WINDWARD PASSAGE, a name given to a course from the south-east angle of the island of Jamaica, in the West Indies, and extending from 160 leagues to the north side of Crooked Island, in the Bahamas. Ships have often sailed through this channel, from the north part of it to the island of Cuba, or the gulf of Mexico, notwithstanding the common opinion, on account of the current which is against it, that they keep the Bahama shore on board, and that they meet with the wind in summer for the most part of the channel easterly, which, with a counter current on shore, pushes them easily through it. WINE, n. s. WIN'Y, adj. juice of the grape ties of wine. The increase of the vineyards for the wine cellars. Chronicles.

Sax. pin; Belg. vinn; Gothic and Swed. win. The fermented winy, partaking of the quali

Where the wine-press is hard wrought, it yields a harsh wine that tastes of the grape-stone. Bacon. Set cucumbers among muskmelons, and see whether the melons will not be more winy, and better tasted. Id.

With large wine-offerings pour'd, and sacred feast. Milton.

A very

The firstlings of the flock are doomed to die; Rich fragrant wines the cheering bowl supply. Pope. WINE is an agreeable spirituous liquor, produced by fermentation from those vegetable substances that contain saccharine matter. great number of vegetable substances may be made to afford wine, as grapes, currants, mulberries, elder, cherries, apples, pulse, beans, pease, turnips, radishes, and even grass itself. Hence under the class of wines, or vinous liquors, come not only wines, alsolutely so called, but also ale, cyder, &c. But the term wine is more particularly appropriated to the liquor drawn from the fruit of the vine.

When the grapes are ripe, and the saccharine principle is developed, they are then pressed, and the juice which flows out is received in vessels of a proper capacity, in which the fermentation appears, and proceeds in the following manner :-At the end of several days, and frequently after a few hours, according to the heat of the atmosphere, the nature of the grapes, the quantity of the liquid, and the temperature of the place in which the operation is performed, a movement is produced in the liquor, which continually increases; the volume of the fluid increases; it becomes turbid and oily; carbonic acid is disengaged, which fills all the unoccupied part of the vessel; and the temperature rises to 725°. At the end of several days these tumultuous motions subside, the mass falls, the liquor becomes clearer, and is found to be less saccharine, mere odorant, and of a red color, from the re-action of the ardent spirit upon the coloring matter of the pellicle of the grape. The wine is usually taken out of the fermenting vessels at the period when all the phenomena of fermentation have subsided. When the mass is settled, the color of the liquor is well developed ; when it has become clear, and its heat has disappeared, it is put into casks, where, by a second insensible fermentation, the wine is clarified, its principles combine more

perfectly together, and its taste and smell become more and more developed. Those who impon wine in large quantities should attend to the fol lowing directions about the treatment of it after t arrives. On landing, the less they are exposed better; for they are affected by the seasons, and more or less by climate. March and April are the proper times for shipping wines from France, and they will be landed in England and Ireland in the same degree of temperature. The great art in keeping wines is to prevent their fretting, which a done by keeping them in the same degree of In spring and fall the wines in Bourdeaux are sub ject to changes that may be destructive if not p vented by necessary rackings: these changes & solely the effect of the seasons. If wines are chilled and of course turn foul, from being shipped at landed in cold weather, they will soon recover by putting them in a warm vault, well covered w saw-dust. As soon as they are in the vault ought to be covered up. But if shipped and landed in summer, if the smallest degree of i mentation be found on them, it will be requiste dip the bung cloths in brandy, and leave the bung loose for some days, to give it time to cool; and if a fortnight or three weeks the fermentation & cease, and the wine become bright, it will be prger to rack it (matching the hogsheads well with t stone), and force it with the whites of eight es E it then become fine, bung it tight, and let it rem until it is bottled. If wines new landed are wanted soon for the bottle, it will be necessary to force the immediately, and let them remain bunged close fr least a month, to recover from the forcing, or if tr months the better; for wines bottled in high orde come much sooner into drinking than if bot when flat, which all wines are after forcing.

Wine must never be bottled the least foul, wh produces a tendency to fret; and, if bottled in this state, will never come in order, but may possi be lost for this there is no remedy but repe rackings; and care must be taken (after res the hogsheads well and drawing them) to bun good piece of match in them. This cools wine, and there is no danger of hurting the cel for it recovers it in a little time; but, if it did, t absolutely necessary; for, if wine is suffered a continue on the fret, it will wear itself to nothin It sometimes happens that wines scuddy and born will not fall with one or even two forms It will then be proper to give them five or six lons of good strong wine, and force them with t whites of a dozen eggs, with a tea-spoonful of sa produced from sawing marble, or a small spoor of fine salt. Bottled wine in winter should well covered with saw-dust, and, if the vaults 2 cold and damp, strew it deep on the floor; if dust is thrown upon the hogsheads, and their se are bedded some inches thick, it will keep res from the fret. The same treatment is to be regarde with white wines, except that they require to higher matched, particularly Muscat wines, as Frontignac, Beziers, &c., which, being e. sweetened with honey, are very subject to fret; these only frequent rackings, with a great dea brimstone, can cool. Hermitage, from not be sufficiently dried, and possessing more rich than claret, is also very liable to come on the and will require much the same treatment as t Muscat wines. Attention should be had to bir in fine weather, when the wind is north; bet

avoid cold or frosty weather. The months of April and October are favorable. The best time to bottle port wine is four years after the vintage, and to keep them two years in bottle before you begin to use them. When wines are racked, and the lees immediately passed through flannel bags into closenecked jars, and directly bottled, there will be very little lost by rackings, as the wine when fine may serve for filling up. When wines are destined for warm climates, it may be proper to rinse the hogs. heads with brandy; and in bottling many rinse the bottles and corks with it. Wines that have remained a certain time (three or four months) in a vault, and made less or more lee, ought never to be sent into the country without first racking them, otherwise they may be liable to fret, and if bottled in that state, may risk being lost. Wines which may be ordered for immediate drinking will be forced on the shipping, and in a few weeks after they are landed will be fit for the bottle. The forcings proper for claret are the whites of a dozen eggs, beaten up with a tea-spoonful of fine salt, and well worked with a forcing-rod. No bad egg must be used. This is for one hogshead. The forcing for white wine is singlass dissolved in wine. One ounce is sufficient for two hogsheads. No salt is to be used in forcing the white wines.

Let us now direct our attention to the chemical character of wines. All those nutritive, vegetable, and animal matters which contain sugar ready formed, are susceptible of the spirituous fermentation. Thus wine may be made of all the juices of plants, the sap of trees, the infusions and decoctions of farinaceous vegetables, the milk of frugiverous animals; and lastly, it may be made of all ripe succulent fruits: but all these substances are not equally proper to be changed into a good and generous wine.

As the production of alcohol is the result of the spirituous fermentation, that wine may be considered as essentially the best, which contains most alcohol. But, of all substances susceptible of the sp. rituous fermentation, none is capable of being converted into so good wine, as the juice of the grapes of France, or of other countries that are nearly in the same latitude, or in the same temperature. The grapes of hotter countries, and even those of the southern provinces of France, do indeed furnish wines that have a more agreeable, that is, more of a saccharine taste; but these wines, though they are sufficiently strong, are not so spirituous as those of the provinces near the middle of France: at least from these latter wines the best vinegar and brandy are made. As an example, therefore, of spirituous fermentation in general, we shall describe the method of making wine from the juice of the grapes of France. This juice, when newly expressed, and before it has begun to ferment, is called must, and in common language sweet wine. It is turbid, but has an agreeable and very saccharine taste. It is very laxative; and, when drunk too freely, or by persons disposed to diarrhoeas, it is apt to occasion these disorders. Its consistence is somewhat less fluid than that of water, and it becomes almost of a pitchy thickness when dried.

When the must is pressed from the grapes, and put into a proper vessel and place, with a temperature between fifty-five and sixty degrees, very sensible effects are produced in it, in a shorter or longer time, according to the nature of the liquor, and the exposure of the place. It then swells, and

is so rarefied that it frequently overflows the vessel containing it, if this be nearly full. An intestine motion is excited among its parts, accompanied with a small hissing noise and evident ebullition. The bubbles rise to the surface, and at the same time is disengaged a quantity of carbonic acid of such purity, and so subtle and dangerous, that it is capable of killing instantly men and animals exposed to it in a place where the air is not renewed. The skins, stones, and other grosser matters of the grapes, are buoyed up by the particles of disengaged air that adhere to their surface, are variously agitated, and are raised in form of a scum, or soft and spongy crust, that covers the whole liquor. During the fermentation, this crust is frequently raised, and broken by the air disengaged from the liquor which forces its way through it; afterward the crust subsides, and becomes entire as before.

These effects continue while the fermentation is brisk, and at last gradually cease: then the crust, being no longer supported, falls in pieces to the bottom of the liquor. At this time, if we would have a strong and generous wine, all sensible fermentation must be stopped. This is done by putting the wine into close vessels, and carrying these into a cellar or other cool place.

After this first operation, an interval of repose takes place, as is indicated by the cessation of the sensible effects of the spirituous fermentation; and thus enables us to preserve a liquor no less agreeable in its taste, than useful for its reviving and nutritive qualities when drunk moderately. If we examine the wine produced by this first fermentation, we shall find that it differs entirely and essentially from the juice of grapes before fermentation. Its sweet and saccharine taste is changed into one that is very different, though still agreeable, and somewhat spirituous and piquant. It has not the laxative quality of must, but affects the head, and occasions, as is well known, drunkenness. Lastly, if it be distilled, it yields, instead of the insipid water obtained from must by distillation with the heat of boiling water, a volatile, spirituous, and inflammable liquor called spirit of wine or alcohol. This spirit is consequently a new being, produced by the kind of fermentation called the vinous or spirituous. See ALCOHOL.

When any liquor undergoes the spirituous fermentation, all its parts seem not to ferment at the same time, otherwise the fermentation would probably be very quickly completed, and the appearances would be much more striking: hence, in a liquor much disposed to fermentation, this motion is more quick and simultaneous than in another liquor less disposed. Experience has shown that a wine, the fermentation of which is very slow and tedious, is never good or very spirituous; and therefore, when the weather is too cold, the fermentation is usually accelerated by heating the place in which the wine is made. A proposal has been made, by a person very intelligent in economical affairs, to apply a greater than the usual heat to accelerate the fermentation of the wine, in those years in which grapes have not been sufficiently ripened, and when the juice is not sufficiently disposed to fermentation.

A too hasty and violent fermentation is perhaps also hurtful, from the dissipation and loss of some of the spirit; but of this we are not certain. However, we may distinguish, in the ordinary method of making wines of grapes, two periods in the fermentation, the first of which lasts during the appearance

:

of the sensible effects above-mentioned, in which the greatest number of fermentable particles ferment. After this first effort of fermentation, these effects sensibly diminish, and ought to be stopped, for reasons hereafter to be mentioned. The fermentative motion of the liquors then ceases. The heterogeneous parts that were suspended in the wines by this motion, and render it muddy, are separated and form a sediment called the lees; after which the wine becomes clear but though the operation is then considered as finished, and the fermentation apparently ceases, it does not really cease; and it ought to be continued in some degree, if we would have good wine. In this new wine a part of the liquor probably remains, that has not fermented, and which afterwards ferments, but so very slowly, that none of the sensible effects produced in the first fermentation are here perceived. The fermentation, therefore, still continues in the wine, during a longer or shorter time, although in an imperceptible manner; and this is the second period of the spirituous fermentation, which may be called the imperceptible fermentation. We may easily perceive that the effect of this imperceptible fermentation is the gradual increase of the quantity of alcohol. It has also another effect no less advantageous, namely, the separation of the acid salt called tartar from the wine. This matter is therefore a second sediment, that is formed in the wine, and adheres to the sides of the containing vessels. As the taste of tartar is harsh and disagreeable, it is evident that the wine, which by means of the insensible fermentation has acquired more alcohol, and has disengaged itself of the greater part of its tartar, ought to be much better and more agreeable; and, for this reason chiefly, old wine is universally preferable to new wine.

But insensible fermentation can only ripen and meliorate the wine, if the sensible fermentation have regularly proceeded, and been stopped in due time. We know certainly, that if a sufficient time has not been allowed for the first period of the fermentation, the unfermented matter that remains, being in too large a quantity, will then ferment in the bottles or close vessels in which the wine is put, and will occasion effects so much more sensible, as the first fermentation shall have been sooner interrupted: hence these wines are always turbid, emit bubbles, and sometimes break the bottles, from the large quantity of air disengaged during the fermentation.

We have an instance of these effects in the wine of Champagne, and in others of the same kind. The sensible fermentation of these wines is interrupted or rather suppressed, that they may have this sparkling quality. It is well known that these wines make the corks fly out of the bottles; that they sparkle and froth when they are poured into glasses; and lastly, that they have a taste much more lively and more piquant than wines that do not sparkle; but this sparkling quality, and all the effects depending on it, are only caused by a considerable quantity of carbonic acid gas, which is disengaged during the confined fermentation that the wine has undergone in close vessels. This air not having an opportunity of escaping, and of being dissipated as fast as it is disengaged, and being interposed betwixt all the parts of the wine, combines in some measure with them, and adheres in the same manner as it does to certain mineral waters, in which it produces nearly the same effects. When this air is entirely disengaged from these

wines, they no longer sparkle, they lose their pi quancy of taste, become mild, and even almost in sipid.

Such are the qualities that wine acquires in time, when its first fermentation has not contine sufficiently long. These qualities are given par posely to certain kinds of wine to indulge taste caprice; but such wines are supposed to be unf for daily use. Wines for daily use ought to be undergone so completely the sensible fermentation, that the succeeding fermentation shall be insens ble, or at least exceedingly little perceived. W in which the first fermentation has been too far a vanced, is liable to worse inconveniences than tha in which the first fermentation has been too quiet. suppressed; for every fermentable liquor is fe its nature in a continual intestine motion, mon less strong, according to circumstances, from a first instant of the spirituous fermentation till completely purified: hence, from the time of 2 completion of the spirituous fermentation, or rel before, the wine begins to undergo the acid or a tous fermentation. This acid fermentation is ve slow and insensible, when the wine is included i very close vessels, and in a cool place: but dually advances, so that in a certain time there, instead of being improved, becomes at hver This evil cannot be remedied; because the na tation may advance, but cannot be reverted.

Wine-merchants, therefore, when their wins come sour, can only conceal or absorb this a by certain substances, as by alkalies and absure earths. But these substances give to wine as greenish color, and a taste which, though not is somewhat disagreeable. Besides, calcare earths accelerate considerably the total destru and putrefaction of the wine. Oxides of lead, ing the property of forming with the acid of v a salt of an agreeable saccharine taste, which de not alter the color of the wine, and which be has the advantage of stopping fermentation and trefaction, might be very well employed to re the acidity of wine, if lead and all its preparatio were not pernicious to health, as they c most terrible colics, and even death, when tas internally. We cannot believe that any winee chant, knowing the evil consequences of a should, for the sake of gain, employ it for the pose mentioned; but, if there be any such persis they must be considered as the poisoners and mu derers of the public. At Alicant, where very wines are made, it is the practice to mix a lime with the grapes before they are pressed. I however, can only neutralise the acid already isting in the grape.

If wine contain litharge, or any other oxide lead, it may be discovered by evaporating $9 pints of it to dryness, and melting the residua a crucible, at the bottom of which a small button lead may be found after the fusion: but an eas and more expeditious proof is by pouring into wine some liquid sulphuret. If the precip occasioned by this addition to the sulphure white, or only colored by the wine, we may that no lead is contained in it; but if the prec tate be dark colored, brown, or blackish, we Econclude that it contains lead or iron.

The only substances that cannot absorb or stroy, but cover and render supportable the s ness of wine, without any inconvenience, are shoney, and other saccharine alimentary

WING, in zoology, is that part of a bird, insect, &c., whereby it is enabled to fly. See BEE, BIRD, ENTOMOLOGY, and ORNITHOLOGY.

WINGS, in military affairs, are the two flanks or extremes of an army, ranged in form of battle;

being the right and left sides thereof.

WINGATE (Edmond), an eminent mathematician, born in Bedfordshire in 1593, and educated at Queen's College, Oxford; whence he removed to Gray's Inn. He was appointed English teacher to king Charles I.'s queen; yet he took the covenant, and was elected into the parliament called by Cromwell. He published 1. The Use of the Rule of Proportion, commonly called Gunter's Scale. 2. Natural and Artificial Arithmetic, 8vo. Tables of Logarithms. 4. Ludus Mathematicus. 5. The Exact Surveyor; and several tracts. died in 1656.

WINGED FEATHER GRASS.

3.

He

See STYPA. WINK, v. n. & n. s. Sax. pincean; Teutonic WINK'ER, n. s. wincken; Swedish wincka. WINK'INGLY, adv. To shut the eyes; hint or direct by the eye; connive; tolerate; forbear to

punish; be dim: the act of winking; hint giver. the noun substantive and adverb correspond. Her wink each bold attempt forbids. They be better content with one that will their faults, than with him that will reprove them. Whigfs

Let's see thine eyes; wink now, now open them: In my opinion yet thou seest not well. Shakers, Since I received command to do this business I have not slept one wink.

1, for winking at your discords too, Have lost a brace of kinsmen.

The king gave him great gifts, and winked at great spoil of Bosworth-field, which came alma wholly to this man's hands.

Been

WINNIPIC LAKE, a lake of North American Upper Canada, north-west of Lake Superior. Its between 50° 30′ and 54° 32′ N. lat., and between 50′ and 99° 30′ W. long. It is 217 miles long, cluding Baskescoggan, or Play-Green Lake, northern arm; and is 100 miles broad from the nadian House on the east side to Sable River west side. It receives the waters of a number small lakes, and exhibits a number of small se The lands on its banks are said by Carver and the travellers to be very fertile, producing vast qu tities of wild rice and the sugar-tree in gr plenty. The climate is considerably more tene ate here than it is upon the Atlantic coast, 10 farther southward.

in Upper Canada, which runs north-west into lake of the same name.

WINNIPIC RIVER, a river of North Amer

It is an outlet for waters of a vast chain of lakes, the chief of w are La Pluie and Lake of the Woods, and large body of water, interspersed with numer

islands.

WIN'NOW, v. a. & v. n. Sax. pinopian: Be wannen; Latin evanno. To ventilate; to separate means of the wind: to part the grain from the char Were our royal faith martyrs in love, We shall be winnowed with so rough a wind, That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff, And good from bad find no partition. Shakspears Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan Winnows the buxom air.

Winnow well this thought, and you shall find 'Tis light as chaff that flies before the wind. Dryd

WINSCHOMB (John), a famous English d thier, the most eminent in England under He