vegetable Soup 73
27. Love-Apples 74
28. Herbs and Medicinal Plants 75
29. The Juices of Herbs 77
30. Fruits and their Juices 78
31. White and Red Currants in Bunches 79
32. White and Red Currants stripped 80
33. Cherries, Raspberries, Mulberries 80
34. Juice of Red Currants 81
35. Strawberries 82
36. Apricots 83
37. Peaches and Nectarines 85
38. Prunes from Green-Gages and Plumbs 86
39. Pears of every Kind 88
40. Chesnuts, Truffles, and Mushrooms 89
41. The Juice of the Grape or Must 91
Of the Mode of making Use of the Substances which have
been preserved 93
§ 42. Meat, Game, Poultry, Fish 93
43. Jellies made of Meat and Poultry 97
44. Milk and Cream 98
45. Vegetables 99
§ 46. French Beans 100
47. Peas, Beans, &c. 101
 48. Spinage and Succory 106
49. Vegetable Soups 107
50. Tomates and Herbs 108
51. Preserved Fruits, Marmelades, &c. 109
52. Currant-Jam 113
53. Syrup of Currants 114
54. Ices 116
55. Cordials 117
56. Chesnuts, Truffles, Mushrooms 120
57. Grape Juice, or Must 121
Preparation of Grape Syrup 122
Syrups and Ratafies 125
58. General Observations 130
59. Practical Remarks 135
Letter from the Secretary of the Society for the
Encouragement of National Industry 142
Report of the Society 145
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE.
Fig. 1. A reel with two iron bars, made use of to double the
wire, and cut the doubled wire twice the length required
for fixing the corks in the bottles.
Fig. 2. A small machine for twisting the wire one-third of its
length after having been doubled by fig. 1.
Fig. 3. An instrument for compressing (and, as it were,
biting) the corks three quarters of their length,
beginning at the smallest end.
Fig. 4. A stool stuffed with straw, furnished with a wooden
stand on which the bottles may be placed to be tied.
The same stool will serve to sit on during the corking.
Fig. 5. A hollow block of wood, called a bottle-boot (Casse-
Bouteille), within which the bottle is set when it is to be
corked. This bottle-boot is furnished with a strong bat
for beating in the corks.
Fig. 6. A front and side view of pointed pincers, used for
twisting the wire employed to keep on the corks, and for
cutting off the superfluous ends of the wire. I make use
of flat pincers and scissars for this operation.
 Neele sc. Strand
London Published 25th. Feby. 1811 by Black & Co.
Leadenhall Str.
 ADVERTISEMENT.
In an advertisement prefixed to the pamphlet, of which the following
sheets are a translation, the author publishes his address: “Quai
Napoléon, au coin de la rue de la Colombe, No. 4, dans la Cité, à
Paris;” and offers for sale there, an assortment of provisions,
preserved by the process, of which an account is here
communicated to the public. As the book itself is a recommendation
of the author’s own goods, it has been thought proper to add to his
account of his process, a translation of the authorities and
testimonies by which his own statements are authenticated;
notwithstanding the repetitions which are in consequence admitted.
The recommendation of the process by the French Minister
immediately follows. The more elaborate Report of the Paris Society
for the Encouragement of National Industry, will be found at the end
of the work.
It is needless to anticipate the author’s display of the advantages
which must flow from a simple and unexpensive process of keeping
fresh articles of animal and vegetable food. If this can be effected
for only one year, that is, from the season of produce through the
seasons of scarcity; if no other articles, for instance, than eggs,
cream, and vegetables, can be preserved in their full flavour and
excellence during a long winter, there is not a mistress of a family in
the kingdom, rich enough to lay by a stock of those articles, and not
too rich to despise the economy of a family, who will not find herself
benefitted by the perusal of the small work here put within her
reach; and there is no reason to suspect the correctness of this part
of the author’s statements. This, however, is but one of the more
obvious benefits of his process; and if thus much be ascertained,
then an interminable prospect of resources is opened, which the
State, still more than the individual, will be called upon to employ.
The author, in his enumeration of the advantages to be derived from
his process, places at the head, the saving it will occasion in the
consumption of sugar. This process, added to recent improvement in
the art of preparing grape syrup, holds forth, in his opinion, a
prospect of relief to the suffering proprietors of French vineyards.
This statement will have been listened to with great complacency by
the French government, which so ostentatiously avows the
determination to compel the whole Continent to subsist on its own
produce, and dispense with the more luxurious of transatlantic
commodities. Our country, however, from its soil and climate, can
take little or no share in this branch of the application of the author’s
process.
On the other hand it offers us incalculable benefits in the equipment
and victualling of our fleets, and in providing for the health and
comfort of the floating defence of the country, as well as of that
numerous and meritorious class of men, to which the nation owes so
much of its prosperity. Whatever promises an improvement in the
condition of every order of men who subsist on the Ocean, must be
considered as an object of national concern. The French
government, at least on the part of some of its members in the
subordinate branches of its administration, has taken the lead in
recommending the author’s process to the attention of public
functionaries. From the superior activity, as well as more enlightened
discernment of the people of this country, we may expect that our
author’s process will excite equally the notice of the government and
country at large; and we trust that government-contractors and
commissioners, as well as the pursers of men of war, and the
stewards of merchantmen, will not be the last to examine for
themselves the promising statements of our author.
From the public papers we learn that a patent has been taken out
for preserving provisions according to the process described in this
book. We do not pretend to determine how far this patent may
interfere with the adoption by other persons of this same process as
a manufactory and trade; but, it is certain, that on the small scale on
which provisions would be preserved for single families, every
person will be at liberty to avail himself of the instructions he may
meet with in this volume.
It was thought less objectionable to insert unnecessary matter, than
to omit what to some readers might be useful or interesting. Every
thing, therefore, has been translated, and we have even copied the
author’s plate of the machinery used in corking bottles, though from
our improved state of mechanics, the greater part of our readers will
stand in no need of its assistance, similar machines being in
common use by the wine-coopers, &c.
 THE MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR,
COUNT OF THE EMPIRE, TO M.
APPERT, &c.
Paris, 30th January 1810.
Second Division.
BOARD OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.

My Board of Arts and Manufactures[A] has reported to me, Sir, the

examination it has made of your process for the preservation of
fruits, vegetables, meat, soup, milk, &c. and from that report no
doubt can be entertained of the success of such process. As the
preservation of animal and vegetable substances may be of the
utmost utility in Sea-voyages, in hospitals and domestic economy, I
deem your discovery worthy an especial mark of the good will of the
government. I have in consequence acceded to the recommendation
made me by my council to grant you a recompence of 12,000 francs.
[B] In so doing I had in view the assigning you the reward due to the
inventors of useful processes, and also the indemnifying you for the
expences you have been obliged to incur, either in the forming your
establishment or in the experiments necessary to establish the
success of your process. You shall be immediately informed when
you may repair to the public treasury and receive the 12,000 francs.
It appears to me of importance, Sir, that you should spread the
knowledge of your preserving process. I desire, therefore, that
agreeably to your own proposal, you will digest a detailed and exact
description of your process. This description, which you will remit to
my Board of Arts and Manufactures, shall be printed at your
expence, after it shall have been examined. You will then transmit
me 200 copies. The transmission of these copies being the only
condition I impose on you for the payment of the 12,000 francs, I
doubt not you will hasten to fulfil it. I desire, Sir, you will
acknowledge the receipt of my letter.
Accept assurances, &c.
(Signed) Montalivet.

BOARD OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.

The undersigned Members of the Board of Arts and Manufactures

attached to the Minister of the Interior, being required by his
Excellency to examine the description of the process of Mr. Appert
for the preservation of alimentary substance, certify that the details
it contains, as well on the mode of carrying on the process as on the
results, are exactly conformable to the various experiments which
Mr. Appert has made before them, by order of his Excellency.
(Signed) Bordel,
Gay-Lussac,
Scipion-Perrier,
Molard.
Paris, 19th April 1810.

Copy of a Letter written to General Caffarelli, Maritime Prefect at

Brest, by the Council of Health, dated Brumaire, year 12.

The provisions prepared according to the process of Citizen Appert

and sent to this port by the Minister of Marine, have, after lying in
the roads three months, been found in the following condition.
The broth or soup (bouillon) in bottles was good; the bouillon with a
bouilli in a vessel apart was also good, but weak; the bouilli itself
was very eatable.
The beans and green peas, prepared both with meat and vegetable
soup, had all the freshness and flavour of recently gathered
vegetables.
(Signed) Dubreuil,
Billard,
Duret,
Pichon,
Thaumer.
True Copy.
J. Miriel, Secretary.

THE
ART OF PRESERVING,
&c. &c. &c.
 § I.

All the expedients hitherto made use of for preserving alimentary

and medicinal substances, may be reduced to two principal
methods; that of dessication; and that of mingling, in greater or less
quantities, a foreign substance for the purpose of impeding
fermentation or putrefaction.
It is by the former of these methods that we are furnished with
smoaked and hung meat, dried fish, fruits, and vegetables. By the
latter, we obtain fruits and other vegetable substances preserved in
sugar, the juices and decoctions of plants reduced to syrups and
essences, all kinds of pickles, salted meat and vegetables. But each
of these modes has its peculiar inconveniences. Dessication takes
away the odour, changes the taste of the juices, and hardens the
fibrous or pulpy matter (the porenchyma).
Sugar, from the strength of its own flavour, conceals and destroys in
part other flavours, even that, the enjoyment of which we wish to
preserve, such as the pleasant acidity of many fruits. A second
inconvenience is this, that a large quantity of sugar is required in
order to preserve a small quantity of some other vegetable matter;
and hence the use of it is not only very costly, but even in many
cases pernicious. Thus the juices of certain plants cannot be reduced
to a syrup or essence, but by means of nearly double the quantity of
sugar. It results from this, that those syrups or essences contain
much more sugar than any medicinal substance, and that most
frequently the sugar counteracts the operation of the medicine, and
is hurtful to the patient.
Salt communicates an unpleasant acerbity to substances, hardens
the animal fibre, and renders it difficult of digestion. It contracts the
animal parenchyma.[C] On the other hand, as it is indispensable to
remove, by means of water, the greater part of the salt employed;
almost all the principles which are soluble in cold water, are lost
when the salt is taken away: there remains nothing but the fibrous
matter, or parenchyma; and even that, as has been said, undergoes
a change.
Vinegar can seldom be made use of, but in the preparation of certain
articles for seasoning.
I shall not enter into any details concerning what has been said and
published on the art of preserving alimentary substances. I shall only
observe, that as far as my knowledge extends, no author, either
ancient or modern, has ever pointed out, or even led to the
suspicion, of the principle which is the basis of the method I
propose.
It is known, how much, within a certain period, the public attention,
both at Paris and in the departments, has been directed towards the
means of diminishing the consumption of sugar, by supplying its
place by the use of various extracts, or essences, of indigenous
substances. The government, whose philanthropic views are turned
towards all useful objects, does not cease to invite all those who
pursue the arts and sciences, to investigate the means of drawing
the utmost advantage from the productions of our soil, in order to
develope, to the utmost, our agriculture and manufactures, and so
diminish the consumption of foreign commodities.
In order to attain the same end, the Society for the Promotion of
National Industry[D] stimulates, by the offer of flattering rewards, all
those whose talents and labours are directed towards discoveries,
from which the nation and humanity may draw substantial benefits.
Animated by this laudable zeal, the Agricultural Society, by its
resolution of the 21st of June 1809, and its official notification of it,
the 15th of the July following, made an appeal to the whole nation,
in order to collect all the information and documents which might
contribute to the composition of a work on the art of preserving, by
the best possible means, every kind of alimentary substance.
It was after invitations of so great weight, that I resolved to make
known a method of effecting this object, of great facility in the
execution, and at the same time very cheap, and which, by the
extension it admits of, may afford numerous advantages to society.
This method is not a vain theory. It is the fruit of reflection,
investigation, long attention, and numerous experiments, the results
of which, for more than ten years, have been so surprising, that
notwithstanding the proof acquired by repeated practice, that
provisions may be preserved two, three, and six years, there are
many persons who still refuse to credit the fact.
Brought up to the business of preserving alimentary substance by
the received methods; having spent my days in the pantries, the
breweries, store-houses, and cellars of Champagne, as well as in the
shops, manufactories, and warehouses of confectioners, distillers,
and grocers; accustomed to superintend establishments of this kind
for forty-five years, I have been able to avail myself, in my process,
of a number of advantages, which the greater number of those
persons have not possessed, who have devoted themselves to the
art of preserving provisions.
I owe to my extensive practice, and more especially to my long
perseverance, the conviction:
1st. That fire has the peculiar property, not only of changing the
combination of the constituent parts of vegetable and animal
productions, but also of retarding, for many years at least, if not of
destroying, the natural tendency of those same productions to
decomposition.
2d. That the application of fire in a manner variously adapted to
various substances, after having with the utmost care and as
completely as possible, deprived them of all contact with the air,
effects a perfect preservation of those same productions, with all
their natural qualities.
Before I state the details of my process, I ought to observe that it
consists principally,
1st. In inclosing in bottles the substances to be preserved.
2d. In corking the bottles with the utmost care; for it is chiefly on
the corking that the success of the process depends.
3d. In submitting these inclosed substances to the action of boiling
water in a water-bath (BALNEUM MARIAE), for a greater or less length of
time, according to their nature, and in the manner pointed out with
respect to each several kind of substance.
4th. In withdrawing the bottles from the water-bath at the period
described.
 § II.
Description of my Rooms set apart for carrying
on the Process on a large Scale.[E]

My laboratory consists of four apartments. The first of these is

furnished with all kinds of kitchen utensils, stoves, and other
apparatus, necessary for dressing the animal substances to be
preserved, as well as with a kettle for broth, gravy, &c. containing
180 French pints, raised on brick work. This kettle is provided with a
pot to be put within it, pierced with holes like a skimmer, with
divisions for holding various kinds of meat and poultry. This pot can
be put into and taken out of the kettle with ease. The kettle is
provided with a wide cock, to which is fitted, within, a little rose, like
that of a watering-pot, covered with a piece of boulting-cloth. In this
way I can procure broth or gravy quite clear, and ready to be put
into bottles.
The second apartment is appropriated to the preparing of milk,
cream, and whey.
The third is used for corking and tying the bottles and vessels, and
putting them into bags.
The fourth is furnished with three large copper boilers, placed upon
stones raised on brick work. These boilers are all furnished with a
stout lid, fitted, to rest upon the vessels within. Each boiler is
furnished with a wide cock below, in order to let out the water at a
proper time. These large boilers are destined to receive, generally,
all the objects intended to be preserved, in order to apply the action
of heat to them in a suitable manner; and thus they constitute so
many water-baths.[F]
The utensils which furnish the third apartment for the preparatory
process consist of
1. Rows of bottle-racks round the room.
2. A reel for the iron wire, to be used for binding the necks of the
bottles and other vessels. (Fig. 1.)
3. Shears and pincers for tying on the corks. (Fig. 6.)
4. Machine for twisting the iron-wire after it has been divided and
cut to a proper length. (Fig. 2.)
5. Two instruments forming a lever, and used for compressing, and
as it were biting the corks. (Fig. 3.)
6. A bottle-boot or block, standing on three legs, and provided with
a strong bat for corking. (Fig. 5.)
7. A stool standing on five legs, for tying on the corks. (Fig. 4.)
8. A sufficient quantity of linen bags, for covering the bottles and
other vessels.
9. Two stools covered with leather and stuffed with hay, in order to
shake the bottles upon them, and in that way force a greater
number of peas and other small substances into the bottles.
10. A press for the juice of plants, fruits, and herbs; with pans,
vessels, sieves, and every thing else that belongs to it.
Besides my laboratory, consisting of these articles, I have fitted up
three apartments.
The first, for preparing vegetables: it is furnished with dressers all
round.
The second, for storing up and preparing all kinds of fruit.
The third is a cellar, furnished with bottle racks, for rinsing and
setting by the bottles and other vessels, as in a store-house.
I have the precaution to keep the bottles and other vessels I may
want, ready rinsed at hand. I am also supplied with an assortment
of corks, compressed and bit in the instrument already described.
When every preparation is thus made, the process is half done.
The principle by which all alimentary substances are preserved and
kept fresh, is invariable in its effects. The result in particular
experiments, depends upon the fitness of each individual application
of the principle to the substance which is to be preserved, according
to its peculiar qualities; but in every case, the exclusion of air is a
precaution of the utmost importance to the success of the operation:
and in order to deprive alimentary substances of contact with the air,
a perfect knowledge of bottles and the vessels to be used, of corks
and corking, is requisite.
 § III.
Of Bottles and Vessels.

I chose glass, as being the matter most impenetrable by air, and

have not ventured to make any experiment with a vessel made of
any other substance. The ordinary bottles have generally necks too
small and ill made; they are also too weak to resist the blows from
the bat and the action of the fire: I, therefore, caused bottles to be
made for my especial use, with wider necks, and those necks made
with a projecting rim, or ring, on the interior surface, placed below,
and resembling, in form, the rim which is at the top of the exterior
surface of the necks of bottles. My object was, that when the cork
had been forced into the neck of the bottle, three-fourths of its
length, in the manner already described, it should be compressed in
the middle. In this manner the bottle is perfectly corked on the
outside as well as within. It thus opposes an obstacle to the
swelling, or expansion, which arises from the operation of heat upon
the substance enclosed within the bottle. This mode of forming the
neck of the bottle is so much the more indispensable, as I have
repeatedly known the swelling to be so strong, as to push out corks
of three or four lines in length, though confined by two iron wires
crossed. The bottles and vessels should be made of a tough
substance [de matière liante], the former having the weight of
twenty-five or twenty-six ounces for each litre[G] that the bottle
contains. The glass ought to be of equal thickness in every part, or it
is liable to break in the water-bath. The form of the Champagne
bottle is most convenient; it is the handsomest as well as the
strongest, and is of the best shape for packing up.
 § IV.
Of Corks.

Economy in corks is generally very unwise, as in order to save a very

trifle in the price of cork, a risk is incurred of losing the valuable
commodity it is intended to preserve. As corking is made use of in
order to preserve and meliorate certain articles, by depriving them of
all contact with the air, too much attention cannot be given to the
good quality of the cork, which should be of eighteen or twenty lines
in length and of the finest quality. Experience has so fully satisfied
me on this point, that I never make use of any but superfine corks:
these are, in the end, the cheapest. I further take the precaution of
compressing, and, as it were, biting the cork, three-fourths of its
length, by means of the instrument already described (fig. 3),
beginning at the small end. The cork is rendered more supple; the
pores of the cork are brought closer; it is somewhat lengthened, and
its thickness is so much diminished at the extremity which is put into
the mouth of the bottle, that a large cork may be made to enter a
very moderate opening. The action of the heat within the vessel is
such, that the cork swells within, and the corking is thus rendered
perfect.
 § V.
Of Corking.

After what has been just said, the absolute necessity will be
apparent of having good bottles, with a projecting rim of equal
thickness all round within the neck. Excellent superfine corks are
also indispensable, which have been compressed in the instrument
three quarters of their length.
Before I cork, I take care that the bottles containing liquor are filled
only up to within three inches of the outer rim, lest they should burst
from the bubbling and swelling occasioned by the application of heat
to the water. When the bottles contain vegetables, fruit, &c. they
may be filled up to within two inches of the rim.
I place the full bottle upon the bottle-boot already mentioned, before
which I seat myself. This apparatus is to be supplied with a strong
wooden bat, a small pot full of water, and a sharp knife, greased
with a little suet or soap, for cutting off the tops of the corks, which
ought never to be raised much above the head of the bottles. These
arrangements being made, I place the bottle-boot between my legs,
and taking a cork of fit size, I dip one half of it into the little pot of
water, in order to facilitate its entrance; and having wiped the end, I
then put it to the mouth of the bottle, at the same time turning it
round. I hold it in this position with my left hand, which I keep
steady, that the bottle may stand upright. I take the bat in my right
hand, in order to drive in the cork by force of blows.
When I find, at the first or second blow of the bat, that the cork has
somewhat entered, I take my hand from the cork in order to hold
with it the neck of the bottle, which I fix firmly and upright upon the
bottle-boot; and by dint of repeated blows, I continue to drive in my
cork three-fourths of its length. The quarter of the cork which
remains above the bottle, after having refused to yield any further to
the redoubled blows of the bat, assures me, in the first place, that
the bottle is completely corked, and this same residue serves also to
hold the double crossed iron wire which is necessary to bind fast the
cork, that it may be able to resist the action of heat on the water-
bath. I must repeat again, that too much attention cannot be given
to the corking: no circumstance however minute ought to be
neglected, in order to effect the rigorous exclusion of the air from
the substance to be preserved; air being a most destructive agent,
and the one which is most sedulously to be counteracted in the
course of the process.[H]
The bottles being well stopped up, I then fasten the cork down with
a couple of iron wires crossed: this is an easy operation, and any
one can do it, who has once seen it done.
I then put each bottle in a bag of canvass or coarse linen cloth,
made for the purpose, sufficiently large to wrap up the whole of the
bottle up to the very cork. These bags are made in the shape of a
muff, open alike at both ends: one of these ends is drawn with a
string running in a gutter, leaving an opening of about the width of a
crown piece; the other end is provided with a couple of small strings,
in order to tye the bag round the neck of the bottle.
By means of these bags, I can dispense with the use of hay or straw
in packing up the bottles in the water-bath; and, whenever any one
of them breaks, the fragments are preserved in the bag. I am spared
a great deal of trouble and a number of inconveniences which I had
formerly to sustain, in picking up the pieces of the bottle out of the
straw or hay I then made use of.
After having spoken of bottles, their form and quality; of stoppers,
and the length of the fine cork of which they ought to be composed;
of the corking and tying; of bags, their form and utility; I proceed to
give an idea of vessels with large necks, that is, glass jars, which I
make use of for preserving solid and bulky substances, such as
poultry, game, meat, fish, &c.
These jars have necks of two, three, or four inches diameter, and are
of a larger or small size; like bottles, they are furnished with a
projecting rim, not only in order to strengthen the neck, but also for
receiving the iron wire destined to bind the corks. I have not yet
been able to procure from the glass-houses a similar projecting rim
in the interior of the neck of these jars, as I have in that of the
bottles. The completely corking up these vessels, is, from this
circumstance, rendered more difficult, and demands especial care.
I met with another obstacle in the cork itself, from its thinness (more
especially when the cork was very fine), and also from its ascending
pores being against the grain. I was therefore obliged to form
stoppers of three or four pieces of cork, from twenty to twenty-four
lines in length, placed together the way of the grain, the pores of
the cork being placed horizontally, by means of isinglass prepared in
the following manner.
I melted over the fire four drams of well beaten isinglass, in eight
ounces of water: when melted, I caused it to run through fine linen;
and then put it again over the fire in order to reduce it to one third
of its volume. After which I added an ounce of good full-proof
brandy. I then left the whole on the fire till it became reduced to
about three ounces. I then put the glue thus prepared in a little pot
over live coals, and took care to warm my pieces of cork. I then
slightly smeared over the pieces of cork with a brush, in order to
glue them together. When the pieces composing the stopper were
well fixed and glued together, I then fixed a tight thread to the two
extremities of the stopper, in order to keep the pieces together, and
let them dry, either in the sun or in a gentle heat for about a
fortnight. At the end of this time I took a cork-maker’s knife and cut
my stoppers of a proper shape; and having always fitted them to the
mouth of the jar, they have never proved defective.
Having corked my jars, and driven in the stopper by means of the
bat, the bottles being always placed upright in the bottle-boot, I
made use of a compound luting. This luting (communicated to me
by Mr. Bardel) is made of quick lime, which is slaked in the air by