The power of oils in dissolving bodies is in a proportion to their heat, and being capable, when pure, of receiving a quantity of fire equal to 600 degrees, it is not surprising this liquid should mix with gums and with resinous bodies; but the color of these, and of every subject when thrown into boiling oils, changes in proportion to the impression made on them by heat, either to a yellow, a red, or a black. Oils which are inspissated, or thickened by heat, are termed balsams. Do not the oils of malt, from the heat they have undergone, resemble these? and from the circumstance of their having endured a heat superior to that necessary for putrefaction, may they not be suspected to possess a volatile alcaline salt? Beyond doubt, the extracts from malt (though they boil at a heat of 218 degrees only) yet do they, in great measure, dissolve hops, which are gum resinous. Salt may well be denominated a menstruum, as it is easily diluted with water; fixed alcaline salts we have already seen appear to be the produce of fire alone.—Such are never distinguished in the composition of vegetables in their natural state; though a volatile alcalious salt (the effect of heat equal or superior to that necessary for putrefaction) is found in many, and especially in such as are putrified. The power of a fixed alcali as a solvent is great, applied (says Boerhaave) to animal, vegetable, or fossil concretions, so far as they are oils, balsams, gummy, resinous, or of gummy resinous nature, and therefore concreted from oily substances: these, this salt intimately opens, attenuates, and resolves: disposing them to be perfectly miscible with water: oils of alcohol leaving however the impression of taste naturally belonging to this salt. Vegetable acid salt dissolves animal, vegetable, fossil, and metalline substances, except mercury, silver, and gold. In most terrestrial vegetables this salt is evident; ripe mealy corn has the least indication of it, yet extracts therefrom, when fermented, and sometimes before they are fermented, discover sensibly their acidity. Sea-plants in general have not their roots inserted in the earth at the bottom of the sea, and these in distillation yield an oily volatile alcali; but more subtil than the native acids of vegetables, are the vinous acids produced by fermentation; they dissolve equally most matters put into them, and render the whole homogene. Into a must or wort, when under this act, by means of an elæosaccharum, might be introduced the choicest flavors, and the aromatics of the Indies be applied to heighten the taste and flavor of our barley wines. The laws of England at present subsisting are indeed opposite to any improvement of this sort, from the apprehensions of abuse: but where elegance alone is intended, undoubtedly the merit of our beers and ales might thereby be increased. As such, this is a part of chymical knowledge well worth the enquiry and attention of the brewer.