[Illustration: Figure 78.--WINE BOTTLE, sealed with initials of John and
Catherine Mercer, dated 1737 (see p. 148). Found in Structure D refuse
pit. Height, 8 inches. (See also ill. 37.)]
It will be noted that Bristol beer was sold by the bottle, probably just
as it was shipped, and "Fine bottled Syder" apparently came in quart
bottles. Probably the wines were dispensed from casks in wine measures.
Mercer bought Citron water in bottles, a half dozen at a time, as he did
"Mint, Orange flower & Tansey D^o," in 1744.
Round beverage bottles ranged in shape from, roughly, the form of a
squat onion at the beginning of the 18th century to narrow cylindrical
bottles towards the end of the century. The earliest bottles were
free-blown without the constraint of a mold, hence there were many
variations in shape. After about 1730 bottles were blown into crude clay
molds which imparted a roughly cylindrical or taper-sided contour below
sloping shoulders and necks. These marked the first recognition of
binning as a way of storing wines in bottles laid on their sides. About
1750 the Bristol glasshouses introduced cylindrical brass molds.[205]
From then on the problem of stacking bottles in bins was solved and
virtually all round beverage bottles thenceforward were cylindrical with
long necks.
[Illustration: Illustration 35.--Beverage bottle. First quarter, 18th
century. Reconstruction based on whole bottle found at Rosewell.
One-half. (USNM 59.1717.)]
[Illustration: Illustration 36.--Above, beverage-bottle seal, with
initials of John and Catherine Mercer, matching the tobacco-cask mark
used for tobacco grown at the "home plantation" (Marlborough). See
figures 8 and 79. Same size. (USNM 59.1689.)]
[Illustration: Illustration 37.--At right, complete beverage bottle,
dated 1737, with initials of John and Catherine Mercer (fig. 78). Same
size. (USNM 59.1688.)]
At Marlborough the earliest form of wine bottle is represented by a
squat neck and a base fragment (USNM 59.1717, ill. 35), both matching
onion-shaped bottles of the turn of the century, such as one excavated
at Rosewell (USNM 60.660). Except for these fragments, the oldest form
from Marlborough may be seen in the complete bottle found in refuse pit
D (USNM 59.1688; fig. 78, ill. 37). This bottle is typical of the
transitional form, sealed examples of which regularly occur bearing
dates in the 1730's. Its sides are straight for about three inches above
the curve of the base, tapering slightly to the irregular shoulder that
curves in and up to a neck with wedge-shaped string ring. Two inches
above the base is a seal, bearing the initials I^[C.]M above a
decorative device and the date 1737. The arrangement of initials exactly
matches that found on Mercer's tobacco-cask seals (p. 30 and footnote
89) indicating the "home plantation" at Marlborough.
[Illustration: Figure 79.--BOTTLE SEALS. (See ill. 36.)]
Seals were applied by dropping a gather of glass on the hot surface of a
newly blown bottle, then pressing into this deposit of glass a brass
stamp bearing a design, initials, date, etc. Three similar seals from
broken bottles also were found. The same arrangement of initials, but
with no date or device of any kind, occurs on seven different seals
(fig. 79, ills. 36 and 37).
The diameter of the base of the sealed beverage bottle is 5-1/2 inches,
the widest diameter occurring on any bottle fragments from Marlborough,
excepting the early specimen mentioned above. Bases in gradually
decreasing dimensions vary from this size to 2-3/4 inches. Six bases run
from 5 inches to 5-1/2 inches; 11 are over 4-1/2 inches and up to 5
inches; 4 are over 4 inches and up to 4-1/2 inches; 3 are over 3-1/2
inches and up to 4 inches; none, except the smallest of 2-3/4 inches,
found in a mid-19th-century deposit, is less than 3-3/4 inches.