It is evident that the German standard of 100 parts of alcohol by weight to 7. of glycerine, which is relied upon as a means of detecting the addition of alcohol, cannot he applied to American wines. Only three of the samples would pass muster by it, and it seems hardly possible that the practice of adding alcohol could be so widespread as would be thus indicated.

Below is given the number of grams of glycerine for 100 grams of alcohol obtained in the samples (exclusive of the sweet wines):

Baumert obtained very similar results; out of thirteen analyses (including sweet wines) made or collected by him only four contained a larger proportion of glycerine to alcohol than 7 to 100. Unfortunately no determinations of the glycerine were made in the pure wines analyzed by Hilgard; so no light is thrown on this point by them. The only possible way of deciding it, together with other questions relating to the composition of American wines, would be by the analysis of a large number of wines known to be pure. In the absence of such evidence, it would be useless to attempt to pass judgment on the above samples as to whether they had been fortified with alcohol or not.

The New York law allows of an addition to wine of "pure distilled spirits to preserve it" not to exceed 8 per cent. of its volume, which, supposing the wine to contain originally 10 per cent. by volume, would give a wine containing at least 17 per cent. by volume, or about the highest amount of alcohol which could be formed in a fermented liquor.

The sweet wines are, of course, well known to be fortified; they will be treated of more fully further on.