if it remains long in the cask. It is manufactured to the highest degree of excellence in Osacca, and thence exported to other countries. The beer's name is said to be derived from that of this city, being the genitive case of the word, with the initial letter omitted. It is wholesome and pleasant, but should be drunk moderately warm.1 There are many varieties of saki, distinguished by different names. RUSSIA. Quass, or Kvas, a word signifying sour, an ancient Scythian beverage, is the ordinary household beer of Russia. A variety of it called Kisslyschtschy is variably described as exceedingly pleasant, and as an abominable small beer, something like sweet wort or treacle beer, almost as vile as the Vodki or Russian gin. These matters of course depend on individual taste. The Russian pivo, also in common use, is said to resemble German beer, but German beers are many and diverse. SWEDEN. Swedish beer is made at Stockholm. Spruce beer is much in use. This drink is said to have originated from a decoction of the tops of the spruce fir. In Norway and Denmark as well as in Sweden this liquor is made from boiling the leaves, rind and branches of pines. But the Spruce beer of Great Britain and Ireland-either white or brown, according as sugar or molasses is employed in the making-is 1 When cold, it is said to produce serki, a species of fatal colic an essence or fluid extract procured by boiling the shoots, tops, bark and cones of the Scotch fir (pinus sylvestris). Spruce beer is supposed to be of much medicinal value as an antiscorbutic. Samuel Morewood presents us with a gratifying reflection on this matter. While, he says, Spruce is beneficial to the health of man, it has not, by its "consequence depreciated his character, or lowered him in his moral dignity." TARTARY. The beer to be met with in Tartary is for the most part of an indifferent quality. That brewed from barley and millet by the Turkestans, termed baksoum, more resembles water boiled with rice than beer. They, however, admire it, and affirm that it is an invaluable remedy for dysentery. The reader will have already perceived that it is a cosmopolitan practice to pamper the appetite under the pretence of preserving the health. Baksoum is acid in taste, of no scent, a feeble intoxicant, and cannot be kept for any length of |