MADERAS, some islands situated in the Atlantic ocean, three hundred miles west of Salice, in Africa; in 16° W. long. and between 32° and 33° of N. lat.
The largest of them, called Madera, or rather Mittera, by the Portuguese, is about an hundred and twenty miles in circumference, and produces incredible quantities of wine, which has the peculiar quality of keeping best in hot climates, where other wines turn sour.