onths. Mr. Borden
of Connecticut, United States, prepares a concentrated milk by boiling
the fluid down in vacuo, at a temperature under 140 deg. Fahrenheit, mixing
the resulting solid with sugar, and rapidly placing the compound in
tins, which are then hermetically sealed. It is said that solidified
milk prepared by this process remains sweet for many months. In France,
solidified and concentrated milk are largely prepared; and it is certain
that London and other large towns will yet be supplied with milk
rendered portable and more stable, by the removal of a large proportion
of its water. In many parts of Ireland pure milk could be bought at from
7d. to 8d. per gallon. I do not despair to see factories established in
such places for the manufacture of preserved milk as a substitute for
the dear and impure fluid sold under the name of milk in London and
other large cities. It is stated that solidified milk prepared in
Switzerland is now sold in London.

SECTION III.

BUTTER.

_History of Butter._--The very general use of butter as an article of
food is demonstrated by the familiar saying--"We should not quarrel with
our bread and butter"; yet this article, now so commonly used throughout
the greater part of Europe, was either unknown or but imperfectly known
to the ancients. In the English translation of the Holy Scriptures the
word butter does certainly frequently occur; but the Hebrew original
is _chamea_, which, according to the most eminent Biblical critics,
signifies cream, or thick, sour milk. In the 20th chapter of Job the
following passage occurs:--"He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the
brooks of honey and butter." Now, we can conceive streams of thin cream,
but we cannot imagine a river of butter. The oldest mention of butter
is found in the works of Herodotus. In the description of the Scythians
given by this ancient author, reference is made to their practice of
violently shaking the milk of their mares, for the purpose of causing a
solid fatty matter to ascend to its surface, which, when removed from
the milk, they considered a delicious article of food. Hippocrates, who
wrote a little later than Herodotus, describes, but in clearer language,
the manufacture of butter by the Scythians; he also alludes to the
preparation of cheese by the same people. The word, butter, does not
occur in any of Aristotle's writings, and although mention is made of it
in the works of Anaxandrides, Plutarch, and AEli