WINE CELLARS.—HOW THEY ARE MADE.—PLACES FOR STORING BEER.—THEIR EXTENT.—THE GREATEST WINE CASK IN THE WORLD.—ITS CAPACITY.—PECULIARITIES OF WINE AND BEER VAULTS.—VISITING A CELLAR IN POLAND.—CURIOUS SIGHTS.—THE ANTIQUITY OF THE BOTTLES.—WHAT A VISITOR DID.—THE RESULT OF TOO MUCH WINE.—A DANGEROUS BRIDGE. A German resident of New York, engaged in the manufacture of beer, visited the excavations at Hallett’s Point, near the upper end of Manhattan Island, and, on viewing the large space which had been dug out of the solid rock, exclaimed, “What a capital place for storing lager beer.” Many a wine and beer manufacturer has made the same remark on visiting the Mammoth Cave, or other huge caverns. The best places for storing malt or vinous liquors are under ground, for the reason that an equal temperature can be maintained at all times; summer’s heat and winter’s cold make but very little change of the thermometer in the depths of the earth. [Sidenote: PLACES FOR WINE UNDER GROUND.] In various parts of the world, particularly in Europe, there are vast underground spaces specially designed for the storage of wine, beer, and similar beverages. Nearly all these articles require to be kept some time before they are fit for use; especially is this the case with wines, some of which improve steadily during a year, or for ten, or twenty, fifty, or it may be for a hundred, or five hundred years. Some of the wine cellars of Europe have been hewn out of the solid rock, or dug out of the solid earth, at vast expense, for the simple purpose of storage. Other wine cellars were, originally, quarries, or mines; and after they had been abandoned by the miners, they were taken up by the wine and beer manufacturers, and adapted to their present uses. The same is the case in America. Reference is made elsewhere to the cellars of Dubuque, Iowa, which are nothing more nor less than exhausted lead mines. At several places on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers there are cellars which originally were quarries or mines. Their natural treasures were taken from them, and they are now filled with artificial ones. In California, particularly in the Sonoma Valley, are some wine cellars which have been dug out of the rock for no other purpose than for that of storage. Some years ago I visited one of these establishments with a small party, and the proprietor, in order to give us an idea of the temperature, shut us up a little while, and left us to ourselves. The place was not cold, but it was cool compared with the outer atmosphere, and we very soon began to sneeze. Had we been kept there for any length of time, I suspect that we would have had sore throats and all that sort of thing; but they were prevented by the select assortment of liquids which the wine manufacturer supplied to us with such liberality that some of his visitors’ legs became very much entangled, and refused to perform the duty usually required of them.