086694 
 
 QfarneU Unitterattg ffiibrarg 
 
 3tl}ata. mtta ^atk 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 EMIL KUICHLING, C. E. 
 
 ROCHESTER, NEW YORK 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 SARAH L. KUICHLING 
 
 1919 
 
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 076 355 522 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924076355522 
 
THE 
 
 CHEMISTEY OF COMMON LIFE 
 
THE 
 
 CHEMISTRY OF COMMON LIFE 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 JAMES F. W. JOHNSTON 
 
 M.A., F.R.S.S., L. A E., &a 
 PROFGHSOR OF CHEUtSTRT IN THE UNIVEASITY 07 DURHAM 
 
 Aulhor of ' LocturoB on Agricultural Chemistry and Geolo^ ;' 
 ' CatecUism of Agricultural Chomlstry and Geology,' dtc 
 
 A NEW EDITION 
 RKVISED, AND BBOUOHT DOWN TO THE niESBNT TIME 
 
 By ARTHUR HERBERT CHURCH 
 
 U.A OZON. 
 
 Author of 'Food, Its Sources, Conatltuenta, and Ubcs, 
 
 * The Laborotory Ouldo for Agricultural Studouta.' 
 
 •Flalu WordB about Water/ Ac. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 649 AND 651 BROADWAY. 
 1880. 
 
3HL 
 
 rlJHRT DIE CHEMIE IN DIESEM AUOENBLICK IHR SCEPTER tJbER ALLE AITOEHE SATUK- 
 W1S8ENSCHAFTEN.— JlfofesC^O «. 
 
 Till by experience taught the tusd shall learn 
 That, not to know at large or things remote 
 From use, obscure and subtle, but to know 
 That which before rs lies in bailt life. 
 Is the prime wisdom. — Milton, 
 
 All the forms are fugitive. 
 
 But the substances survive.— Emerson. 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 Twenty-five years ago, when ' The Chemistry of Com- 
 mon Life ' first appeared, an acquaintance with the 
 advancing science of the day was the almost exclusive 
 possession of a select class of professional persons. The 
 English chemical literature of that time was exceedingly 
 meagre ; while, save in London and a few great cities, 
 instruction, by means of lectures and laboratory work, 
 was wellnigh unknown. Even educated persons had no 
 notion of the real scope and functions of chemistry, 
 beyond a hazy impression that medical practitioners had 
 mastered its theory, and druggists its practice. Professor 
 Johnston's popular exposition of the main conclusions 
 touching the daily Life of man first revealed to the public 
 a new world of interest. His book was most attractive 
 in style, most interesting and comprehensive as to sub- 
 ject-matter, and most exact. His simple and familiar 
 method of introducing the facts and reasonings of 
 chemistry to the general reader was itself -a novel and 
 charming experiment, which at once attracted a crowd of 
 admirers, and which in the lapse of time has lost none 
 
■si EDITOR S PREFACE. 
 
 of its fascination. In the number and variety of striking 
 illustrations, in the simplicity of its style, and in the close- 
 ness and cogency of its arguments, Professor Johnston's 
 ' Chemistry of Common Life ' has as yet found no equal 
 among the many hooks of a similar character which its 
 success originated, and it steadily maintains its pre-emin- 
 ence in the popular scientific literature of the day. 
 
 In preparing this Edition for the press, my first aim has 
 been to respect the method, the style, and the matter of 
 Professor Johnston's work. Thus only such corrections 
 and such omissions have been made as the progress of 
 science demanded, while the additions which I have intro- 
 duced are confined to subjects congenial to the original 
 plan of the book, and are such as will, I hope, prove 
 useful in filling up a few blanks in the sketch. I have, 
 indeed, ventured to write one entirely new chapter, treat- 
 ing of some of " The Colours we Admire," but the subject 
 is one which, I am sure, would have specially attracted 
 the attention of Professor Johnston had his life been 
 prolonged but a year or two ; for he has discussed with 
 considerable fulness the somewhat similar subject of 
 "The Odours we Enjoy," pointing out the peculiar 
 interest attached to the artificial reproduction of natural 
 perfumes. The analogous formation in the laboratory of 
 natural colouring matters, one of the latest triumphs of 
 constructive chemistry, is of stni greater ' importance ; 
 while the further light which has been recently thrown 
 upon the nature and functions of certain animal and vege- 
 table pigments, — for instance, leaf-green and blood-red, — 
 warrants the insertion of a few paragraphs descriptive of 
 a select series of these curious compounds. It would 
 
editor's peeface. vii 
 
 be impracticable to specify the many lesser additions 
 which have been made to the volume, but their aggre- 
 gate number may be gauged by the numerous fresh 
 references which have been inserted in the new Index. 
 It would be ecLually impracticable to cite authority for 
 each new statement made or figure given; the space 
 which would have been thus occupied has been, I hope, 
 more profitably employed. A good many of the new 
 analyses (such as those of roots) are either wholly or 
 partly my own ; in fact, I have gathered these and other 
 new data not only from my published works, but also 
 from origiaal materials which I have accumulated with 
 a view to other literary or professional uses. 
 
 In some few instances I have left unchanged in the 
 text statistics, calculations, and explanations which 
 seemed to be of somewhat doubtful authority, but which 
 I have been unable to replace by more satisfactory 
 figures and arguments : sometimes they have been re- 
 tained on account of their possessing a measure of his- 
 torical interest. I trust that actual errors of statement 
 will prove of rare occurrence, though, in a work of such 
 wide range, I cannot hope to have altogether avoided 
 them. 
 
 It is a happy circumstance that I had the opportunity 
 of consulting Professor Johnston's private and corrected 
 copy of the 'Chemistry of Common Life.' He had 
 already, in. two or three years, gleaned very many fresh 
 details for his volume, so that I was able not only to 
 incorporate with my revision some reaUy valuable mat- 
 ter which he had gathered, but to learn the kind of 
 additions which he contemplated. I am bound, how- 
 
viii editor's peeface. 
 
 ever, to confess that the book would have been doubled 
 or trebled in size had I not exercised a somewhat severe 
 judgment in adding fresh matter. As it is, the work, 
 though appearing in a single volume, contains much 
 more letterpress than the previous issues — thanks to a 
 smaller type, closer printing, larger pages, and* the omis- 
 sion of a few woodcuts of chemical apparatus. These 
 illustrations were, in fact, no longer needed, since the 
 appearance of cheap manuals of experimental chemistry. 
 I sincerely trust that my revision of Professor John- 
 ston's ' Chemistry of Common Life ' will enhance the 
 usefulness of an interesting book, which has attained, as 
 it deserved, an extensive popularity. 
 
 A. H. CHUECH. 
 
 February 1879, 
 
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The common life of man is full of wonders, Chemical and 
 Physiological. Most of us pass through this life without 
 seeing or 'being sensible of them, though every day our 
 existence and our comforts ought to recall them to our 
 minds. One main cause of this is, that our schools tell 
 us nothing about them — do not teach those parts of 
 modern learning which would fit us for seeing them. 
 What most concerns the things that daily occupy our 
 attention and cares, are in early life almost sedulously 
 kept from our knowledge. Those who would learn any- 
 thing regarding them, must subsequently teach them- 
 selves through the help of the press : hence the necessity 
 for a Popular Chemical Literature. 
 
 It is with a view to meet this want of the Public, and 
 at the same time to supply a Manual for the Schools, 
 that the present Work has been projected. It treats, in 
 what appears to he their natural order, of the aik we 
 BREATHE and THE WATER WE DRINK, in their relations to 
 human life and health — the soil we cultivate and the 
 PLANT WE rear, as the sources from which the chief sus- 
 tenance of all life is obtained — the bread we eat and 
 THE BEEP WE COOK, as the representatives of the two 
 grand divisions of human food — the beverages we 
 iNBXrsE, from which so much of the comfort of modern 
 life, both savage and civilised, is derived — the sweets 
 
X AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 WE EXTRACT, the Mstory of which presents so striking an 
 illustration of the economical value of chemical science 
 ■ — THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT, SO different from the sweets 
 in their action on the system, and yet so closely con- 
 nected with them in chemical history — the narcotics 
 WE INDULGE IN, as presenting us with an aspect of the 
 human constitution which, both chemically and physio- 
 logically, is more mysterious and wonderful than any 
 other we are yet acquainted with — the odours we enjoy 
 and the smells we dislike ; the former because of the 
 beautiful illustration they present of the recent progress 
 of organic chemistry in its relations to the comforts of 
 common life, and the latter because of their intimate 
 connection with our most important sanitary arrange- 
 ments WHAT WE BREATHE FOR and WHY WE DIGEST, aS 
 
 relating to functions of the body at once the most im- 
 portant to life, and the most purely chemical in their 
 nature — the body we cherish, as presenting many strik- 
 ing phenomena, and performing many interesting chemi- 
 cal functions not touched upon in the discussion of the 
 preceding topics — and lastly, the circulation of matter, 
 as exhibiting in one view the end, purpose, and method 
 of all the changes in the natural body, in organic nature, 
 and in the mineral kingdom, which are connected with 
 and determine the existence of life. 
 
 It has been the object of the Author in this Work, to 
 exhibit the present condition of chemical knowledge, and 
 of matured scientific opinion, upon the subjects to which 
 it is devoted. The reader will not be surprised, there- 
 fore, should he iind in it some things which differ from 
 what is to be found in other popular works already in 
 his hands or on the shelves of his library. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHArTEB L 
 THE AlE •WE BREATHE. 
 
 FACE 
 
 Haight of the earth's atmosphere ; air is one of the elements of the 
 ancients. — Composition of the atmosphere. — Oxygen, preparation and 
 properties of. — Nitrogen, preparation and properties of.— Proportions 
 of these elements in the air ; their adaptation in Idnd and quantity to 
 the existing condition of things. — Uses of the oxygen and nitrogen. — 
 Uses of the carbonic acid ; its importance to vegetable life, and dele- 
 terious influence npon animal life. — Tlie " Poison Valley" of Java.— 
 Importance of the watery vapour of the air ; its constant circulation.^— 
 Formation of rain and dew ; their many uses. — Accidental constituents 
 of the air ; ozone, nitric acid, and ammonia. — Vapours which rise from 
 the surface of the earth, and saline matters from the sea, ... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE WATER WE DRINK. 
 
 Importance of water in nature.— Composition of water. — Hydrogen gas ; 
 how prepared ; the lightest of known substances, and an inflammable 
 gas ; exists in nearly all combustible substances ; is always converted 
 into water when these substances are burned. — In water hydrogen is 
 combined with oxygen. — What is meant by a chemical combination. 
 — Water without taste and smell ; Importance of this. — Cooling pro- 
 perty of water. — Relation of water to other liquids. — It dissolves many 
 solid substances ; hence natural waters never pure. — Quantities of 
 mineral matter in some river, lake, spring, and sea waters. — Composi- 
 tion of the solid matter in sea-water ; in the Thames water at Kew ; 
 and in that of the Kent Water Company. — Lime held in solution in 
 water by carbonic acid. — Why calcareous waters encrust their channels, 
 
Xii CONTENTS. 
 
 petrify, and deposit sediments in boilers. —Impurity of spring waters 
 in large towns, about farmhouses, and near graveyards. — Well-waters 
 in the dunes of Bordeaux ; their analogy to the waters of Marah. — 
 Water absorbs its own bulk of carbonic acid at all pressures. — How 
 this explains the liveliness of champagne and soda-water, the bursting 
 of bottles, the briskness and deadness of beer, &c. — Excess of oxygen 
 in the air contained in water ; importance of this to the life of fishes. 
 — More oxygen near the surface of the sea. — ^Why air obtained from 
 snow contains less oxygen than the atmosphere, 18 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SOIL WE CULTIVATE. 
 
 General origin of soils ; natural differences in their quality ; how they 
 arise. — Stratified and unstratified rocks. — Soils of the stratified rocks. 
 — Improved soils where difierent rocks intermix. — Soils of the granites, 
 traps, and lavas. — Agency of rains, winds, and vegetable accumula- 
 tions in producing diversities of soil. -^General chemical composition 
 of soils. — ^^Illustrations afforded by the Atlantic border of the United 
 States. — Some plants affect sandy soils, others clay soils, and yet do 
 not always flourish upon them. — Cause of this. — Minute chemical 
 composition of the soil; its mineral and organic parts. — Chemical 
 difference between granite and trap soils.— Dependence of fertility on 
 chemical composition. — Influence of rain and moisture, and of the 
 degree of warmth, on comparative fertility. — District floras and crops. 
 — Influence of man in modifying geological, chemical, and climatic 
 tendencies. — ^Progress of exhausting culture in new regions ; example 
 of North America. — Beclaiming influences of human exertion ; example 
 of Great Britain, . , . 36 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE PLANT 'WE KEAR. 
 
 A perfect plant, what? — Effects of heat upon it. — Contains carbon, water, 
 and mineral matter. — Relations of the plant to the air.-^-Stmcture of 
 the leaf. — ^Its pores absorb carbonic acid, and give off oxygen gas. — 
 Relations to water. — Structui-e of the root. — Purposes served by 
 water. — Relations to the soil. — Plants affect peaty, sandy, loamy, or 
 clayey soils. — Effects of the drain, of lime, or of manure. — ^The art of 
 manuring. — How the colours of flowers may be changed. — ^Effect of 
 
 culture upon wild plants. — The carrot, the cabbage, the turnip. 
 
 Garden fruits, flowers, and vegetables.— Supposed origin of wheat, and 
 its varieties. — How these changes are produced.— Plants which follow 
 the footsteps of man ; why they follow him. — Rapidity of growth in 
 favourable circumstanbes, — ^The yeast plant in grape-juice. — Manu- 
 facture of dry yeast. — Chemical changes within the plant. — ^Produc- 
 tion of numerous peculiar substances— medicines, perfumes, and things 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 ZBetaX in the arts.— The green of the leaf, and the poison of the 
 nettle. — The covering of the ripe potato, apple, and young twig. — 
 General purposes served by vegetation. — It adorns the landscape ; in 
 relation to dead nature, it purifles the atmosphere, produces vegetable 
 mould, and forms deposits of combustible matter ; in relation to living 
 animals, it supplies subsidiary luxuries and comforts, but its main 
 use is to feed them. — Numerous interesting chemical inquiries sug- 
 gested by the natural diversities and different effects of the vegetable 
 food consumed by herbivorous and omnivorous races, . ... 63 
 
 .CHAPTER T. 
 
 THE BREAD WE EAT. 
 
 The grain of wheat. — Bran and flour.— Separation of flour into starch 
 and gluten. — Fermenting of dough. — Baking of bread. — New and 
 stale bread. — Proportion of water in flour and in bread. — Composition 
 of bread. — Bran richer in gluten. — Comparative composition.— Wheaten 
 andrye bread compared. — Oatmeal and Indian-corn meaL — Composi- 
 tion of rice. — Buckwheat, quinoa, Guinea com, and dhurra.— Com- 
 position of beans, peas, and lupins. — The sago-palm, and the seeds of 
 the araucaria. — The fruits of the banana, the date-palm, the fig-tree, 
 and the bread-fruit tree. — Water contained in fruits and roots. — The 
 turnip, carrot, and potato.— The composition of rice, the potato, and 
 the plantain compared. — Deformity among the eaters of these three 
 vegetables. — The Siberian lily. — The use of leaves as food. — The 
 cabbage very nutritious. — Natural tendency of man to adjust the con- 
 stituents of his food. — Irish kol-cannon. — Starvation upon arrowroot 
 and tapioca. — General characters of a nutritions diet. — National and 
 individual influence of diet, 68 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE BEEP WE COOK. 
 
 The fibrin or myosin and water of beef— Composition of beef compared 
 with that of wheaten bread and wheaten flour. — Striking differences. — 
 Dried flesh compared with dried oat-cake. — More fat in domesticated 
 animals and such as are fed for the butcher. — Composition of iish. — 
 Richness of the salmon and the eel. — Less fat in fowls. — Eating butter 
 with fish. — Composition of the egg. — Albumen or white; its pro- 
 perties and relations to gluten and fibrin. — Oil in the yolk, and in the 
 dried egg. — Composition of milk. — Milk allied both to animal and 
 vegetable forms of food. — Milk a model food. — Importance of a mixed 
 food, containing much liquid. — Adjustment of the several ingredients 
 of food in cooking. — Qualities of different kinds of cheese. — Composi- 
 tion of new and skimmed milk cheeses. — Comparison with milk.— 
 Cheese as a digester.— Solvent power of decayed cheese. — Customary 
 practices in cooking. — Comparative value of different kinds of animal 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 food.— Loss of beef and mutton in cooking. — Effects of heat upon 
 meat. — Constituents of the juice of meat. — Kreatiue. — Effects of salt 
 upon meat. — Loss of nutritive value in salting. — How to boil meat 
 and make meat-soup. — ^Animal fats ; their analogy to .vegetable fats. 
 —The solid fat of beef, mutton, and palm-oil.— Composition of human 
 fat, goose-fat, butter, and the oil of the egg.— The liquid part of 
 animal fats. — Identity of animal and vegetable food as regards the 
 mineral matters they respectively contain, 04 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 Artificial drinks nearly all vegetable infusions, with or without subsequent 
 chemical changes. — Tea, extensive use of. — The tea-plant; how its 
 leaves are gathered. — The aroma produced by roasting. — Mode of pre- 
 paring green and black teas from the same leaves.— Principal varieties 
 of green and black teas. — Differences in fragrance and flavour. — 
 Ancient use of tea in China and the adjoining countries. — Introduction 
 into Europe. — Total amount of tea produced. — Consumption in the 
 United Kingdom. — Sensible effects of tea. — Active chemical ingredients 
 in tea. — The volatile oil, its action. — The theine, its composition. — 
 Occurs in coffee, in matS, in kola, and in guarana. — Its effect in retard- 
 ing the waste of the tissues. — ^Why tea is a favourite with the poor. — 
 The tannin, its properties and effects. — The gluten. — ^Tea-leaves and 
 beans compared in nutritive quality. — Tartar mode of using tea. — 
 Eating the exhausted leaves. — Tea varies in composition.— Proportion 
 extracted by water varies. — How tea is coloured or dyed green in 
 China. — Lie tea. — Mat4 or Paraguay tea; its ancient use in South 
 America, — The Ilex; paraguayensis or matd-tree, where it grows, and 
 how its leaves are collected. — Gongonha of Brazil, a variety of maii. 
 — Frequent use of mat^, and its effects. — Composition of the leaf. — 
 The volatile oil, the theine, the tannic acid, and the gluten. — Coffee- 
 tea made from the leaf of the coffee-tree ; use of this tea in the Eastern 
 Archipelago ; effects observed from its use in Sumatra ; contains the 
 same active ingredients as the leaves of the tea-tree. — Labrador tea 
 used in North America. — ^Abyssinian tea or kaat. — Tasmanian teas. 
 — Faham tea. — Table of substitutes for Chinese tea and for matd, . 114 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE BEVERAGES WE INTTTSE. ' 
 THE COFFEES. 
 
 Coffee used in Abyssinia from time immemorial. — Its introduction into 
 Europe. — Consumption in the United Kingdom, in Europe, and in the 
 whole world. — Varieties of coffee : Liberian coffee. — Effects of the 
 infusion of coffee. — It exalts the nervous life, and lessens the waste of 
 
CONTENTS. xr 
 
 the system. — Constituents of coffee. — ^The volatile oil ; its production, 
 mercantile value, and effects on the system.— The tannic acid, the 
 theiue or caffeine, and the gluten. — Composition of tea and coffee 
 compared. — Loss of weight in roasting coffee. — ^Proportion of the 
 roasted bean taken up by water very variable. — Substitutes for coffee. 
 — Seeds of the water-iris, of the Turkish kenguel, of the roasted acorn, 
 of roasted com and pulse, of roasted roots, and especially of chicory. 
 — The chicory plant and root. — How the root is prepared for use. — 
 Gives a fictitious appearance of strength to coffee. — Active ingredients 
 in chicory. The empyreumatic oil, and the bitter principle. — Its 
 effects on the system. — Mode of detecting chicory in coffee. — Adultera- 
 tions of chicory, 148 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 THE COCOAS. 
 
 Cocoa, ancient use of, in Mexico. — Brought to Europe by the Spaniards. 
 —The tree and its fruit. — Varieties in the maikct. — Quantity imported 
 into this country. — Manufacture of the bean. — Cocoa-nibs. — Cocoa of 
 commerce. — Chocolate. — Constituents of cocoa. — The volatile oil. — 
 The peculiar bitter principle, theobromine. — The large proportion of 
 fat which characterises cocoa. — The starch and gluten. — Its general 
 composition compared with that of milk.— It forms a most nutritious 
 beverage. — Substitutes for cocoa. The earth-nut and the guarana of 
 Brazil. — Decoction of cocoa-nibs not so nutritious. — The cocoa-husk 
 or "miserable;" importation of, and beverage made from. — General 
 view of the chemistry of the infused beverages. — Summary of their 
 physiological action. — Concluding reflections.- Prison dietaries, . . 163 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 THB OBAPB AND OANB SUQAHS. 
 
 lilineral sweets. — ^Vegetable sweets.— Number of these known to modem 
 nations. — The grape-sugars ; their sensible and chemical characters. — 
 Honey-sugars. — Trebizond honey. — Poisoning of Xenophon's soldiers. 
 — Fruit-sugars. — Starch or potato sugar, manufacture of. — Sugar from 
 rags, fi-om sawdust, and from Carraigeen, Ceylon, and Iceland mosses. 
 — The cane-sugars. — Spread of the sugar-cane from Asia through 
 Europe to America. — ^Varieties of the sugar-cane. — Nutritive qualities 
 of the raw cane-juice. — Extensive consumption of it. — Composition of 
 the sugar-cane.— Manufacture of cane-sugar. — Difficulties in the manu- 
 facture. — Great loss of sugar in consequence. — Improvements in the 
 manufacture, and their effects on West Indian prosperity. — Total pro- 
 
XVi CONTENTS. 
 
 duce of cane-sugar in the world. — Consumption of sugar in tlie United 
 Kingdom, — Sensible and chemical characters of cane-sugar. — ^Beet or 
 European sugar. — Its importance on the continent of Europe. — 
 Number and produce of the manufactories of France and Eussia. — 
 Composition of the sugar-beet. — Difficulties in extracting the sugar. — 
 Progress of the manufacture. — Its chemico-agricultural relations. — 
 Palm or date sugars. —Quantity produced yearly.— Maple or North 
 American sugar. — Quantity produced, in Canada, New England, and 
 New York. — Mode of extraction.— Chemical changes in the maple- 
 sap. — Maize or Mexican sugar; manufacture of, in the United States, 
 and in France.— Sorghum-sngar, the cane of the north. — Total quan- 
 tity of sugar extracted for use. — Chemistry in its economical and social 
 relations, •• 177 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THK SWEETS WE BXTKACT. 
 
 THE MAKNA AND MILK SUOAES. 
 
 Manna-sugars; their sensible and chemical characters. — Manna of the 
 ash ; its composition and uses. — Occurrence of manna-sugar in sea- 
 weeds. — Gum-tree manna. — Other mannas. — Oak, larch, and cedar 
 mannas. — Persian manna. — The alhagi and tamarisk mannas. — The 
 manna of the Scriptures ; trees supposed to produce it. — The real 
 manna not known. — Liquorioe-sugar. — Milk-sugar. — ^Analogies in the 
 composition of cane, grape, and milk sugar. — How the two former 
 are produced from each other, from starch, and from cellulose, &c. — 
 What chemists understand by chemical reactions. — How a knowledge 
 of these improves old and gives rise to new chemical arts. — Illustration 
 in the manufacture of sugar, glass, and dyes, 202 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 THE BEERS. 
 
 Our fermented drinks. — Grape-sugar is changed into alcohol by fermenta- 
 tion. — Cane-sugar and starch converted into alcohol. — ^Production of 
 diastase during the sprouting of com. — Action of this substance upon 
 starch. —How the infant plant is fed. — Malt-liquors, principles involved 
 in the preparation of. — The malting of barley. — The making of beer. — 
 Influence of diastase on the processes. — The fermentation of the wort. 
 — Influence of the yeast. — How the yeast-plant grows and multiplies ; 
 its remarkable influence still inexplicable. — Composition of beer. — 
 Proportions of malt-extract and of alcohol. — Beer characterised by its 
 nutritive quality and its bitter principle. — Chica or maize-beer of South 
 America. — Maize-malt. — Preparation of chica mascada, or chewed 
 
CONTENTS. xvii 
 
 chlca. — How the chewing piomotes the process and gives strength to 
 the chica. — Influence of the saliva. — Chica from other vegetable sub- 
 stances. — Bouza or millet-beer of Tartary, Arabia, and Abyssinia. — 
 Murwa-beer of Himalayas. — Chemical peculiarities of these millet 
 beers. — Quaas, or rye-beer. — Koumiss, or milk-beer; mode of pre- 
 paring it ; its composition and nntritious qualities. — Lactic acid in 
 this beer.— Ava, cava, or arva. — Extensive use of this drink among 
 the South Sea Islanders ; how it is prepared and used ; its narcotic 
 qualities. — Effect of chewing on the ava-root. — Ceremonies attending 
 its preparation and use in the Tonga and Fiji Islands. — Saki or rice- 
 beer of Japan ; its manufacture, . . ■ 212 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE LIQUORS WE PEKMENT. 
 
 THE WINES. 
 
 The wines. — Apple and pear wines. — Cider and perry. — Differences in 
 quality. — Varieties of cider-apple. — Composition of cider; tendency 
 to sour. — Grape-wines. — ^Eapid fermentation of grape-juice. — Circum- 
 stances influence the quality of wine. — Composition of wine. — Propor- 
 tion of alcohol in different wines ; proportion of sugar. — Tartaric acid 
 the peculiar acid of grape-wine. — Proportions of acid in different wines. 
 — OSnanthio ether gives the vinous flavour to wines. — Peculiar odor- 
 iferous principles which impart to each wine its own flavour or 
 bouquet. — Consumption of wine in the United Kingdom. — Palm-wine 
 or toddy. — How extracted from the cocoa-nut tree, and from the date- 
 tree. — Extensive use of palm-wine. — Sugar-cane wine, or guaiapo. — 
 Pulque, or agave-wine.— Soma- wine of India, 1 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 THE BRANDIES. 
 
 The brandies, or ardent spirits. — Methods of distillation. — Absolute 
 alcohol.— Strength of different varieties of spirits. — Peculiarities in 
 the preparatory processes of the distiller. — Use of raw grain mixed 
 with malt : profit of this.— Average produce of proof spirits.— Peculiar 
 flavours of cognac, rum, &o. — Consumption of home-made ardent 
 spirits in the three kingdoms. — Quantity of malt used in brewing. — 
 Spirits consumed in the form of beer. — Comparative sobriety of Eng- 
 land, Scotland, and Ireland. — Consumption of foreign liquors. — 
 Alleged greater intemperance of Scotland and Ireland : how this im- 
 pression has been produced. — Influence of the nutritive matter and of 
 the hops contained in beer. — Influence of general food and tempera- 
 ment — Ardent spirits serve, to a small extent, the same purpose as 
 
XVUl CONTENTS. 
 
 the starch and fat of our food, and retard the waste of the hody. — 
 Wine, " the milk of the aged." — Substances employed to give a fic- 
 titious strength to fermented liquors, . . ..... 244 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 TOBACCO. 
 
 Man's wants progressive ; how he ministers to them. — Narcotics now in 
 use in different parts of the world ; map of their distribution. — 
 Tobacco brought to Europe from America. — Its rapid spread over the 
 globe. — Its extended use. — Opposition encourages it. — Is it indigenous 
 in China as well as in America ? — Present consumption in the United 
 Kingdom. — It is rapidly increasing. — Circumstances which affect the 
 quality of tobacco. —Where the best qualities grow. — Forms in which 
 tobacco is used. —Manufacture of snuff. — Effects produced by tobacco. 
 — It soothes and excites. — Influence of climate, constitution, and 
 temperament in modifying its effects. — Interesting physiological facts. 
 — Does it necessarily provoke to dissipation? — What is the tobacco 
 reverie ? — Chemical ingredients of the tobacco : the volatile oil ; the 
 volatile alkali ;.the alkalies produced during smoking; the empyreu- 
 matic oil. — Proportion of these poisonous substances is variable. — 
 Chemical differences between smoking, chewing, and snnfBng. — Cause 
 of diversities in the quality of tobacco. — Adulterations of tobacco. — 
 The ash of the tobacco-leaf. — The growing of tobacco an exhausting 
 culture, . . 261 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE NAKCOTl'CS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 THE HOP, AND ITS SUBSTITUTES. 
 
 The hop : whence derived. — When brought to England. — Consumption in 
 the United Kingdom. — Produce of Belgium. — Importance of the hop. 
 — Beauty of the hop-grounds. — Management of the plant. — Properties 
 which recommend its use in beer. — Varieties of the hop cultivated in 
 England. — Qualities of the Pamham, Kent, North Clay, and Worcester 
 hops. — ^Differences in estimation and flavour. — Soils on which they 
 grow. — Chemical constituents of the hop-flower. — The oil of hops. — 
 The aromatic resin. — The lupuline grains. — The bitter principle. — 
 Physiological action of the hop. — ^Difference between ale and beer. — 
 Bitter substances used instead of the hop. — Cocoulns indicns. — Sin- 
 gular qualities of this berry : its use in adulterating beer. — Poisonous 
 picrotoxin contained in it. — Narcotic substitutes for the hop in South 
 America, in India, and in China.-T-The Heetoo, Keesho, and Taddo of 
 Abyssinia. — The marsh ledum used in Northern Europe. — Use of the 
 yarrow, clary, and saffron, 291 
 
CONTENTS. xrr 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THK NARCOTICS WE INDULaE IN. 
 
 THE POPPY AND THE LETTUCE. 
 
 The poppy, ancient and modem use of. — Preparation of opium. — Mode 
 of collecting. — How opium is used. — Effects of opiiun. — It sustains the 
 strength. — Delightful reveries produced by. — De Quincey's experience ; 
 that of Dr Madden. — Final results of opium indulgence. — Seductiye 
 influence of opium.— Case of Coleridge. — Impotence of the will under 
 its influence. — Difliculty of giving it up. — Bodily and mental tortures 
 in doing so. — Extent to which opium is used. — Produce and consump- 
 tion in India and China. — Consumption in Great Britain. — Its use as 
 an indulgence in this country. — Drugging of children, and its effects. 
 —Chemical constituents of opium. — Properties of morphiae. — Little 
 known of the true action of opium. — Average composition of opium. — 
 Varieties in its strength. — Proposed opium-culture in France. — In- 
 fluence of the variety of poppy on the proportion of morphine. — 
 Morphine not so poisonous to inferior animals. — Dilution of opium in 
 India and Java. — Influence of race in modifying the effects of opium. 
 — The Javanese, the Malay, and the Negro. — Corrosive sublimate 
 eaten with opium. — Effects of opium compared with those of wine. — 
 Is opium necessarily deleterious ?— Dr Eatwell'e testimony. — Practical 
 conclusions.— Substitutes for opium : Bull-hoof.— The lettuce, lactu- 
 carium and lactucin ; resemblance to opium in properties and physi- 
 ological effects. — Syrian or Steppe rue ; its uses in the Ea.st as a 
 narcotic indulgence, 309 
 
 CHAPTER XVm. 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 INDIAN HEMP. 
 
 The common European the .same as the Indian hemp. — Its narcotic resin 
 more abundant in warm climates. — Mode of collecting the resin. — The 
 Churrus or Kirs, Gunjah, Bang, and alcoholic extoact. — Forms in 
 which the hemp is used. — The Haschisch of Turkey. — Antiquity and 
 extent of its use. — The Nepenthes of Homer, an Egyptian drug. — 
 The tombeld of India. — Origin of the word "assassin." — Use of hemp 
 in Africa and America. — Effects of hemp on the system. — Sometimes 
 produces catalepsy. — Experience of M. Moreau. — Excitability pro- 
 duced by it. — Errors of perception. — Its effects vary with the indi- 
 vidual and with the race ; influence on orientals greater, on Europeans 
 less. — Experience of M. de Saulcy. — Chemistry of the hemp plant ; its 
 volatile oil. — ^The natural resin and resinous extract probably contain 
 several substances. — Hemp compared with opium ; differences in their 
 comparative effects. — Extent to which hemp is used. — Hemp in 
 Afghanistan, 3C3 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 CHA.PTEK XIX 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 THE BEIEL-KUT AND TEE FEFFEBWOBIS. 
 
 The betel-nut and betel-paliu; plantations of, in the East; eztenslra 
 growth in Sumatra. — How this nut is used, and prepared, — Fondness 
 for the betel in India.— Sensible effects of betel-chewing ; its narcotic 
 efiects; counteracts opium. — Constituents of the betel-nut; its astrin- 
 gent principle. — Consumption of betel. — Substitutes for betel. — 
 Catechu and gambir extract ; extending consumption of the latter. — 
 The pepperworts. — Betel-pepper or pawn — Beauty of the plant, and 
 its importance as an agricultural product. — Mode of cultivation. — 
 Effects of the betel-pepper.— The intoxicating long-pepper or ava. — 
 Chemistry of the pepperworts. — Piperin ; its use against fevers. — 
 Grains of Paradise, or malagueta pepper; their use as a spice in 
 Africa and in England — Use in adulterating beer and spirituous 
 liquors , ... 346 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 COOA. 
 
 Coca, the narcotic of the Andes : description of the plant ; mode of cul- 
 tivation. — Ancient use of the coca-leaf. — Its necessity to the Indian of 
 Peru ; how he uses it. — Its remarkable effects. — Melancholy tempera- 
 ment of the Indian. — ^Testimony of Von Tschudi and of Dr Weddell. 
 — General effects of the oooa-leaf. — Intolerable craving of the confirmed 
 " coquero." — Evil effects of the coca-leaf. — Testimony of Poppig and 
 other travellers. — Opinions of old Spanish writers. — ^Indian reverence 
 for the plant. — Its characteristic effects. — ^Lessens the necessity for 
 ordinary food. — Prevents difBoulty of breathing in ascending hills. — 
 Experience and testimony of Von Tschudi. — Its introduction into 
 Europe recommended. — Chemical history of the coca-leaf. — The odor- 
 iferous resin. — The bitter principle. — ^The tannic acid. — How the coca- 
 leaf acta. — ^Difficulties as to its action. — How it resembles tea, the 
 hop, hemp, and opium. — Like opium, it sustains and inclines to retire- 
 ment. — Consumption of coca. — Probable ejdent and money value of 
 the yearly growth of coca, 357 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 THE THOEN-APPLBS, THE SIBERIAN FtrNQUS, AND THE MDJOB NAEOOTIOS. 
 
 The red thorn-apple ; its use among the Indians of Peru ; its remarkable 
 effects ; taken by the Indian priests ; frenzy induced by it ; used in 
 the temples of the Andes and of Greece ; Delphic oracles inspired by 
 
CONTENTS. xn 
 
 It ; singular coincidence in priestly deceptions. — ^The common thorn- 
 apple : its use in Europe for criminal purposes ; in Bussia, for giving 
 headiness to beer ; in India, to ardent spirits. — How it is employed by 
 the poisoners of India. — Spectral illusions occasioned by the use of it. 
 — Narcotic qualities of the leaves. — Chemical history of the thom- 
 applea — ^Tbe poisonous daturine and the empyreumatic oil ; their joist 
 influence In smoking. — The Siberian fungus : liow collected and used ; 
 its intoxicating effects ; delusions created by it ; its active principle 
 escapes in the urine ; may be again used repeatedly, and by different 
 persons ; Siberian custom. — The common puff-ball ; narcotic qualities 
 of its smoke when burning. — Chemistry of the poisonous fungi ; they 
 contain amanitine. — Empyreumatic oil of the burning puff-ball. — The 
 minor narcotics : The emetic holly, the narcotic of Florida ; how it is 
 used. — ^The deadly nightshade ; its remarkable effects : destruction of 
 a Norwegian army in Scotland. — ^The common henbane. — The bearded 
 darnel gives headiness to beer, and poisons bread. — Sweet gale ; its 
 use for giving bitterness to beer. — Heather-beer of the Picts and 
 Danes. — The rhododendrons, poisonous and narcotic. — The Azalea 
 pontics gives its peculiar qualities to the Euxine or Trebizond honey. 
 — The andromedas and kalmias of North America act as narcotics. — 
 Narcotic effects of sweet odours on some constitutions, . . . 874 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 OENEItAL CONSIDERATIOKS. 
 
 Extended use of narcotic indalgences. — Numbers of men among whom 
 they are consumed. — The use of them to be restrained chiefly by moral 
 means. — Their agricultural and commercial importance. — Total annual 
 production and value. — Tlieir wonderful properties, and interest to the 
 physiologist. — Analogy between diseased states of mind, natural and 
 artificial. — Do all our feelings arise from physical causes? — Special 
 properties of the different narcotics.— Defective state of onr knowledge. 
 — National influence of narcotics. — They react upon the constitution 
 and character. — Coincidences in Asiatic and American customs. — 
 Ancient connection between the continents. — General summary, . 388 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE POISONS WE SELECT. 
 
 The consumption of white arsenic. — Action of arsenic upon the system. 
 — Practice of using it in Styria. — Its effects in improving the com- 
 plexion and removing breathlessness. — Quantity taken. — Length of 
 time it may be used with impunity.— Illness produced by discon- 
 tinuing it. — Its effects upon horses. — Its chemioo-physiological action 
 in producing these effects. — Ancient love -philtres and charms. — 
 Incredible things formerly believed. — The eating of clay.— Practice in 
 
XXU CONTENTS. 
 
 Guinto, in the West Indies, in Java, in the Himalayas. — Use of bread- 
 meal and mountain-meal in Sweden, Finland, and North Germany. — 
 The Otomacs in South America — Humholdt's account. — ^Does clay 
 support life ?— Eaten hy the Indians of Bolivia and Peru.— Its physio- 
 logical action.— Our ignorance still great, 400 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 THE ODOURS WB ENJOY. 
 VOLATILE OILS AND FEAQHANT EESINS. 
 
 Vegetable odours. — The volatile oils ; how extracted. — Quantity yielded 
 by plants.— The otto of roses ; how collected. — ^The oils exist in dif- 
 ferent parts of plants. — Simple and mixed perfumes. — Analogy be- 
 tween odours and sweet sounds. — Odours may resemble and blend 
 with each other. — Extraction of oils by maceration. —Composition of 
 oils of lemons, oranges, &c. — Isomeric oils. — Oils containing oxygen. 
 — Volatile oils of almonds and cinnamon. — Artificial essences. — Oil of 
 spiraea; can be prepared by art. — Manufactured substitutes for oil of 
 bitter almonds.— Nitro-benzol, or Essence de Mirbane, and benzonitril. 
 — The camphors. — Chinese and Borneo camphors. — Balsams of Peru 
 and Tolu. — The odoriferous resins ; why they become fragrant on red- 
 hot charcoal; their use as incense. — Vanilla; its fragrance, and 
 analogy to the balsams. — The Tonka bean ; coumarin, the odoriferons 
 principle of this bean. — The same principle in vernal grass, melilot, 
 and other plants.— Gives fragrance to hay, 411 
 
 CHAPEEB XXV. 
 
 THE ODOURS WE ENJOT. 
 THE VOLATILE ETHERS AND ANIMiL ODOUES. 
 
 Wine-ether, how prepared. — Nitric ether and acetic ether. — ^Wood-spirit 
 and wood-ether. — Potato-spirit, or oil of grain, and potato-ethers. — 
 Oil of winter-green, a natural ether ; how prepared artificially. — Sweet- 
 smelling ethers manufactured as perfumes. — Pear-oil, or essence of 
 jargonelle. — Apple-oil. — Grape and cognac oils. — Pine-apple oil. — 
 Hungarian wine-oil, and other artificial fragrances. — Caprylic ethers. — 
 The flavour of whisky. — Propylio ethers. — The bouquet of wines. — 
 (Enanthio ether gives the generic flavour to grape- wines. — Character- 
 istic fragrant principles of different wines. — Use of the sweet-flag 
 in flavouring spirits and beer ; its abundance in Norfolk. — Odorifer- 
 ous substances of animal origin. — Musk ; the musk-deer ; lasting 
 smell of musk. — Civet. — Effect of dilution upon odoriferous sub- 
 stances.— Use of civet in Africa. — Castoreum and hyracenm. — Am- 
 bergris and perfumes prepared from it. — Insect odours. — General 
 reflections.— Extreme diffusiveness of odours.- Delicacy of the organs 
 of smell.— How chemistry increases our comforts, gives rise to new 
 arts, and generally civilises, ...,.•.., 427 
 
CONTENTS. XXIU 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE SMKLLB WE DIBLIKR 
 NATUBAL SMELLS. 
 
 Differcnco of opinion as to smells. — Disagreeable mineral smells. — Sulphu- 
 retted hydrogen ; its properties, and production in nature. — Sul- 
 phurous acid given off from volcanoes ; its suffocating reputation. — 
 Muriatic acid gas. — Unpleasant vegetable smells. — Garlio and the 
 onion. — Oil of garlic. — Sulphuret of allyl. — Sulphur an ingredient of 
 many fetid smells. — Asafoetida, a concrete juice. — Oil of asafoetida. — 
 Extensive use of vegetable substances containing allyl ; they satisfy 
 some natural craving ; extensive distribution of them in nature. — 
 Mustard also contains allyl. — The stinking goosefoot. — The peculiar 
 strong- smelling compound contained in this plant exists also in putrid 
 fish ; economical use of it in the c«tsin«.— Carrion-plants ; the Saus- 
 sitrea and the Stapelias. — Smells often disagreeable only because of 
 the things or memories associated with them. — Disagreeable animal 
 odours ; the goat, the badger, and the skunk. — Effects of minnte 
 doses of sulphur and tellurium. — Stenches as weapons of defence. — 
 Insect-smells. — The putrefaction of animal bodies ; conditions which 
 promote it; substances given off; their unwholesome character. — 
 Burying-vaults and graveyards. — The droppings of animals; peculiar 
 sabstonces and smells given off by these 413 
 
 CHAPTEE XXYII. 
 
 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 SMELLS PRODUCED BY CHEMICAL AM. 
 
 Smells produced by chemical art. — Seleniuretted hydrogen.— Phosphur- 
 etted hydrogen. — Mercaptan. — Kakodyl. — Alkarsin. — Cyanide of 
 kakodyl. — Compounds of tellurium. — Interesting chemical relation 
 between sweet odours and stinks. — Acrolein. — Offensive substances 
 produced by destructive distillation. — Smells emitted by manufac- 
 tories. — ^The sulphuric acid, soap, candle, vinegar, and glass makers. 
 — Lead and copper smelters. — Such smells may be and ought to he pre- 
 vented •■ 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 THE PRE^'ENTION AND EEMOVAl OP SMELM. 
 
 Wide diffusion of evil odours. — Prevention of smells. — Decay prevented 
 by freezing, by drying, by excluding the air, by salting, and by smok- 
 ing. — Effects of charcoal. — Smell-disguisers or perfumes. — Smell-re- 
 movers or deodorisers. — Charcoal ; cause of its remarkable action. — 
 
xxiv CONTENTS. 
 
 Dr Stenhouse'a clarooal respirator.— Peat, vegetable soil, and burnt 
 day. — Smell-destroyera or disinfectants. — Nitric oxide, sulpliurous 
 acid, hydrochloric acid, and chlorine gases.— The chlorides of lime, 
 iron, and zinc, and sulphate of iron. — Carbolic acid. — Permanganates. 
 — Hydrogen peroxide. — Iodine and iodoform. — Quicklime ; its unlike 
 action on fermenting and unfermeuting matters. — Summary, . . ■ 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE COLOURS WE ADMIEE. 
 
 Auimal pigments or colouring matters. — Red pigment of blood or hsema<- 
 globin. — ^Turacin, a red pigment containing copper, found in certain 
 feathers. — Pigmentum nigrum. — Chlorophyll, or leaf-green. — Colein, 
 the pigment of many fruits and flowers. — Alizarin from madder. — 
 Coal-tar dyes, W 
 
 CHAPTEK XXX. 
 
 WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOE. 
 
 What is it to breathe ?— Structure of the lungs. — Quantity of air inhaled. 
 — Tidal air and stationary air. — Effect of breathing on the composi- 
 tion of the air ; it increases the proportions of moisture and carbonic 
 acid gas, and diminishes that of oxygen ; to what extent it does so. 
 —Quantity of carbonic acid gas given off from the lungs and the skin. 
 —Purpose for which man breathes. — The oxygen absorbed helps to 
 form the substance of the muscular and other tissues ; it converts the 
 waste material of the body into urea and other soluble substances pre- 
 paratory to its removal ; it converts the fat and starch of the food into 
 carbonic acid gas and water ; acta in a similar way upon alcohol. — 
 Why the carbonic acid from the lungs varies in quantity. — Physio- 
 logical effect of these chemical changes; they are the chief source 
 of animal heat.— Careful provision for the constant disengagement of 
 this heat. — Purposes served in external nature by the breathing of 
 animals, 193 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST. 
 
 What we digest. — Staple elements of food, whether animal or vegetable. 
 — How we digest. — What takes place in the mouth. — The saliva ; 
 quantity discharged into the mouth ; its composition and functions. — 
 Properties of ptyalin. — ^The saliva is alkaline ; always on the watch 
 for the entrance of food into the stomach. — Structure of the alimentary 
 canal. — The stomach and its appendages. — ^What takes place in the 
 stomach. — The starch, fat, and gluten, are brought into a liquid state. 
 — ^Dissolving action of the pepsin. — Absorption from the stomach 
 
CONTENTS. XXV 
 
 itself.— What takes place below the stomach. — Introduction of liquids 
 ttom the gall-bladder and pancreas. — Supposed action of the bile. — 
 Properties and uses of the pancreatic juice. — Intestinal juice. — The 
 universal solvent. — Absorption by the lacteals. — Changes of the chyle 
 in the lacteals.— Mesenteric glands. — Absorption by the veins.— Diges- 
 tion in the large intestines. —Acidity in the coecum. — Final discharge 
 of food-residues from the intestines. — Why we digest — it is to form 
 blood. — Purposes seiTed by the blood. — Composition of the whole 
 man, and of his blood. — Bodily functions discharged through the aid 
 of the blood. — Bodily waste and motion connected. — Special provisions 
 for digestion in carnivorous and herbivorous races. — Digestion in the 
 sheep.— Purpose of digestion the same in all animals, . *, . . 51-1 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE BODY WE CHERISH. 
 
 The body and its habits an assemblage of chemical wonders.— Change 
 of the food in its passage fro^ the mouth to the lacteals.— Globules 
 or corpuscles of the chyle. — The blood-corpuscles ; their form and 
 composition. — Mineral matter within and without the corpuscles. — 
 The corpuscle is an independent microcosm. — Selecting power of the 
 parts of the body.— How the whole system is kept iu working order. 
 — Activity of the vessels which remove waste mattei'. — Provisions for 
 comfortable warmth.— Craving for special kinds of food. — How this 
 is artificially met. — The nature of the water Ave drink may modify 
 natural cravings and national diet. — Instinctive choice of beverages and 
 condiments. — Case of salt ; how instinct regulates the use of this sub- 
 stances-Examples in South-western Africa and in Siberia.— Suscep- 
 tibility of the body to the action of very minute portions of matter. — 
 The narcotics, the beverages, the odours, and the miasms. — Influence 
 of light upon the body. — The structure, functions, and special com- 
 position of the grey and white parts of the brain. — The rete mmoevm. 
 — The chemistry of all parts of the body deserving of intelligent and 
 reverential study, 532 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER. 
 
 A BECAriTULATION. 
 
 Employment of matter for successive uses ; popular ideas regarding. — 
 Shfiespeare's Hamlet. — Humau saltpetre. — The circulation of water. 
 — Ascent of vapour in tropical regions. — Evaporation from the leaves 
 of plants.- Expulsion from the lungs and skin of animals.— Cliemical 
 circulation of water. — Circulation of carbon. — Quantity of carbon in 
 the atmosphere ; how it is continually renewed. — Decay of shed leaves 
 and bark, and yearly ripening herbage. — Breathing of animals. — 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 Relations of air, plant, and animal, as regards this carton. — Burying 
 of carbon in the earth j restoration to the air by the burning of coal. — 
 Carbon confined in limestone roclcs ; how the earth breathes this out 
 again. — Circulation of nitrogen.— Gluten of plants. — Forms in which 
 nitrogen exists in plants, in the soil, and in animals. — Restlessness of 
 matter within the animal body. — Rapid waste of the blood and tissues ; 
 agency of oxygen in this waste. — Production of urea; change of this 
 in the soil. — General scheme of the circulation of nitrogen ; we cannot 
 restrain it. — How part of the nitrogen escapes, and revolves in a wider 
 circle, . . . 516 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER. 
 A HEOAPITULATIOH'. 
 
 Circulation of mineral matter. — General form of this circulation from the 
 soil through the plant into the animal, and thence to the soil again. — 
 Special form. — Circulation of phosphoric acid and of saline matter. — 
 Shedding of leaves and annual decay of vegetable productions. — Course 
 of mineral matter through the animal body. — ^Waste and death of the 
 body, and its return to the soil. —General view of this circulation. — 
 Its constancy and rapidity. — Vain attempts to preserve human dust 
 apart. — Mummies, Pyramids, and Etruscan tombs. — The valley of 
 Hinnom. — Customs in Thibet and the Himalayas. How the natural 
 diminution of mineral plant-food is counteracted. — Even the sea gives 
 back its spoils. — Interference of slow geological revolutions. — Lessons 
 taught by all this. — Small quantity of matter on which all life de- 
 pends. — Lessons of constant intelligent activity with ar view to a definite 
 end. ^Purposes served by every movement of matter in living bodies. 
 —How the plant waits upon and serves the animal. — Small change 
 in the condition of things which would banish life from the world. 
 — Man forms no part of the scheme of the universe. — His material 
 insignificance the crowning lesson, 562 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 676 
 
THE 
 
 CHEMISTEY OF COMMON LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE AIR WE BREATHE. 
 
 Height of the earth's atmosphere ; air is one of the elements of the ancients 
 
 Composition of the atmosphere. — Oxygen, preparation and properties of. — 
 Nitrogen, preparation and properties of. — Proportions of these elements in 
 the air ; their adaptation in kind and quantity to the existing condition of 
 things. — Uses of the oxygen and nitrogen. — Uses of the carbonic acid ; its 
 importance to vegetable life, and deleterious influence upon animal life. — The 
 " Poison Valley " of Java. — Importance of the watery vapour of the air ; its 
 constant circulation.— Formation of rain and dew ; Uieirniany uses. — Acci- 
 dental constituents of the air ; ozone, nitric acid, and ammonia. — Vapours 
 which rise {torn the surface of the earth, and saline matters from the sea. 
 
 The earth we inhabit is surrounded by an atmosphere of air, 
 the height of which is at least forty-five miles. It may extend 
 much farther, but its outer parts wi]l be excessively attenuated. 
 Some notion of the thickness of this mantle of air which clothes 
 our globe maybe gained from the following comparison: a 
 globe of 6 feet in diameter, if surrounded by an atmosphere 
 corresponding to tluit of the earth, would be covered by a 
 layer of air J an inch in depth. The atmosphere presses 
 upon the earth with a weight equal at the level of the sea to 
 nearly 15 lb. on every square inch of surface. As we ascend 
 
2 ' THE AIK WE BREATHE. 
 
 high motmtains, this weight becomes less ; and as we go down 
 into deep mines, it becomes sensibly greater. 
 
 We breathe this atmospheric air, and without it we could 
 not live. It floats around the earth in almost perpetual mo- 
 tion ; and according to the quickness with which it moves, it 
 produces gentle breezes, swift winds, or terrible tornadoes. 
 
 Though very familiar to us, and regarded with little curi- 
 osity, this air is yet very wonderful, both in itself and in its 
 uses. Imperfect as the knowledge of the ancients was, they 
 recognised its importance by giving it a place among what 
 they regarded as the four primal elements of nature — &e, air, 
 earth, and water. 
 
 Yet, though apparently pure and elementary, it is by no 
 meaus either a simple or pure substance. It is a mixture of 
 several diiferent kinds of matter, each of which performs a 
 beautiful and appropriate part in relation to animal and vege- 
 table life. Four substances, at least, are known to be always 
 present in it. Two of these, oxygen and nitrogen, form nearly 
 its entire bulk ; the two others, carbonic acid and watery 
 vapour, being present only in minute quantities. 
 
 Oxygen is a kind of air or gas, which, like the atmosphere 
 itself, is without colour, taste, or smell. It is an element — 
 that is, it has never been decomposed into two different sub- 
 stances. When cooled far below the freezing-point of water, 
 and at the same time pressed upon by a force equal to 300 
 atmospheres, it becomes a liquid. A candle burns in it with 
 much greater brilliancy and rapidity than in common air. 
 Animals also breathe in it with an increase of pleasure ; but 
 it excites them, quickens their circulation, throws them into 
 a state of fever, and finally kiUs them, by excess of excite- 
 ment. They live too rapidly in pure oxygen gas, and burn 
 away in it like the fast-flaring candle. 
 
 This gas is easily prepared by mixing 100 grains of the chlo- 
 rate of potash of the shops with 10 grains of jeweller's rouge 
 or red oxide of iron, and heating the mixture in a flask over 
 a spirit-lamp. The gas is soon given off, and will quickly fill 
 and overflow the flask. It caimot be seen by the eye, or be 
 detected by any of the other senses. Its presence may be 
 readily shown, however, by introducing a lighted taper, or a 
 bit of red-hot charcoal, or of kindled phosphorus, at the end of 
 a wire. The brilliancy of the burning will prove the presence 
 
CARBONIC ACID GAS. 3 
 
 of the gas ; a merely smouldering wick or glowing splint of 
 wood will Wst into flame. 
 
 Nitrogen is also a kind of air which, like oxygen, is void of 
 colour, taste, and smell ; but a lighted candle is instantly ex- 
 tinguished, and animals cease to breathe when introduced into 
 it. It is an element, and has been made by cold and pressure 
 to assume the liquid form. We obtain this gas by putting a 
 bit of phosphorus into a small cup over water, kindling it, and 
 inverting over it a bottle, dipping with its mouth into the 
 water. When the phosphorus has ceased to bum, and the 
 bottle has become cool, it may be corked and removed from 
 the water. If a lighted taper be now introduced into the 
 bottle, it will immediately be extinguished, showing that a 
 gas very unlike oxygen remains. In this process the burn- 
 ing phosphorus removes the oxygen, or most of it, from the 
 air contained in the bottle, and leaves the nitrogen. 
 
 Oxygen is one-ninth part heavier, and nitrogen one thirty- 
 sixth part lighter, than common air. 
 
 Carbonic acid is a kind of air which, like oxygen and nitro- 
 gen, is void of colour ; but, unlike them, possesses a slight 
 odour, and a perceptibly sour taste ; and it is, moreover, a 
 compound, not an element, containing two elements — oxygen 
 itself, and carbon. Burning bodies are extinguished, and 
 animals cease to breathe, when introduced into it. It is one- 
 half heavier than common air, and can therefore be poured 
 through the air from one vessel to another. When passed 
 through lime-water,^ it makes it milky, forming with the dis- 
 solved lime an insoluble white powder, which, because it con- 
 tains carbonic acid, is called carbonate of lime, and is the 
 same thing as chalk. It is the escape of this gas which gives 
 their sparkling briskness to fermented liquors, to soda-water, 
 and to the waters of some mineral springs. 
 
 Carbonic acid is easily prepared by pouring vinegar upon 
 common soda, or diluted spirit of salt (muriatic acid) upon 
 chalk or limestone. The gas rises in bubbles through the 
 liquid, and, in consequence of its weight, remains in the lower 
 part of the vessel. As it collects it gradually ascends, driving 
 
 1 Lime-water is formed ty pouring water upon slaked lime, shaking them 
 well together, and allowing the mixture to settle. The clear liquid contains a 
 portion of the lime in solntion, and is therefore called Kme-water : 600 lb. of 
 water dlssolre about 1 lb. of lime. 
 
4 THE AIK WE BKEATHE. 
 
 the common air before it, and at last flows, as water would 
 do, over the edge of the vessel. Its rise may be shown by- 
 introducing two lighted tapers, one below the other, when 
 the lower one will be seen to go out, while the upper one is 
 still burning. 
 
 By watery vapour is meant the steam or vapour, visible or 
 invisible, which ascends from a surface of water when ex- 
 posed to the air. When water is spilt upon the ground in 
 dry weather, it soon disappears : it rises in invisible vapour, 
 and floats buoyantly among the other constituents of the 
 atmosphere. 
 
 These four substances the air everywhere and always con- 
 tains, and the first two always in very nearly the same pro- 
 portions. Thus Gay Lussao examined air collected at a dis- 
 tance of four miles from the earth's surface, and comparing it 
 with air coUeoted from the summit of the Alps, and from 
 towns and villages, found no sensible difference. In 1852, 
 Mr Welsh, under the direction of the British Association, ex- 
 amined air collected at an elevation of 18,000 feet above the 
 earth, and, comparing it with air collected from the surface, 
 both samples having been dried and freed from carbonic acid, 
 found the one to contain 20.88 per cent of oxygen, the other 
 20.92. The exact and numerous experiments of many other 
 analysts have shown the constancy of the composition of the 
 air. The four substances we have just mentioned are all 
 necessary to the daily wants of animal and vegetable life ; but 
 two of them, oxygen and nitrogen, form so large a proportion 
 of the whole, that we are accustomed to say of dry air, that it 
 consists of nitrogen and oxygen only, in the proportion of 4 
 gallons of the former to 1 of the latter. More correctly, how- 
 ever, air, when deprived of the watery vapour ■ and carbonic 
 acid it contains, consists, in 100 gallons, of 79 of nitrogen 
 mixed with 21 of oxygen ; or of — 
 
 Nitrogen, 
 
 By measure, 
 79 
 
 Oxygen 21 
 
 100 
 
 It has been calculated that the atmosphere of our globe 
 
 contains 2,551,586 billions of pounds of oxygen ; and that the. 
 
 yearly consumption of this oxygen, in the respiration of men 
 
 and animals, together with the processes of ordinary combust- 
 
HOW GASES MIX IN THE AIR. 5 
 
 ion, amounts to two and a quarter billions of pounds. Thus, 
 in a hundred years the consumption would only reach 225 
 billions — that is, not even the ten-thousandth part of the 
 whole. 
 
 The carbonic acid exists in the air in very small proportion. 
 At ordinary elevations there are only about 4 gallons of this 
 gas in every 10,000 of air ; -dVirth part of the whole. There 
 are some grounds for concluding that the proportion of car- 
 bonic acid gas is somewhat greater at a considerable height. 
 Even this increased quantity is very small ; and yet the 
 presence of this gas is essential to the existence of vegetable 
 life on the surface of the earth. 
 
 But being heavier than common air, it appears singular 
 that the proportion of this gas should increase as we ascend 
 into the atmosphere. Its natural tendency would seem to be 
 rather to sink towards the earth, and there to form a layer of 
 deadly air, in which neither animal nor plant could live. But 
 independent of winds and aerial currents, which tend to mix 
 and blend together the different gases of which the air con- 
 sists, all gases, by a law of nature, tend to diffuse themselves 
 through each other, and to intermix more or less speedily, 
 even where the utmost stillness prevails and no wind agitatep 
 them. This is the " law of gaseous diffusion," discovered by 
 Graham, according to which heavy gases intermix with light 
 gases, somewhat as wine is intermixed with water. If cer- 
 tain fluids of different densities be mingled, such as mercury 
 and water, they separate again immediately they are left at 
 rest ; but two gases of different densities, when brought to- 
 gether, immediately begin to intermix, and the greater the 
 difference in their densities, the more rapidly will they mingle. 
 Although chlorine is nearly 36 times heavier than hydrogen, 
 they rapidly intermix; and never separate when left at rest. 
 Hence a light gas like hydrogen (see p. 19) does not rise 
 wholly to the uppermost regions of the air, there to float on 
 the heavier gases ; nor does a heavy gas like carbonic acid 
 sink down so as to rest permanently beneath the lighter 
 gases. On the contrary, all slowly intermix, become inter- 
 fiised, and mutually intercorporated, so that the ammonia, 
 the carbonic acid, and the other gases which are produced in 
 nature, may be found everywhere through the whole mass, 
 and a comparatively homogeneous mixture uniformly over- 
 
Q THE AIR WE BEEATHE. 
 
 spreads the whole earth. In obedience to this law, carbonic 
 acid in all places slowly rises or slowly sinks, as the case may 
 be, and thus, on the whole, a nniform purity is maintained in 
 the air we breathe. Even in badly ventilated rooms it is 
 pretty uniformly diffdsed, though it may amount to 10, up to 
 70 parts in 10,000 of air. In the case of crowded theatres, 
 however, the air near the roof has been found to contain more 
 carbonic acid than that at the level of the stage, the impure 
 air ascending because expanded by heat. If it seems to 
 linger in sheltered hollows like the deadly gas-lake of Java, 
 it is because the fatal air issues from the earth more rapidly 
 than it can difiuse itself upwards through the atmosphere ; 
 and if it rest more abundantly on the mountain-top, it is be- 
 cause the leaves of plants, and the waters of the sea, absorb 
 it from the lower layers of the air faster than it can descend 
 to supply their demands. 
 
 The watery vapomr varies in quantity with the climate and 
 temperature of the place. It is less in cold seasons and 
 climates generally than in such as are hot. It seldom forms 
 more than y^yth, or less than ^^th of the bulk of the air. In 
 England it rarely happens that the air contains less than two- 
 thirds of the whole quantity of watery vapour which it could 
 take up, and very often it is quite saturated. But on the 
 other hand, only xVth of the maximum amount of moisture 
 was found in a sample of air from the coast of the Eed Sea, 
 during a simoom. 
 
 The presence of carbonic acid in the atmosphere is shown 
 by the formation of a white film of carbonate of lime on the 
 surface of lime-water when this is exposed to the air. The 
 presence of watery vapour may be shown on the hottest days 
 by pouring ice-cold water into a tumbler or water-bottle, when 
 the vapour of the air will rapidly condense on the outer sur- 
 face of the vessel in the form of drops of dew. 
 
 The purposes which we know to be served by these several 
 constituents of the atmosphere show both that they are all 
 essential to the composition of the air, and that in quantity 
 as well as kind they have been beneficently adjusted to the 
 composition, the wants, and the functions of animals and 
 of plants. 
 
 Thus, as to the oxygen — 
 
 From every breath of air which the animal draws into its 
 
ADJUSTMENTS IN THE AIR. 7 
 
 Inngs it extracts a quantity of oxygen. The oxygen thus 
 obtained is a part of the natural food of the animal, which it 
 can obtain £rom no other natural source, and new supplies of 
 which are necessary to it every moment. The oxygen of the 
 atmosphere, therefore, is essential to the very existence of life 
 in the higher orders of animals. 
 
 The candle burns, also, and all combustible bodies kindle 
 in the air, only because it contains oxygen. This gas is a 
 kind of necessary food to flaming and burning bodies ; so 
 that, were it absent from the earth's atmosphere, neither light 
 nor heat could be produced from coal, wood, or other com- 
 bustible substances. 
 
 But the proportion, also, in which oxygen is present in the 
 air is adjusted to the existing condition of things. Did the 
 atmosphere consist of oxygen only, the lives of animals would 
 be of most brief duration, and bodies once set on fire would 
 bum BO fast as to be absolutely beyond control. The oxygen 
 is therefore mixed with a large proportion of nitrogen. This 
 gas, not being poisonous, as carbonic acid is, harmlessly dUutes 
 the too active oxygen. It weakens and prolongs its action 
 on the system as water dilutes wine or spirits, and assuages 
 its too fiery influence upon the animal frame. 
 
 Then, as to the carbonic acid — 
 
 Every green leaf that waves on field or tree sucks in, during 
 the sunshine, this gas from the air, but only in the day-time ; 
 during the night the action ceases. Two processes do in- 
 deed occur during the day, but then the exhalation of oxygen 
 fe,r exceeds its absorption. In the night the reverse process 
 only takes place, though but to a very slight extent, a little 
 carbonic acid being exhaled, and oxygen sucked in. But 
 very young leaves, shoots, and flowers exhale nothing but 
 carbonic acid, and consequently actually vitiate the atmosphere 
 like animals, by throwing carbonic acid into it and drawing 
 oxygen from it. Carbonic acid is as indispensable to the life 
 of the plant as oxygen is to the life of the animal. Eemove 
 carbonic acid from the air, and all vegetable growth would 
 cease. It must therefore be a necessary constituent of the 
 atmosphere of our earth. 
 
 But carbonic acid is poisonous to animals ; not, as is usually 
 said, because it is in itself a poison, but because, when more 
 than a certain proportion of it exists in the atmosphere, res- 
 
8 THE AIR WE BREATHE. 
 
 piratiou becomes impossible. If carbonic acid be absorbed, or 
 injected into the veins of an animal, no poisonous effect will 
 follow — it will be eliminated in the lungs ; but if, instead of 
 being in the body, the carbonic acid is outside of the body, in 
 the air, then respiration, or the exchange of carbonic acid for 
 oxygen, will not take place, and this will be in effect poison- 
 ous. It is for this reason that the proportion of this gas con- 
 tained in the air is so very small. Were this proportion much 
 greater than it is, animals, as they are now constituted, could 
 not breathe the atmosphere without injury to their health — 
 not even were the amount of oxygen proportionately increased, 
 for respiration is hindered by too much carbonic acid, no less 
 than by too little oxygen.^ On the other hand, that growing 
 
 1 The most remarkable natural example of an atmosphere overloaded with 
 carbonic acid gas is the famous Poison Valley in the island of Java, which is 
 thus described by an eyewitness : — 
 
 " We took with us two dogs and some fowls to try experiments in this pois- 
 onous hollow. On arriving at the foot of the mountain we dismounted and 
 scrambled up the side about a quarter of a mile, holding on by the branches 
 of trees. When within a few yards of the valley we experienced a strong 
 nauseous suffocating smell, but on coming close to its edge this disagreeable 
 odour left us. The valley appeared to be about half a mile in circumference, 
 oval, and the depth from thirty to thirty-five feet ; the bottom quite ilat ; no 
 vegetation ; strewed with some very large (apparently) river stones ; and the 
 whole covered with the skeletons of human beings, tigers, pigs, deer, peacocks, 
 and all sorts of birds. We could not perceive any vapour or any opening in 
 the ground, which last appeared to us to be of a hard sandy substance. It 
 was now proposed by one of the party to enter the valley ; but at the spot 
 where we were this was difficult at least for me, as one false step would have 
 brought us to eternity, seeing no assistance could be given. We lighted our 
 cigars, and, with the assistance of a bamboo, we went down within eighteen 
 feet of the bottom. Here we did not experience any difficulty in breathing, 
 but an offensive nauseous smell annoyed us. We now fastened a dog to the 
 end of a bamboo eighteen feet long, and sent him in : wo had our watches 
 in our hands, and in fourteen seconds he fell on his back, did not move his 
 limbs or look round, but continued to breathe eighteen minutes. We then 
 sent in another, or rather he got loose, and walked in to where the other dog 
 was lying. He then stood quite still, and in ten minutes fell on his face, and 
 never afterwards moved his limbs : he continued to breathe seven minutes. 
 We now tried a fowl, which died in a minute and a half. We threw in another, 
 which died before touching the ground. During these experiments we experi- 
 enced u heavy shower of rain ; but we were so interested by the awful sight 
 before us that we did not care for getting wet. On the opposite side, near a 
 large stone, was the skeleton of a human being, who must have perished on 
 his back, with his right hand under his head. From being exposed to the 
 weather the bones were bleached as white as ivory. I was anxious to procure 
 
USE OF THE WATERY VAPOUB. 9 
 
 plants may be able to obtain a sufficiently large and rapid 
 supply of carbonic acid from a gaseous mixture which contains 
 so little, they are made to hang out their many waving leaves 
 into the atmosphere. Over the surface of these leaves are 
 sprinkled countless pores or mouths, which are employed 
 during the day in separating and drinking in carbonic acid 
 gas. The millions of leaves which a single tree spreads out, 
 and the constant renewal of the moving air in which they are 
 suspended, enable the living plant to draw an abundant sii'p- 
 ply for all its wants from an atmosphere already adjusted to 
 the constitution of living animals.^ 
 
 This constant action of the leaves of plants is one of the 
 natural agencies by which the proportion of carbonic acid in 
 the lower regions of the atmosphere is rendered less than it 
 is in the higher regions. 
 
 So, also, the watery vapour of the atmosphere is not less 
 necessary to the maintenance of life. The living plant con- 
 sists of water to the amount of nearly three-fourths of its 
 whole weight, and from the surface of its leaves water is 
 continually rising during the day into the air in the form of 
 invisible vapour. Were the air absolutely dry, it would cause 
 this water to evaporate from the leaves more rapidly than it 
 could be supplied to them by the soil and roots. Thus they 
 would speedily become flaccid, and the whole plant would 
 droop, wither, and die. 
 
 The living animal in like manner is made up for the most 
 part of water. A man of 154 lb. weight contains about 110 
 lb. of water, and only 44 lb. of dry matter. From his skin 
 and irom his lungs water is continually evaporating. The 
 amount of water thus evaporated is 3 J lb. daily, of which one- 
 third comes from the lungs, and two-thirds from the skin. 
 
 tWa skeletpn, but any attempt to get it would have been madness." — LonBON. 
 The Gi'otta del Cane, near Naples, is a small cavern on the inner side of the 
 rampart of a volcanic crater. Thence a constant stream of carbonic acid pours 
 out, but a man's month is above the level of the deadly gas, though a dog 
 entering the cavern soon becomes insensible. 
 
 1 A common blao-tree, with a million of leaves, has about four hundred 
 thousand millions ot pores or mouths at work, sucking in carbonic acid; and 
 on a single oak-tree as many as seven millions of leaves have been counted. 
 Lindenau calculated that the surface of the lungs of an adult man which is in 
 contact with the air, reaches the enormous extent of two thousand six hundred 
 and forty-two square feet ! 
 
10 THE AIR WE BEEATHE. 
 
 Were the air around him perfectly dry, his skin would become 
 parched and shrivelled, and thirst would oppress his feverish 
 frame. The air which he breathes from his lungs is loaded 
 with moisture. Were that which he draws in entirely free 
 from watery vapour, he would soon breathe out the fluids 
 which fiU up his tissues, and would dry up into a withered 
 and ghastly mummy. A frog kept in an artificially dried 
 atmosphere soon perishes. It is because the simoom and 
 other hot winds of the desert approach to this state of dry- 
 ness, that they are so fatal to those who travel on the arid 
 waste. 
 
 Thus the moisture which the atmosphere contains is also 
 essential to the maintenance of the present condition of both 
 animal and vegetable life : it pervades the leaves and all the 
 tissues of plants, and finds admission to the lungs and gen- 
 eral system of animals. 
 
 There are, besides, other beautiful purposes which this 
 moisture serves. The air when charged with moisture does 
 not permit the heat of the earth to radiate tlirough it into 
 space and so be lost, but offers a greater obstacle to its escape 
 than does dry air. And when the summer sun has sunk be- 
 neath the horizon, and coolness revisits the scorched plant 
 and soil, the grateful dew descends along with it and mois- 
 tens aUke the green leaf and the thirsty land — the invisible 
 moisture of the air thickens into hazy mists, and settles in 
 tiny pearls on every cool thing. How thankful for this 
 nightly dew has nature everywhere and always appeared, 
 and how have poets in every age sung of its beauty and 
 beneficence I 
 
 Let us attend for a moment to the cause of this descent of 
 the dew, and to the way in which it seems to select, as it 
 were, the spots on which it will fall. 
 
 All bodies on the surface of the earth radiate, or throw out 
 rays of heat in straight lines — every warmer body to every 
 colder — and the whole earth itself is continually sending rays 
 of heat upwards through the clear air into free cold space. 
 Thus on the earth's surface all bodies strive, as it were, after 
 an equality of temperature (an equilibrium, of heat), while the 
 surface as a whole tends gradually towards a cooler state. 
 But while the sun shines on any spot this cooling will not 
 take place, for the surface there receives for the time more 
 
HOW DEW FALLS. 11 
 
 heat than it gives off; and, when Ihe s«n goes down, if the 
 clear sky be shut out by a canopy of clouds, these will arrest 
 and again throw back to the earth a portion of the heat which 
 escapes by radiation, and will thus prevent it from being 
 dissipated. At night, then, when the sun is absent, the earth 
 will cool the most — on clear nights also more than when it is 
 cloudy ; and when clouds only partially obscure the sky, 
 those parts will become coolest which look towards the 
 clearest portions of the heavens. 
 
 Again, the quantity of vapour which the air is capable of 
 holding in suspension is dependent upon its temperature. 
 At high temperatures, in warm climates, or in warm weather, 
 it can sustain more — at low temperatures, or in cold weather, 
 less. Hence, when a current of comparatively warm air, 
 loaded with moisture, ascends to, or comes in contact with, 
 a cold mountain-top, it is cooled down, is rendered incapable 
 of holding the whole of the vapour in suspension, and there- 
 fore leaves behind, in the form of a mist or cloud encap- 
 ping the lofty summit, a portion of its watery burden. The 
 aqueous particles which float in this mist appear again on the 
 plains below, in the form of streams or springs, which bring 
 nourishment at once, and a grateful relief to the thirsty soil. 
 
 So, when the surface cools by radiation, the air in contact 
 with it must cool also ; and, like the warm currents on the 
 mountain-side, must forsake a portion of the watery vapour 
 it has hitherto retained. This water, Hke the floating mist 
 on the hills, descends in particles almost infinitely minute. 
 These particles collect on every leaflet, and suspend them- 
 selves from every blade of grass in drops of " pearly dew." 
 
 And mark here a beautiful adaptation. Different sub- 
 stances are endowed with the property of radiating their 
 heat, and of thus becoming cool, with different degrees of 
 rapidity. Those substances which in the air become cool 
 first must also attract first, and most abundantly, the par- 
 ticles of falling dew. Thus, in the cool of a summer's evening 
 the grass-plot is wet, while the gravel-walk is dry ; and the 
 thirsty pasture and every green leaf are drinking in the 
 descending moistxu-e, while the naked land and the barren 
 highway are stiU unconscious of its fall. 
 
 And from the same atmospheric store of watery vapour 
 come the refreshing showers which descend in our temper- 
 
12 THE AIK WE BREATHE. 
 
 ate zone, and the rui^hing rains which fall in torrents within 
 the tropical regions — only the mode in which they are made 
 to descend is somewhat different. 
 
 In the upper regions of the atmosphere currents of cold air 
 are continually rushing from the north, and currents of warm 
 air from the south. Wlien two such currents of unequal 
 temperature, each loaded with moisture, meet in the atmo- 
 sphere, they mix, and the mixture has the mean temperature 
 of the two ; but air of this mean temperature is incapable of 
 holding in suspension the mean quantity of watery vapour 
 contained in the two currents. Hence, as on the mountain- 
 side, a cloud is formed, and the excess of moisture, collecting 
 into drops, falls to the earth in the form of rain. 
 
 When we consider how small a proportion of watery vapour 
 exists in the air — that were -it all to come down at once over 
 the whole earth, it would cover the surface only to a depth of 
 5 inches — we cannot think without amazement of the vast 
 and continuous effects it produces. The quantity of rain . 
 which falls yearly on our Islands would cover them, were it 
 all to fall at once, to a depth of from 25 to 30 inches ; and, 
 except the table-land of central Spain, there are few places in 
 western Europe where the depth of yearly rain is less than 
 20 inches. And all this rain descends from an atmosphere 
 which does not contain more, probably, at any one time, than 
 falls yearly in dew alone over the whole earth.^ 
 
 In descending, also, this rain discharges another office : it 
 washes-the air as that passes through it, cleansing it from dust 
 and organic particles, and dissolving and carrying down those 
 accidental vapours which, though unessential or even un- 
 wholesome to man, are yet fitted to assist the growth of 
 plants. It thus ministers in another double manner to our 
 health and comfort, purifying the air we breathe, and feeding 
 the plants on which we Uve. 
 
 As soon, again, as the rain ceases to fall, and the clear sky 
 permits the sun's rays once more to warm the surface of the 
 earth, vapours begin to rise anew, and the sweeping winds 
 
 1 How, among the hills in tropical countries, the rain really rushes down 
 may be infen-ed from the fact, that among the Khassaya hills, north of Cal- 
 cutta, the yearly fall of rain amounts to 610 inches (50 feet), of which 550 fall 
 in the six rainy months, beginning in May. As much as 25i inches have beeu 
 observed to fall in a single day. 
 
MINOR CONSTITUENTS OF AIR. 13 
 
 dry up the rains and dews from its moigtened surface. The 
 rapidity of evaporation depends also upon the dryness of the 
 air : this is so great during the hot winds of the East that 
 drops of water vanish as if by magic. There are regions of 
 the globe, also, where unending summer plays on the surface 
 of the wide seas, and causes a perpetual evaporation to lift up 
 unceasing supplies of water into the air. These supplies the 
 wind wafts to other regions ; and thus the water which de- 
 scends in rain or dew in one spot, is replaced by tliat which 
 mounts up in vapour from another. — And all this to maintain 
 unbroken that nice adjustment which fits the constitution of 
 the atmosphere to the wants of living things ! 
 
 How beautiful is the arrangement by which wuter is thus 
 constantly evaporated or distilled, as it were, into the atmo- 
 sphere — more largely from some, more sparingly from other 
 spots^then diffused equally through the wide and restless 
 air, and afterwards precipitated again in roliesliing showers 
 which cleanse the tainted air, or in long -mysterious dews I 
 But how much more beautiful the contrivance — I might 
 almost say the instinctive tendency — by which the dew 
 selects the objects on which it delights to fall ; descending 
 first on every living plant, copiously ministering to the wants 
 of each, and expending only its superfluity on the unproduc- 
 tive waste I 
 
 And equally kind and bountiful, when understoodj Nature 
 is seen to be in all her operations. Neither skill nor materials 
 are ever wasted ; and yet she ungrudgingly dispenses her 
 favours apparently without measure, and has subjected dead 
 matter to laws which compel it to minister, and yet with a 
 most ready willingness, to the wants and comforts of every 
 living thing. 
 
 Four substances, therefore — oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic 
 acid, and watery vapour — are essential to the composition 
 of the atmosphere, and they are adjusted, both in kind and 
 quantity, to the existing condition of things. But besides 
 tiiese, the air contains also many other substances in minute 
 and indefinite proportions. Of these, some are formed in the 
 air itself, some rise in vapour from the surface of the earth, 
 and some ascend from the waters of the sea. 
 
 Of those which are formed in the air itself, two are deserv- 
 ing of especial mention — ozone, and nitric acid. 
 
14 ■ THE AIK WE BREATHE. 
 
 The former of these is merely oxygen gas in what is called 
 a more exalted chemical condition than that in which it 
 usually exists. To comprehend what is meant by a more 
 exalted chemical condition, we must understand that even 
 simple elements exist under very different forms ; thus sul- 
 phur exists as a yellow, crystalline, and brittle substance, 
 soluble in carbon disulpldde and other liquids ; but it also 
 exists as a nou-ciystalline or amorphous and insoluble sub- 
 stance. Carbon is crystalline and opaque in plumbago, 
 crystalline and transparent in diamond, formless and black 
 in soot. Similarly, oxygen may be passive, as in the air ; 
 and active, as in the form of ozone. These differences of 
 state are known to chemists as AUotropism. Ozone is an 
 allotropic condition of oxygen. It received this name irom 
 the powerful odour which characterises it. Into this con- 
 dition it is brought by the action of a discharge of electricity, 
 and possibly by other agencies. In this form it acts upon, 
 and combines more readily with, all other substances. Among 
 the other useful purposes it is supposed to serve, I mention 
 the oxidation — that is, the combination with oxygen — of the 
 organic, often noxious, substances which rise into the atmo- 
 sphere, and of those vegetable and other compounds in the 
 soil, upon which depend its general fertility, and the abun- 
 dant production of the food of plants. Ozone possesses con- 
 siderablS power of bleaching ; and when iron or copper is 
 moistened, it absorbs the ozone from the atmosphere, and 
 becomes oxidised, or rusted, at its surface. A proof of the 
 exalted chemical condition in which oxygen exists when under 
 the form of ozone, is seen in the fact that it oxidises silver ; 
 whereas oxygen, under the ordinary form in which it exists 
 in the air, has no influence on silver. 
 
 Ozone (or else a substance known as peroxide of hydrogen 
 and having many of the properties of ozone) is probably 
 never absent from the atmosphere ; but it is always present 
 in a proportion too minute to admit of being determined 
 either by weight or by measure. It is more abundant in 
 winter, on the tops of mountains, and after a storm has 
 purified the air. It is probably more serviceable to us than 
 we are yet aware of. 
 
 Nitric acid, the other important substance I have mentioned 
 as being formed in the air, is probably more abundant than 
 
MINOR CONSTITUENTS OF AIR. 15 
 
 ozone. It is commonly known by the name of aquafortis, 
 and consists of nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen. Every flash 
 of lightning which darts across the sky, every electric spark, 
 great or small, which in any other form passes through the 
 air, causes a minute proportion of nitrogen and oxygen along 
 the line of its course, to unite together, and, with water, to pro- 
 duce nitric acid. And as this jmssage of electricity through 
 the air is frequent almost everywhere, and in the tropical 
 regions is distinctly visible nearly every day of the year, I 
 am inclined to regard this acid as a constant constituent of 
 atmospheric air. Whether it is essential or indispensable to 
 the present condition of things, we have not as yet the means 
 of determining ; but it has been ascertained by actual experi- 
 ment that this acid is at least very frequently present in the 
 air, even of European countries ; and falling rain is sometimes 
 actually sour from the quantity of nitric acid it contains. 
 This acid is very favourable to vegetable growth — and is, 
 indeed, one of the substances which the falling rains and 
 dews are appointed to wash out of the air, and in doing so to 
 bring down to plants a valuable form of food, which is thus 
 daily prepared for them among the winds of heaven. On an 
 average about 2 lb. of nitric acid annually fall upon each acre 
 in Europe. 
 
 From the surface of the earth, again, there arise continually 
 into the air vapours and gases of various kinds. The vege- 
 table and animal bodies which undergo decay in manifold cir- 
 cumstances, and the numerous substances A\liich are burned 
 in the air, all produce chemical compounds, which, being 
 volatile or gaseous, ascend and mingle with the atmosphere. 
 Some of these, like ammonia and sulphuretted hydrogen, are 
 perceptible to the smeU, while others e^re altogether inappre- 
 ciable by the senses. The steaming marsh also, beneath the 
 summer's sun, sends forth fatal miasms which prostrate the 
 body in fever, though neither tlie senses can perceive, nor our 
 more refined chemical tests as yet detect, their presence ; 
 living volcanoes likewise belch forth their vapours ; and a 
 thousand chemical operations, natural and artificial, pour out 
 their fetid steams and volatile exhalations. All tliese ascend 
 from the earth, are caught by the winds, wafted more or less 
 speedily from their birthplace, and mingle with the general 
 air. Thus the atmosphere must contain accidental substances 
 
16 THE AIR WE BKEATHE. 
 
 almost without end, which are not essential to its constitution, 
 and which rise into the aerial sea because of their lightness, 
 just as liquid impurities spontaneously flow, or solid impuri- 
 ties are washed down by the rivers into the waters of the 
 great ocean. 
 
 Of these substances which thus ascend from the earth in 
 the form of gas, ammonia deserves especial notice, because of 
 the important function which some agricultural writers have 
 ascribed to it in reference to vegetable growth. This gas, 
 which is familiar to every one in the smeU of common harts- 
 horn, is formed during the putrefaction of animal and vege- 
 table substances in the presence of water and air, and is the 
 principal cause of the smell which heaps of such putrefying 
 matters give off. It is continually rising, therefore, into the 
 atmosphere from many parts of the earth's surface. It has 
 consequently been found in' very minute quantity in the air 
 where it has been sought for. Some therefore deem it an 
 essential constituent of our air. In this respect, however, it 
 must be distinguished from nitric acid, which we know to be 
 produced in the atmosphere itseK by purely physical causes, 
 and to be altogether independent, so far as its occurrence in 
 the atmosphere is concerned, of the previous existence of life. 
 It is possible that ammonia may be so produced also ; indeed 
 it would seem that when pure hydrogen, and substances con- 
 taining hydrogen, are burnt in the air, traces of nitrite of 
 ammonia are formed. Perhaps we shall have to acknowledge 
 ammonia as an essential constituent of the atmosphere, and 
 to discover in its existence, and constant reproduction there, 
 a wise provision for the maintenance of vegetable growth. 
 
 Further, from the ever-moving sea, the winds which raise 
 it into rolling waves, and lash it into foam, sweep upwards 
 the light spray, and mingle it with the rushing air. Thus, 
 far inland and over high mountains, the salty particles are 
 carried, and thus a part of aU the constituents of sea-water is 
 mingled with the tmiversal atmosphere. Hence the host of 
 foreign substances which must float around us, commingled 
 with those which we know to be absolutely necessary to the 
 maintenance of animal and vegetable life, is almost inconceiv- 
 able. Every gallon of rain-water that falls in England con- 
 tains on the average half a grain of the salts of the sea. Once, 
 during a storm, not less than 6J grains of common salt were 
 
EAIN CLEANSES THE AIR. 1^ 
 
 found in each gallon of rain-water that fell at Cirencester, 
 Gloucestershire. This salt had come in sea-spray driven by 
 the wind 35 miles from the Bristol Channel. 
 
 The accumulation of all these foreign matters^ in the air 
 would, in course of time, render it unwholesome* to animal 
 life — perhaps unfit for the healthy development even of vege- 
 table forms. But the waters of heaven, as I have described, 
 ascend and descend continually to wash and purify it : they 
 serve as a natural conservative check. They sa-ub the at- 
 mosphere. 
 
 Thus, simple as the air appears, its scientific history as a 
 whole is somewhat complicated. The adjustment of its con- 
 stituents involves many interesting particulars, and the ar- 
 rangements by which the constant presence of its essential 
 constituents is secured, both in kind and quantity, are very- 
 numerous ; yet we cannot fail to perceive both a physical 
 beauty and a wise contrivance in them all. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE WATER WE DKINK. 
 
 Importance of water in nature. — Composition of water.— Hydrogen gas ; how 
 prepared; tlie lightest of known substances, and an inflammable gas; 
 exists in nearly all combustible substances; is always conTerted into 
 water when these substances are burned. — In water hydrogen is combined 
 with oxygen. — What is meant by a chemical combination. — Water with- 
 out taste and smell ; importance of this. — Cooling property of water. — 
 Belation of water to other liquids. — It dissolves many solid substances ; 
 hence natural waters never pure. — Quantities of mineral matter in some 
 river, lake, spring, and sea waters. — Composition of the solid matter in sea- 
 water ; in the Thames water at Kew ; and in that of the Kent Water 
 Company. — Lime held in solution in water by carbonic acid. — ^Why cal- 
 careous waters encrust their channels, petrify, and deposit sediments in 
 boilers. — Impurity of spring waters in large towns, about farmhouses, and 
 near graveyards. — Well-waters in the dunes of Bordeaux ; their analogy to 
 the waters of Marah. — Water absorbs its own bulk of carbonic acid at all 
 pressures. — How this explains the liveliness of champagne and soda-water, 
 the bursting of bottles, the briskness and deadness of beer, &c. — Excess of 
 oxygen in the air contained in water ; importance of this to the life of 
 fishes. — More oxygen near the siirfaoe of the sea. — Why air obtained from 
 snow contains less oxygen than the atmosphere. 
 
 The water we drink is next iii importance to the air we 
 breathe. It forms three-fourths of the weight of living ani- 
 mals and plants, is the most abundant compound substance 
 we meet with on the face of the earth, and covers, to an un- 
 known depth, at least three-fourths of its entire surface. 
 
 Pure water consists of two simple or elementary sub- 
 tances,! oxygen and hydrogen. The former of these exists 
 
 ' By simple or elementary substances, chemists understand such as cannot 
 by any known means be resolved or split up into more than one constituent : 
 
LIGHTNESS OF HYDROGEN GAS. 19 
 
 also in common air, and has been described in tlie previous 
 chapter. 
 
 Hydrogen is a kind of air or gas which, when pure, is 
 without colour, taste, or smelL It differs, however, from all 
 the three gases (oxygen, nitrogen, and carbonic acid) de- 
 scribed in the preceding chapter ; first, in being far lighter 
 than any of them — indeed the lightest of all known sub- 
 stances ; and, second, in taking fire, and burning in the air 
 when a lighted taper is brought near it. 
 
 It is readily prepared by putting a few pieces of metallic 
 zinc or iron into a bottle or flask, and pouring over them a 
 quantity of oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid) diluted with twice 
 its weight of water. When a sufficient quantity of the gas 
 has been produced to drive out all the common air from the 
 bottle, a gas jet-bumer, or a bit of glass tube, or of a tobacco 
 pipe thrust through a cork, may be put into the mouth of the 
 bottle, when a jet of gas will issue which may be lighted by 
 a taper. It burns with a very pale flame. When a perfectly 
 dry, cool, glass tumbler or bottle is held over the flame dew 
 will be seen to condense on the inner side of the glass, 
 and will gradually collect into little visible globules, and 
 finally trickle down in the form of drops of pure water. This 
 water is formed by the burning of the hydrogen from the 
 bottle in the oxygen of the air. During this burning it com- 
 bines with the oxygen, and water is produced. The extreme 
 lightness of the hydrogen may be shown by extinguishing 
 the gas, and causing it to ascend into a small empty balloon 
 of gold-beater's skin or of collodion, tied to the jet. When 
 the balloon is full of gas it will readily ascend, showing not 
 only that the hydrogen is lighter than common air, but that 
 it is so much lighter as to be able to raise heavy bodies 
 through the air along with it. It is to the lightness of this 
 gas that we owe the power of travelling through the air in 
 ordinary balloons. 
 
 Hydrogen exists in a great many other substances besides 
 water — in bituminous coal, in wood, in oils and fats, in coal- 
 gas, and in nearly all combustible substances ; but whenever 
 it is completely burned in the air, water is formed by its 
 
 sulphur, phosphorus, gold, silver, iron, &o., are examples of such simple 
 substances, 65 elements are known, but not more than 14 form an essential 
 part of all plants and animals. 
 
20 THE WATER WE DRINK. 
 
 union with oxygen, as in the burning of the simple jet above 
 described. Thus, in nearly all cases of combustion, water is 
 one of the substances produced, though it generally rises into 
 the air in the form of invisible vapour. 
 
 Water thus formed consists of oxygen and hydrogen, in the 
 proportions by weight of — 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Oxygen 16 or 88.89 
 
 Hydrogen, 2 „ 11.11 
 
 18 „ 100.00 
 
 — or every 9 lb. of pure water contain 8 lb. of oxygen and 1 lb. 
 of hydrogen ; and it is called in chemical language protoxide of 
 hydrogen. The water with which we are familiar in common 
 life, always and everywhere out of the laboratory, contains 
 some admixture of earthy and alkaline salts, organic particles, 
 and dissolved gases. 
 
 In atmospheric air, as we have seen, there are at least four 
 substances present which are essential to its existence. But 
 between air and water there is this important chemical dis- 
 tinction, that in the former the constituents are merely mixed 
 together, while in the latter they are chemically combined. 
 When nitrogen and oxygen are mixed together to form com- 
 mon air, each of them retains its gaseous form, and aU its 
 properties unaltered ; but when hydrogen and oxygen are 
 combined to form water, they severally lose both their origi- 
 nal gaseous form, and all their distinctive properties, physi- 
 cal and chemical. Water is not light, like hydrogen, nor 
 will it bum as that gas does ; neither will ordinary combus- 
 tible bodies bum in it as they do so readily and brilliantly in 
 oxygen gas. 
 
 Now, when bodies combine chemically, they always form a 
 new substance different in its properties' from those which 
 have been employed in producing it ; and, indeed, it is one of 
 the wonders which modem chemistry has made known to us, 
 that hydrogen, which bums so readily, should form so large 
 a part of water, our great extinguisher of flame ; and that 
 oxygen, so indispensable to animal hfe, should form eight- 
 ninths of a Hquid in which few terrestrial animals can live for 
 more than three or four seconds of time. 
 
 That water is indispensable to animal and vegetable life 
 
Missing Page 
 
22 • THE WATEK WE DEINK. 
 
 arises from the circumstance, that it takes more heat to give 
 a sensible warmth to water than to an equal weight of any- 
 other common substance. Thus the same quantity of heat 
 which is required to raise the temperature of 1 lb. of water a 
 single degree (from 60° to 61° for example), would give an 
 equal increase of temperature to 30 lb. of quicksilver ; and so, 
 again, to convert water into vapour, requires more heat than 
 an equal weight of any other common liquid such as ether or 
 spirit of wine. Hence, when water evaporates from the skin, 
 it serves as a constant cooler of the surface ; while the vapour 
 which escapes with the breath, cools equally the interior of 
 the body. It is really very interesting to observe how the 
 great capacity of liquid water for heat makes it so gratefully 
 cooling as it enters the body ; and how its stiU greater capa- 
 city for heat, when passing from the liquid state to the state 
 of vapour or steam, enables it so constantly to bear away from 
 us the heat of fever, as it escapes from our bodies in the form 
 of insensible vapour. 
 
 3°. But the peculiar composition of water enables it to pro- 
 vide all plants, and indeed all animals, with a most important 
 part of their very substance. It not only carries food into 
 the plant, but also constitutes a veritable part of the products 
 which the plant forms and of which it is built up. The same 
 is true of animals. 
 
 4°. Further, pure water possesses the property of mixing 
 with some other fluids, such as alcohol (strong spirits) in 
 all proportions, merely weakening or diluting their strength. 
 With others, again — as with oil — it refuses to mingle. Solid 
 substances it has the property of dissolving ; and upon this 
 property depend many of the most useful purposes served by 
 water, in reference both to animal and vegetable life. 
 
 If a piece of sugar and a piece of glass be put together into 
 a quantity of water, the former will dissolve and disappear, 
 while the latter will remain for any length of time in the 
 water practically unaltered in form or in weight. Water does 
 not dissolve all bodies therefore. Sugar is soluble, glass 
 insoluble, in this liquid. 
 
 Again, if into two equal quantities of water we introduce 
 loaf-sugar and common salt — the sugar into the one and the 
 salt into the other — as long as they are respectively^flissolved 
 and disappear, we shall see that 1 lb. of cold water will dis- 
 
■WATER NEVER PURE IN NATURE. 23 
 
 solve perhaps 3 lb. of sugar, forming a thick syrup, while it 
 wiU dissolve 4 oz. only of common salt. Thus, of those sub- 
 stances which dissolve in water, some are much more soluble 
 — disappear, that is, in larger quantity — than others. 
 
 In nature, as we have said before, water is never found 
 chemically pure : that which descends in rain is contaminated 
 by the impurities it washes out of the air ; that which rises in 
 springs, by the substances it meets with in the earth itself. 
 In rivers the impurity of the water is frequently visible to the 
 eye. It is often of a red colour as it flows through rocks of 
 red marl which contain much oxide of iron in their composi- 
 tion ; it descends milky from the glaciers of Iceland and the 
 slopes of the Andes, because of the white earth it holds in 
 suspension ; it is often grey or brown in our muddiest English 
 rivers ; it is always brown where it issues from boggy lakes, 
 or runs across a peaty country ; it is sometimes black to tlie 
 eye when the quantity of vegetable matter is excessive, as 
 in the Rio Negro of South America ; and it is green in the 
 Geysers of Iceland, in the Swiss lakes, among the islands of 
 the South Sea, and around our own Islands, because of Ihe 
 yellow matters which it everywhere holds in suspension or 
 in solution. Only in clear and deep waters — like those of 
 the Bay of Naples, and in parts of the Pacific, where minute 
 objects may be seen on the bottom some hundreds of feet 
 down — is the real blue colour natural to water, in largo 
 masses, distinctly perceptible. This is tlie blue which is 
 seen in the azure grotto of the Isle of Capri, and in the deep 
 indigo-like waters of some parts of the Mediterranean and 
 Adriatic seas. 
 
 But among the rocky and other materials which water 
 meets with in , and upon the earth, there are many which it 
 can dissolve, as it does salt and sugar, and the presence of 
 which cannot bo detected by the sense of sight. Hence tJie 
 clearest and brightest of waters — those of springs and trans- 
 parent rivers, even when filtered — are never chemically pure ; 
 they aU contain in solution a greater or less quantity of saline 
 matter, sometimes so much as to give them a decided taste, 
 and to form what are hence called mineral waters. 
 
 Among the purest natural waters hitherto examined is that 
 of the. river Loka, in the north of Sweden, which flows over 
 hard impenetrable granite and other rocks, upon which water 
 3 
 
24 THE ■WATER WE DRINK. 
 
 produces little impression. It contains only ^th of a grain 
 (0.0566) of solid mineral matter in the imperial gallon. Some 
 waters in the granite regions of the north of Scotland, and 
 even some springs which rise through the greensand in 
 Surrey, contain as little as 4 or 5 grains in the gallon. The 
 water which is supplied to the city of Edinburgh contains 7 
 to 14 grains in the gallon, ^ that of Loch Katrine as delivered 
 in Glasgow about 3, and that of the Thames, near London, 
 about 21. These are comparatively pure waters, and are very 
 good for general consumption. That of the river Wear, which 
 supplies the city of Durham, contain^ 15 J grains in the gallon, 
 and is still a good water for domestic use. That which is 
 used in the town of Sunderland, and is obtained from the 
 lower new red sandstone, contains 27 grains in the gallon. 
 Some of the other waters supplied to and used in London 
 and its neighbourhood, and which are not derived from the 
 Thames, contain — ■ 
 
 Water Companies. 
 
 New River, ...... lOJ grs. in the gallon. 
 
 East London, 23J „ „ 
 
 ^ent, 29| „ 
 
 Other drinking-waters contain more than these. Some 
 which are in constant use contain twice as much — even the 
 waters of the holy Jordan contain 73 grains to the gallon — 
 but generally, in the waters of average purity which are em- 
 ployed for domestic purposes, there are not present more than 
 from 20 to 30 grains of solid matter in the imperial gallon. 
 This is not a large amount when stated in the convenient 
 form of a percentage, for 20 grains of solid matter in an im- 
 perial gallon of water corresponds to the presence of no more 
 than .029 of a per cent. Some important lake and river waters 
 are here given : — 
 
 Grains per gallon. 
 Boston (U.S.) "Water-works 1.22 
 
 Charles River, Massachusetts, 
 Bala Lake, .... 
 Loch Katrine, 
 
 Thirlmere, .... 
 Schuylkill River, Philadelphia, 
 Detroit River, Michigan, 
 
 1.67 
 1.95 
 l.SB 
 
 4.2C 
 6.72 
 
 1 This is 10 to 20 parts by weight in 100,000 of the waters-a gallon'of pure 
 water at 60° Pahr. weighing 70,000 grains. 
 
SALINE MATTER IN DIFFERENT WATERS. 25 
 
 Giains per gallon. 
 
 Ohio, at Cincinnati, 6.7« 
 
 Spree, at Berlin, 7.98 
 
 Loire, at Orleans 9.38 
 
 Danube, near Vienna, 9.87 
 
 Lake of Geneva lO.M' 
 
 The nature of the drinking-water supplied to 107 of our 
 seaside resorts in England and Wales has been carefiilly 
 examined by Wigner.^ The softest water is that of Ply- 
 mouth, which shows less than 3 grains of total solid matter 
 per gallon and but ^ a degree of hardness. ^ The most saline 
 water amongst the public supplies was that of Walton-on-the- 
 Nazo, which showed the following results on analysis : — 
 
 Grains per gallon. 
 
 Total solids 228.8 
 
 Common salt 182.9 
 
 Its hardness was nearly 21 degrees. But a private well- 
 supply in a hotel at Filey showed no less than 64 degrees, 
 and was otherwise so impure with really dangerous and oflfen- 
 sive animal matters as to be no better than filtered sewage. 
 The chief results of the inquiry may be briefly summarised 
 thus : — 
 
 Number of places. QuMity of Water. Residents. Visitors. 
 
 53 First-class (good) 450,000 1,300,000 
 
 84 Second-class (doubtful) 260,000 360,000 
 
 S Third-class (bad) 60,000 40,000 
 
 In 16 of the above cases the public water-supply is supple- 
 mented by private or public wells, many of suspicious or 
 dangerous character. But there are 15 watering-places which 
 have no public supply, and in 1 1 of these the weU-waters are 
 decidedly bad. 
 
 Generally speaking, rain-water which falls in remote 
 country districts is the purest ; then comes river-water ; next, 
 the water of lakes ; after these, common spring waters ; and 
 then the water of mineral springs. The waters of the Black 
 Sea, and the Sea of Azof, which are only brackish, follow 
 next ; then those of the great ocean ; then those of the 
 Mediterranean, an inland sea ; and last of aU come those of 
 lakes which, like the Dead Sea, and Lake Aral, possess no 
 known outlet, and contain as much as 24 per cent of salt. 
 
 1 Seaside Water. G. W. Wigner. 1878. 
 
 * For an explanation of this term see further on, p. 28. 
 
Mediterranean (Venice), . 2.91 
 
 Do. (Marseilles), 4.07 
 
 German Ocean (Havre), . 3.27 
 
 Dead Sea, .... 24.05 
 
 26 THE WATER WE DSINK, 
 
 Tke following table shows the percentage of total salts or 
 soHd dissolved matters in various sea-waters : — 
 
 Black Sea, Crimea, . . .18 
 
 Caspian Sea, near Pishnoi, .63 
 
 Sea of Azof, . . . 1.19 
 
 Baltic, .... 1.77 
 
 All the solid matter which the rivers carry into the sea 
 remains there, while the water which brings it is continually 
 rising again in vapour. This vapour, as we have Been, 
 descends in the form of rain on the interior of continents, 
 and there dissolves, and thence carries down new supplies 
 of mineral matter to the sea. In this way saline matter has 
 accumulated in the ocean till its waters have become briny 
 and bitter to the taste. In the same way, also, it has ac- 
 cumulated in the Aral Lake and Dead Sea — the more rapid 
 evaporation and the unfrequent rains having aided in making 
 these inland waters so much Baiter than those of the great 
 oceans. The waters of the great ocean, and its branches, 
 contain from 2200 to 2800 grains of saline matter iu the 
 gallon ; those of the Dead Sea in some places 11,000 ; ia 
 others, as much as 21,000 grains, or one-fourth part of their 
 whole weight. Those of a small lake east of the steppes of 
 the Wolga, contain as much as three-fifths of their weight of 
 saline matter. It wiU. perhaps convey an idea of the pro- 
 digious amount of salts contained in the ocean, if we mention 
 that, assuming the correctness of Humboldt's measurement of 
 the depth to be an average of 900 feet. Professor Schafhaiitl, 
 of Munich, has calculated the entire quantity of salts at 4| 
 millions of cubic miles, of which our ordinary table-salt forms 
 DO less than 3,051,342 cubic miles. If the whole Alpine 
 range of mountains were crumbled to powder, and dissolved 
 in water, it would only form a fifth of this enormous quantity 
 of salts. And if, instead of Humboldt's average of 900 feet, 
 we calculate on the basis of Laplace's measurement, which is 
 3000 feet, the whole range of the Himalaya mountains would 
 not form much more than a third of the solid matters thus dis- 
 solved in searwater. 
 
 Common salt is the most abundant kind of saline matter 
 
 which occurs in sea-water ; but it contains also the chlorides 
 
 of calcium and magnesium,^ and some other salts, in con- 
 
 1 Chlorim is a greenish-yellow gas, which comMnes with metals and foims 
 
COMPOSITION OF SEA-WATER. 27 
 
 siderable proportion. One examination of sea-water has been 
 made by Eiegel. His sample, taken off the coast of Havre, 
 contained, in 1000 parts by weight, 31J parts of solid matter 
 (2250 grains in the gallon), consisting of — 
 
 Chloride of sodium (common salt)/ . . . 24.632 
 
 Chloride of potassium 0.307 
 
 Chloride of calcium, 0.439 
 
 Chloride of magnesium, 2.664 
 
 Bromide of magnesium, 0.147 
 
 Sulphate of lime (gypsum) 1.097 
 
 Sulphateof magnesia^ (Epsom salts), . ■ «• 2.146 
 
 Carbonate of lime (chalk), 0.176 
 
 Carbonate of magnesia, 0.078 
 
 81.586 
 The reader will observe that, next to common salt, the 
 cnmpounds of magnesia are most abundant in sea -water. 
 The same is the case with the waters of the Dead Sea and 
 other very salt lakes, and to this they chiefly owe their acrid 
 bitter taste. 
 
 Besides the substances above named, traces of phosphate 
 of lime, of silica, of the oxides of iron and manganese, of 
 fluorine, and even of lead, copper, silver, gold, and arsenic, 
 have been detected in sea -water. Although only traces of 
 iodine can be detected, yet we know that sea-weeds contain 
 largo quantities of it, and they must abstract it from the 
 water. Indeed, we know that, being the common reservoir 
 into which all soluble substances are washed down by the 
 rains and rivers, we ought to find in the sea traces of all the 
 soluble substances which are capable of existing together in 
 the same solution. Searwater also contains dissolved g^ses, 
 carbonic acid, for example, being present to the extent of 
 from 4 to 7 parts by weight in 100,000. Sea-water is, of 
 course, heavier than river-water ; its specific gravity varies 
 from 1024 to 1028. 
 
 Even the spring and river waters employed for domestic 
 purposes often contain a considerable variety of substances. 
 Thus the wuter of the Thames, taken at Kew by the Grand 
 Junction Water Company, and that supplied to London by 
 
 chlorides; bromine, a darlc-red liquid, forms bromides; iodine, a lead-grey 
 solid, forms iodides. 
 
 ' Sulphuric acid, or oil of vitriol, uniting vrith lime, magnesia, soda, &c., 
 forms sulphates and water. 
 
28 TKE WATER WE DEINK. 
 
 the Kent Water Company, contain respectively, in an imperial 
 gallon — 
 
 Thames Kent 
 
 water. Water Company. 
 
 10.90 grs. 7.02 grs. 
 
 Carbonate of lime (chalk), 
 Sulphate of lime (gypsum), •. 
 Nitrate of lime, 
 Carbonate of magnesia, , 
 Chloride of sodium (common salt), 
 Sulphate of soda, . 
 Chloride of potassium, . 
 Sulphate of pota|fi, 
 
 SUica, 
 
 Iron, alumina, and phosphates. 
 
 Organic matter, with a trace of ammonia, 3.07 „ 2.61 
 
 3.26 „ 11.03 
 
 trace 0.07 , 
 
 1.17 „ 3.42 , 
 
 1.40 „ 3.50 , 
 
 0.18 „ - 
 
 — 0.44 , 
 
 0.61 „ 0.70 , 
 
 0.45 „ • 0.76 , 
 
 0.67 „ trace 
 
 21.71 „ 29.55 „ 
 
 Lime, in combination with carbonic acid (carbonate), and 
 with sulphnrio acid (sulphate), is the most abundant substance 
 in these two waters. Indeed it very often exists in large 
 quantity, especially in spring-waters ; and it is chiefly to the 
 lime and magnesia they contain, that what are called hard 
 waters owe their property of curdling with soap. Pure waters 
 are always soft ; and when a water is tolerably soft, it may be 
 inferred that it does not contain any large proportion of lime 
 or magnesia. 
 
 Waters which contain much lime are often bright and spark- 
 ling to the eye, and agreeably sweet to the taste. They 
 generally become somewhat miUiy when boUed, and leave a 
 sediment, which incrusts the inside of kettles or boilers. When 
 strongly impregnated with Hme, they will even deposit a 
 calcareous coating along their channels as they flow in the 
 open air, or will incrust, or petrify, as it is called, any solid 
 substances which are immersed in them. These circumstances 
 are owing to the peculiar way in which the lime is held in 
 solution. 
 
 We have already seen that, if a current of carbonic acid (a 
 gas which contains one combining proportion of carbon weigh- 
 ing 12, united with two combining proportions of oxygen 
 each weighing 16) te made to pass through limS-water, 
 the transparent liquid will become at first milky, from the 
 formation of carbonate of lime, which remains suspended in 
 the form of a very fine powder ; but if the current of carbonic 
 acid be continued, the milkiness will gradually disappear, the 
 
HOW TO SOFTEN HAKD WATEH. 29 
 
 carbonate of lime will be redissolved, and the liquid will again 
 become clear. The carbonate of lime is held in solution by 
 an excess of carbonic acid. 
 
 If, now, the clear solution be poured from one vessel to 
 another for a number of times, it will gradually give off this 
 excess of carbonic acid into the air, and become milky again. 
 This is what happens when calcareous springs incrust the 
 sides of their channels, as in Auvergne, or at Matlock and 
 Knaresborough in our own country. Or if a coin or other 
 solid substance be introduced into the solution, bubbles of 
 carbonic acid gas will gradually be given off, and the coin or 
 substance will become inorusted with lime — the carbonate of 
 lime which falls. This is exactly what takes place in a 
 petrifying well. Or if the solution be heated over the tire, 
 the excess of carbonic acid is driven off, the solution be- 
 comes milky as before, and the whole of the lime falls in 
 the form of carbonate, leaving the water nearly pure. The 
 incrustation in our kettles and boilers is chiefly produced in 
 this latter way. Hard waters, therefore, are generally made 
 much softer and purer by boiling. Should much of the lime, 
 however — as in the water supplied hy the Kent Water Com- 
 pany, above noticed — be in the state of gypsum, mere boiling 
 will not alone soften it so far as that ingredient is concemed ; 
 but if a little soda be added to it during the boiling, this will 
 separate the lime of the gypsum also. 
 
 But there is a much better and cheaper process for soften- 
 ing hard water than that of boiling it named above. This is 
 Clark's process, an ingenious plan now carried out on a large 
 scale by the water companies of Canterbury, Tring, the Colne 
 Valley, and Caterham. At Canterbury, 110,000 gallons are 
 softened daily by the addition of 11,000 gallons of lime-water. 
 Thus lime is added to remove Hme. But this puzzle is easily 
 solved. The lime added takes away that excess of carbonic 
 acid which held the carbonate of lime present In the water in 
 solution, both that and the newly formed carbonate falling 
 together. Thus the water is softened and purified. 
 
 As the solvent power of water enables it to take up many 
 substances from the rocks and soils through which it passes, 
 it often happens that, in the neighbourhood of dwellings and 
 farmyards, and especially in towns, the water of wells becomes 
 very impure, and even unwholesome to drink. The rains that 
 
30 THE WATER WE DEINK. 
 
 fall -upon the filth accumulated in towns wash out the sol- 
 uble substances it contains, carry them into the soil, and 
 through this, by degrees, to the wells by which the wants of 
 the inhabitants are supplied. This has often been prodiiotive 
 of serious and fatal disease. It shows, therefore, the pro- 
 priety of preventing, as far as possible, the accumulation of 
 refiise, and, where such accumulation is unavoidable, of plac- 
 ing it at the greatest distance from wells which yield water 
 for daily use. And, especially, it shows the necessity of 
 bringing water from a distance for the supply of large cities. 
 
 The neighbourhood of graveyards is equally fitted, with the 
 accumulation of town refuse, to adulterate water with undesir- 
 able admixtures. The water of a well close to the old church- 
 yard on the top of Highgate HiU. was examined by the late Mr 
 Noad, and found to contain as much as 100 grains of soHd mat- 
 ter to the gallon, 57 grains of which consisted of the nitrates of 
 lime and magnesia. This large amount of nitrates ^ is traced 
 to the neighbouring graveyard, as such compounds are gen- 
 erally produced where animal matters decay in porous soils. 
 A curious fermentation occurs, due probably to a minute 
 organism, which works in the dark, turning ammonia, and 
 indirectly other compounds of nitrogen, into nitrates. WhUe 
 the buried bodies were more recent, animal matters of a more 
 disagreeable kind would probably have been found in the 
 well, as I have myself found them in the water of wells situ- 
 ated in the neighbourhood of farmyards. 
 
 Well-waters sometimes contain vegetable substances also 
 of a peculiar kind, which render them unwholesome, even over 
 large tracts of country. In sandy districts the decaying vege- 
 table matters of the surface-soil are observed to sink down and 
 form an ochrey pan, or thin yeUow layer in the subsoil, which 
 is impervious to water, and through which, therefore, the rains 
 cannot pass. ^ Being arrested by this pan, the rain-water, 
 while it rests upon it, dissolves a certain portion of the vege- 
 table matter ; and when collected into wells, is often dark- 
 coloured, marshy in taste and smell, and unwholesome to 
 dnnk. When boiled, the organic matter coagulates, and when 
 the water cools separates in flocks, leaving the water whole- 
 
 1 The nitrates are formed from nitric acid (aquafortis) combined with lime, 
 magnesia, &c. Saltpetre is nitrate of potash, formed from nitric acid combined 
 with potasli,— and so on. 
 
VEGETABLE IMPURITIES. 31 
 
 some, and nearly free from taste or smell. The same piirifica- 
 tion takes place when the water is filtered through charcoal, 
 or when chips of oak wood are put into it. These properties 
 of being coagulated by boiling, and by the tannin of oak wood, 
 show that the organic matter contained in the water is of an 
 albuminous character, or resembles white of egg. As it 
 coagulates, it not only falls itself, but it carries other impuri- 
 ties along with it, and thus purifies the water — in the same 
 way as the white of egg clarifies wines and other liquors to 
 which it is added. 
 
 Such is the character of the waters in common use in the 
 Landes of the Gironde around Bordeaux,^ and in many other 
 sandy districts. The waters of rivers, and of marshy and 
 swampy places, often contain a similar coagulable substance. 
 Hence the waters of the Seine at Paris are clarified by intro- 
 ducing a morsel of alum, and the river and marshy waters of 
 India by the use of the nuts of the Strychnos potatorum, of 
 which travellers often can-y a supply. One of these nuts, 
 rubbed to powder on the side of the earthen vessel into 
 which the water is to be poured, soon causes the impurities to 
 subside. In Egypt, the muddy water of the Nile is clarified 
 by rubbing bitter almonds on the sides of the water-vessel in 
 the same way. 
 
 In these instances the clarification results irom the iron 
 compounds or the albuminous matter being coagulated by 
 what is added to the water, and in coagulating it embraces 
 the other impurities of the water, and carries them down along 
 with it. Salt, and many saline matters, have likewise the 
 power of clearing many kinds of thick and muddy water. So 
 long as the water contains but little dissolved matter, all its 
 particles of mud remain a long time suspended. But the 
 addition of almost any soluble salt, even in small proportion, 
 will, as it were, curdle the impurities, causing them to collect 
 together and to settle. 
 
 These cases, and especially that of the sandy Landes of 
 Bordeaux, and elsewhere, throw an interesting light upon the 
 history of the waters of Marah, as given in the fifteenth chap- 
 ter of Exodus. 
 
 "So Moses brought Israel from the Eed Sea, and they 
 went out into the wilderness of Shur ; and they went three 
 1 Faurd— Annales de Chem. et de Phys., Septembre 1853, p. 84. 
 
32 THE WATER WE DJJINK. 
 
 days in the wilderness, and found no water. And wlien they 
 came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, 
 for they were bitter : therefore the name of it was called 
 Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, 
 What shall we drink ? And he cried unto the Lord, and the 
 Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the 
 waters, the waters were made sweet." ^ 
 
 As in our European sandy dunes, the waters of the sandy 
 wilderness may contain an albumen-like substance which an 
 astringent plant will coagulate. The discovery of such a' 
 plant among the natural vegetation of the desert would give, 
 therefore, the means of purifying and rendering it wholesome, 
 as cuttings of the oak-tree render salubrious the waters of the 
 Landes of La Gironde. 
 
 5°. Water, also, absorbs or dissolves different kinds of air 
 or gas in different proportions ; and upon this property de- 
 pend some things which are familiar to us in common life, 
 and which, therefore, it may be proper to mention. Thus — 
 
 First, It absorbs at the ordinary temperature about its 
 own bulk of carbonic acid gas — and it does so under every 
 pressure. 
 
 The' meaning of this is explained as follows. We take a 
 strong, tall, glass jar (fig. 1), graduated into five equal divi- 
 FiE 1 sions, and provided with an air-tight piston, p. In- 
 II to this jar we pour pure water up to the fitrst divi- 
 
 II sion (1), fiU up the jar quickly with carbonic acid, 
 
 fit in the piston and shake the jar. The piston wiQ 
 then gradually sink one division (to 4)— that is, 
 the water will dissolve or absorb its own volume 
 of the gas, under the ordinary pressure of the atmo- 
 sphere. But if, the arrangement being as before, 
 we begin the experiment with fresh water and gas, 
 and apply at once to the piston-rod r a pressure 
 equal to another atmosphere — 15 lb. to the square 
 inch — ^the piston will immediately sink two divi- 
 sions (to 3), or the gas wiU be compressed to half 
 its bulk. If the whole be now shaken, the piston will, as at 
 first, gradually sink one division J[to 2). In other words, the 
 water wiU again absorb its own bulk of the gas under this 
 increased pressure. 
 
 1 Exodus, XV. 22-25. 
 
CAEBONIC ACID IN WATERS. 33 
 
 Or, if we apply at once a pressure of three atmospheres^- 
 45 lb., making, with the ordinary atmosphere, four in all, or 
 60 lb. to the inch, which press upon it — the piston will sink 
 at once three divisions (to 2), reducing the gas to one-fourth 
 of its bulk. If, now, the water be agitated, the piston will 
 again gradually sink one division, and the whole gas will dis- 
 appear — that is, the water will again absorb its own bulk of 
 the gas at this new pressure. 
 
 If, now, the applied pressure of 45 lb. be removed, the gas 
 will gradually rise out of the water and force up the piston, 
 till it finally rests, as in the first experiment, at the division 
 No. 4, the water retaining only its own bulk of the gas at the 
 ordinary pressure of one atmosphere, and at the common tem- 
 perature. But the lower the temperature the more gas will 
 be kept in solution. Thus 1 pint of water just at the freez- 
 ing-point will dissolve as much as If pint of carbonic acid 
 gas. . 
 
 It is because of this interesting property that, with the aid 
 of machinery, water can be overcharged with carbonic acid in 
 the soda-water manufactories, and that the gas escapes with 
 so much violence from a sodarwater bottle when the cork is 
 withdrawn. 
 
 But the result is the same whether the carbonic acid ready 
 prepared be forced into the water — as is done by the soda- 
 water maker — or be formed in the bottle itself from substances 
 contained in the water. The latter is the case in all ferment- 
 ing liquors contained in bottles. The carbonic acid is gradu- 
 ally produced in the interior of the bottle during the progress 
 of the chemical change we call fermentation. As fast as it is 
 produced the water dissolves it, the pressure of the gas upon 
 the inner surface of the bottle increasing at the same time. 
 If the bottle be of sufiBoient strength, the only consequence is, 
 that the cork will be forced out if not firmly tied down ; or 
 that, when the cork is withdrawn, the gas will drive out the 
 liquor in its own eagerness to escape.' If the bottle be too 
 weak, it will be burst by the pressure, as often happens with 
 soda-water ; and, sometimes, to thousands of bottles at a 
 time in champagne cellars, this occurring when the internal 
 force of the gas exceeds about seven times that of the pressure 
 of the atmosphere. In other wines, and in beer and porter, 
 especially when well hopped, carbonic acid is produced in 
 
34 THE WATER WE DKINK. 
 
 smaller quantity. But it is to the presence of this gas, dis- 
 solved in this way, that the latter liquors owe their briskness 
 when poured from the bottle, and to the natural escape of the 
 gas that they become flat, stale, or dead, as we say, when 
 they are exposed to the air. 
 
 Water absorbs also the gases, oxygen and nitrogen — of 
 which the atmosphere chiefly consists — but not in the precise 
 proportions in which they exist in the air. We have seen 
 that the air we breathe contains about 21 per cent of oxygen, 
 but in the dissolved air which we can extract from fresh 
 clean lake or river water it exists to the amoimt of 31 to 33 
 per cent. This, among other purposes, is an adaptation to 
 the wants of fishes, and generally of those marine animals 
 which extract the oxygen they require for the support of life, 
 from the water in which they live. They can obtain the 
 necessary supply of this gas more easily from air which con- 
 tains one-third than from air which contains only one-fifth of 
 this vital principle. If proof of this were required, it is found 
 in the observation that, where circumstances have been such 
 as to deprive river-water of a portion of its oxygen, the fish 
 have been found dead in great numbers. 
 
 This tendency of water to dissolve more oxygen, in propor- 
 tion to the nitrogen, than exists in common air, explains 
 another curious circumstance which long puzzled philosophers 
 as well as ordinary people. If a bottle be filled quite fall 
 with snow, be well corked, and then put into a warm room, 
 the snow will melt, and the bottle will be filled, perhaps one- 
 third with water and two-thirds with air. If this air be ex- 
 amined, it will be found to contain less oxygen than atmo- 
 spheric air — sometimes not more than 12 or 14 per cent; 
 while atmospheric air, as we have seen, contains 21 per cent. 
 Hence it was long supposed that the air, always present in 
 snow, naturally contained this small portion of oxygen, and 
 that snow, therefore, possessed some peculiar property of ab- 
 sorbing the gases of the atmosphere in this new proportion. 
 But the explanation is, that the snow, in melting into water, 
 takes up a larger proportionate quantity of the oxygen than 
 it does of the nitrogen of the air which was contained in its 
 pores, and consequently leaves a smaller proportion behind. 
 Snow-water, also, contains a small but variable quantity of 
 ammonia, which is also foimd in rain-water and in dew. 
 
ITS CHAKACTERISTICS. 35 
 
 1 1 Thus the water we drink, like the air we breathe, is a sub- 
 ■tance of much chemical interest. Both are indispensable to 
 "he existence of life ; both are mixed in nature with many 
 substances not essential to their composition ; and both, in 
 their most important properties, exhibit many direct relations 
 to the growth of plants and to the wants and comforts of 
 living animals. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SOIL WE CULTIVATE. 
 
 General origin of soils ; natural differences in their quality ; how they arise. — 
 Stratified and unstratified rocks. — Soils of the stratified rocks. — Improved 
 soils where different rocks intermix. — Soils of the granites, traps, and 
 lavas. — Agency of rains, winds, and vegetable accumulations in producing 
 diversities of soil. — General chemical composition of soils. — Illustrations 
 afforded by the Atlantic border of the United States. — Some plants affect 
 sandy soils, others clay soils, and yet do not always flourish upon them. — 
 Cause of this. — Minute chemical composition of the soil; its mineral and 
 organic parts. — Chemical difference between granite and trap soils. — De- 
 pendence of fertility on chemical composition. — Influence of rain and 
 moisture, and of the degree of warmth, on comparative fertility. — District 
 floras and crops. — Influence of man in modifying geological, chemicsd, 
 and climatic tendencies. — Progress of exhausting culture in new regions ; 
 e.xample of North America. — Reclaiming influences of human exertion; 
 example of Great Britain. 
 
 In immediate importance to man, the soil he cultivates is 
 scarcely inferior to the air he breathes, or the water he drinks. 
 Upon the plants which the soil produces he and all other ani- 
 mals depend for their daily sustenance. Hence, where the 
 soil is fruitful, animal life is abundant ; where it yields only 
 sparingly, animals are few, and human inhabitants, as a gen- 
 eral rule, but sparsely scattered. 
 
 The soil is formed, for the most part, from the rocks of 
 which the crust of the earth is composed. By the action of 
 air and water, aided by alternations of heat and cold, these 
 rocks crumble, and their surface becomes covered with loose 
 materials. The seeds of plants are sprinkled over them by 
 the winds ; they germinate and grow up ; animals come to 
 
ORIGIN OF SOILS. 37 
 
 feed upon them; both plants and animals die; and thus a 
 mixture of decayed rook, with the remains of animals and 
 plants, gradually overspreads the entire surface of the diy 
 land. It is to this mixture that we apply the name of soiL 
 
 But the soil thus naturally formed differs in quality, from 
 various causes. The rocks which crumble differ in chemical 
 composition ; their crumbled fragments are spread over the 
 surface, and sorted by wind and water in different ways ; and 
 the kind and quantity of the animal and vegetable matters 
 they are mixed with differ much. Through the agency of 
 these and similar causes of diversity, many varieties of soil 
 are produced, which are not only unlike to each other in their 
 sensible properties, but very different also in their agricul- 
 tural value. 
 
 If we examine with a little attention the numerous rocks 
 wo meet with in travelling over a country like our own, an 
 important difference in their physical structure will soon 
 strike us. Some are seen to form hills, cliffs, or mountains, 
 which consist each of a single huge lump or mass, cracked 
 here and there, perhaps irregularly, but exhibiting no con- 
 tinuous division into distinct parts or portions. Otliers again 
 are as clearly divided into layers or beds, spread over each 
 other like vast flagstones of different thicknesses, sometimes 
 extending horizontally for distances of many miles. The fol- 
 lowing section (fig. 2) exhibits these differences of physical 
 appearance. 
 
 Fig. 2. _--=^^£= 
 
 The rooks marked A and B are the undivided masses, those 
 marked C D are the rocks which He in beds. The numbers 
 12 3 indicate the groups into which the beds, when numer- 
 ous on any spot, can usually be subdivided. 
 
 Those most ignorant of science can observe differences of 
 this kind — it requires only the use o£ the eyes ; and yet this 
 difference of structure is so important, that upon it is founded 
 the division of all rocks into stratified and unstratijied. Those 
 which are composed of beds or strata are called stratified ; 
 those in which no such partings are visible are called un- 
 stratified. 
 
38 THE SOIL WE CULTIVATE. 
 
 The stratified rocks cover by far the largest portion of the 
 earth's surface. They are not always quite horizontal, as rep- 
 resented in the above section; indeed they are more often 
 inclined, so as to dip into the earth at a greater or less angle. 
 Sometimes they are even piled against each other like flag- 
 stones placed on edge. The following section (fig. 3) ex- 
 
 hibits these three several modes in which the stratified rocks 
 occur, A showing them on edge, B dipping at a considerable 
 angle, and ODE perfectly horizontal. This disposition of 
 the rocks, it will be seen, must materially affect the quality 
 of the soil, and especially the extent of surface over which 
 any particular soil is to be found. If the quality of the soil 
 depend in any degree upon the quaHty of the rock, the 
 changes of soil must be very frequent where the surface is 
 formed of the edges only of different rocks, as is seen at A 
 and B. 
 
 These stratified rocks consist essentially of one or more of 
 three different kinds of matter only : limestones, sandstones, 
 and clays, more or less hard, form the substance of them all. 
 When a limestone crumbles, it forms a calcareous soil ; a 
 sandstone, a Bandy soil ; and a hard clay rock, a more or less 
 tenacious clay soil. Hence these are the three leading quaU- 
 ties of soil known and spoken of among practical men. 
 
 But many rocks do not consist altogether either of lime- 
 stone, of sandstone, or of clay, but of a mixture of two of them, 
 or of aU three, in varied proportions. The crumbling of such 
 rocks, therefore, gives rise to soils of various intermediate 
 qualities, neither calcareous, properly speaking, nor sandy, 
 nor clayey ; and these form, for the most part, those more 
 open, fertile, and valuable loams, which the farmers of every 
 country prefer to cultivate. 
 
 Similar mixed soils are also naturally produced where the 
 edges of difierent rocks overlap each other, and mingle their 
 mutual debris. Thus, when the fragments of a rock rich in 
 lime naturally intermix with one poor in this ingredient, the 
 soil produced is of a much better and more useM quality than 
 when the surface is formed by the firagments of one of the 
 
MIXED SOILS. 39 
 
 rocks only. This is illustrated in the south of England in 
 many places, where the materials of the clay, the chalk, and 
 the greensond, meet and intermingle, as seen in the following 
 section (fig. 4). 
 
 Fig. 4. 
 
 Wheat and Barley soils, 
 
 hop land. Thin downs. Wa{e malt 
 
 This woodcut represents the clay as coming in contact 
 with the chalk which lies below it, and the chalk again com- 
 ing in contact with the upper greensand, upon which it rests. 
 At the first point of contact the heavy difficult clays change 
 into open barley soils, producing a grain which, for quality 
 and malting properties, is not excelled by any in the king- 
 dom. And, again, at the contact of the chalk and upper 
 groensand, the mixed soil is equally celebrated for its crops 
 of wheat, and for the fertility of its hop-gardens. 
 
 The unstratified rocks, again, may be represented by three 
 varieties — the granites, the traps, and the lavas. These 
 rocks also crumble more or less rapidly, and produce soils 
 which, in granitic countries, are generally poor, over trap- 
 rocks generally rich, and upon decayed lavas often remark- 
 able for fertility. In the granite districts of Devonshire and 
 Scotland we see the poor soils which this rock produces ; and 
 in the low country of Scotland, and in the north of Ireland, 
 the rich soils of the trap. Italy and Sicily, and every other 
 volcanic country in the Old World, exhibit in their soils the 
 fertilising influence of the modem lavas. 
 
 In lihe new countries the same phenomena reappear, similar 
 rocks everywhere producing similar soils. Thus, at the base 
 of the famous gold-bearing moimtains of Victoria, stretches 
 "a fertile and beautiful country — the garden of Australia 
 Felix — ^the rich soil of which is the product of decomposed 
 lava."^ And for ages, probably, after the gold-mines have 
 been forgotten, these rich park-like plains will continue to 
 ^ield luxuriant harvests of golden grain to the industrious 
 cultivator, 
 
 ' Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, ix. 75. 
 
40 THE SOIL WE CULTIVATE. 
 
 But the earth's surface is varied with hill and valley, 
 mountain and plain, so that the rains which fall are able to 
 flow along the slopes, and to gather themselves into rivulets, 
 streams, and rivers. In so flowing they wash out the finer 
 and lighter particles from among the fragments of the crum- 
 bled rooks, and carry them into the valleys and plains. The 
 constant repetition of this washing gradually sorts the frag- 
 ments of each rock, spreading the finer portions on the lower 
 ground and along the courses of rivers, and leaving on the 
 hills and slopes the coarser and less easily transported 
 materials. 
 
 Hence from the same rook different varieties of soil arise. 
 Coarse sands and gravels may overspread the higher ground, 
 while fine sand, clays, or loams, are carried farther and cover 
 the plains or valleys beneath. From a mixed stratified rock 
 the clay or lime may be washed out and spread over the low 
 plains, leaving only a poor and barren sand on the slopes 
 above ; or from a decaying granite the felspar-clay may be 
 washed down, leaviag the hungry and unfertile quartz to cover 
 the naked rock. 
 
 In some countries, winds play a similar part. They Hok up 
 the fine dust as they sweep over a country, and carry it often 
 far away to other regions ; or, rushing from the sea, they bear 
 inland the sands of the shore, and cover with sandy dunes or 
 barren desert soils which are naturally rich and productive in 
 vegetable food. 
 
 Thus physical causes modify the quality of the soils which 
 rocks differing in chemical composition naturally tend to pro- 
 duce. They assort or rearrange the materials of which a 
 rock consists, and they often bear to great distances, and 
 spread over other rocks, the finer particles into which it 
 crumbles. The so-called alluvial soils, which border so many 
 of our rivers, are produced by such a sorting, brought about 
 through the agency of water. The sea-shore also often illus- 
 trates the breaking down of rocks and the sorting of their 
 materials according to their specific gravity, their size and 
 their shape. The sandy downs of European countries, and 
 many of the desert regions of Africa and Asia, owe their 
 existence to the sorting agency of the wind. 
 
 Vegetation also has its influence. When a tree or humbler 
 plant dies on a dry surface, it gradually decays, and dis- 
 
CONSTITUENTS OF SOILS. 41 
 
 appears almost entirely into the air. Let it be immersed in 
 stagnant water, and thus excluded from the air ; it blackens, 
 falls to pieces, and crumbles, perhaps, but in substance long 
 remains where it fell. Let others grow up, die, and faU on 
 the same moist spot, and the black vegetable matter wiU 
 accumulate from year to year. In this way, where shallow 
 water rests on an impervious bottom, peat-bogs and other 
 collections of vegetable matter gradually cover the surface. 
 They bury the fragments of the crumbled rock sometimes 
 under a great depth of vegetable matter, and form those vn- 
 manageable peaty soils which overspread so large a portion of 
 Scotland, and especially of the north and west of Ireland. 
 
 Such are the principal natural causes of diversity in soils. 
 In the chemical composition and physical or mechanical 
 structure of the rocks we recognise the fundamental or 
 primary cause ; in the varied distribution of the physical and 
 chemical actions of heat and cold, of moving and of freezing 
 water, and of rains and winds, important secondary causes ; 
 and in the growth and accumulation of vegetable matter, 
 another more special and less widely operating agent in the 
 production of such diversities. The action of animal life, also, 
 must not be forgotten. 
 
 By these agencies are forrned the varieties of soil generally 
 described as sandy soils, clay soils, limestone or marly soUs, 
 and peaty soils. These terms all indicate important chemical 
 differences, though practical men have hitherto had their at- 
 tention too little drawn to the influence which chemical com- 
 position exercises over agricultural value. The sandy soil is 
 distinguished by consisting chiefly of quartzose or silicious 
 sand — another form of flint, rock-crystal, or the substance 
 which chemists call silica; the limestone or marly soil, by 
 containing much limestone, chalk, or other variety of what 
 chemists distinguish as carbonate of lime ; the clay soils, by 
 abounding in clay, a compound substance, consisting chiefly, 
 besides silica, of that to which chemists give the name of alu- 
 mina, together with some chemically-combined water. 
 
 But the economical value of a soil is often naturally affected 
 by physico-geological considerations, which are altogether 
 independent of the chemical compositioij of the rock from 
 which it is formed. The mere physical character of the rock, 
 for example, from which the soil is formed, often determines 
 
42 THE SOIL WE CULTIVATE. 
 
 not only the kind of husbandry which can be profitably fol- 
 lowed, but the class of farmers by whom the land is to be 
 occupied, and even whether it can be profitably cultivated at 
 aU. The chalk-rocks present an illustration of this. These 
 are in most countries very porous and absorbent. Wells sunk 
 into them yield no water, and superficial pits, to receive and 
 retain the rain-water, are the main resource of the inhabitants. 
 This, with the thin soils and short grass of our chalk-downs, 
 has long determined the conversion of the chalk-wolds into 
 extensive sheep-walks. But in countries by climate and 
 otherwise unsuited to sheep, and where the little rain that 
 falls is soon licked up by the heats of summer, this use of the 
 land becomes impossible, and an artificial supply of wajer 
 becomes indispensable to the existence of permanent and ex- 
 tended cultivation. To obtain this, deep wells sunk through 
 the chalk are the only available resource, and this at once 
 determines that the possessors must be men of large means, 
 or at least that the land must be worked by a class of wealthy 
 cultivators. The upper portion of the State of Alabama, in 
 North America, is in this condition. Situated on the porous 
 chalk, it is destitute of surface water, unless where the rivers 
 pass. In a hot climate, its herbage is burned up in summer, 
 so that it is unsuited for a paiPtoral husbandry. It grows 
 some flinty wheat, but it is almost equally unsuited to be an 
 extensive producer of grain. Devoted chiefly to the cotton 
 cultTire, it is held in large properties, and hundreds of deep 
 Artesian wells already riddle the country, and yield the need- 
 ful supplies of water. 
 
 The following section (fig. 5) of the Atlantic coast-line of 
 North America, from the sea to the mountains, will serve to 
 illustrate nearly all the points I have brought under the 
 notice of the reader in the preceding part of this chapter, in 
 reference at least to the stratified rocks. This section shows— 
 
 1°. How, over large tracts of country, the rocks are seen to 
 be at different angles of inclination ; some, as in the high land 
 to the right, standing on their edges ; and some, as the layers 
 of alluvial soil on the sea-shore, lying nearly on a level. 
 
 2°. How, over extended areas, the surface rock may con- 
 sist chiefly of clay, as in the post-tertiary and alluvial deposits 
 near the sea ; of sand, as in the tertiary beds ; of limestone, 
 as in the chalk-marls ; and of mixed materials, .as on the hills, 
 
AGEICULTUEE AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 43 
 
 where numerous thin bods resting on their edges rapidly suc- 
 ceed each other. 
 
 3°. How the character of the soil changes distinctly with 
 Fig. 5. 
 
 Oak 
 Swamp and 
 willow, hickory. 
 
 Rica Sugar 
 and and 
 
 cotton, tobacco. 
 
 Fine forests. 
 Handy barrens. 
 Dismal swamps. 
 
 Dry chalk-downs. 
 Treeless prairies. 
 
 Georgian wheat. 
 Alabama cotton. 
 
 Broad-leaved forests. 
 
 General husbandry. 
 
 WMte labour. 
 
 Sea. Post-tertiary 
 and alluvial. 
 
 Secondary 
 
 chalk-marls. 
 
 Artesian wells. 
 
 Primary metamorphic 1 
 rocks and granite. 
 
 the surface rock — being rich and productive on the post-tcr- 
 taries, sandy and barren on the tertiaries, dry and chalky on 
 the secondary marls, usefiil and loamy on the slopes of the 
 older mixed and metamorphic rocks. 
 
 4°. How the natural vegetation and the artificial produce 
 of the soil vary in like manner ; and how the kind of hus- 
 bandry, and we might almost say the social state, is deter- 
 mined by the character of the dead rocks. It is certain, at 
 least, that the profitable employment of slave ^ instead of free 
 labour depends very much upon the character of the super- 
 ficial rocks, of the soils they yield, and of the crops they can 
 readily be made to grow. 
 
 5°. And lastly, how dismal peaty swamps 'disguise the 
 natural character of the surface in some regions ; and how 
 tie want of water in others renders profitable cultivation im- 
 possible, unless, by expensive borings, it can be brought up 
 from great depths. 
 
 The amount of chemical knowledge embodied in the gen- 
 eral chemical description of soils abeady given, is useful and 
 satisfactory as explaining their general origin, and is sufficient 
 even to direct the practical man in reference to certain eco- 
 nomical operations. Long experience and observation, for 
 example, have made generally known to practical men that 
 
 ' The word metamorphic hero used means changed or altered — as clay, for 
 example, is changed when it is baked into tiles or bricks. 
 
 • These observations, though no longer wholly applicable to the Southern Unit- 
 ed States, are retained in the text in consequence of their general interest.— Eb. 
 
44 THE SOIL WE CULTIVATE. 
 
 certain cultivated plants and trees prefer or grow best npon 
 sandy soils, others on limestone soils, others on clay soils, 
 and others again on soils of a mixed or loamy character. K 
 one of these trees or plants is to be grown, therefore, a sandy 
 or other soil suited to it is sought for ; or if a sandy or clay 
 soil is to be profitably planted or oidtivated, the tree is 
 selected which has been seen to flourish, or the crop which 
 has yielded profitable harvests, on other sands or clays of a 
 similar kind. 
 
 But when we come to inquire more particularly into the 
 relations between plants and soils, this elementary chemical 
 knowlege fails us. The same plants do not flourish on aU 
 sands, on aU clays, or on all marls equally. Why is this? 
 Or the trees flourish for a while, and then die out ; or the 
 crop for a few years yields remunerative returns, and then 
 ceases to give a profitable harvest. How are these changes 
 to be explained ? The soil is as sandy, the clay as stiff, and 
 the marl as rich in lime as ever, and yet the plants which 
 formerly rejoiced in the several soils now refiise to grow in 
 them ! 
 
 A more minute chemical examination often answers these 
 questions, and suggests a remedy for the evil complained of. 
 This examination shows — 
 
 First, That when a weighed portion of perfectly dried soil, 
 of any kind on which plants are capable of growing, is heated 
 to redness in the air, a part of it bums away, and what is left 
 is found to kave sensibly diminished in weight. The com- 
 bustible portion which thus disappears consists of the animal 
 and vegetable (or organic) matter, of which all soils contain a 
 sensible quantity, and of combined water. In some the pro- 
 portion of organic matter is very small, as in the sandy soil 
 on which the oil-palm flourishes in many African localities, 
 and where the cinnamon-tree grows at Colombo, in Ceylon, 
 which latter contains only one per cent of organic matter. In 
 others it is very large, as in our own peaty soils, many of 
 which lose upwards of three-fourths of their weight when 
 'burned in the air. 
 
 Secondly, That the earthy incombustible part of the soil — 
 besides the silica of the sandy soils, the alumina of the clays, 
 and the lime of the marly soils — contains various other sub- 
 stances, occasionally in large proportions. Among these, 
 
HOW TO CURE A SICKLY SOIL. 45 
 
 potash, soda, magnesia, oxide of iron, and sulphuric acid, are 
 the most abundant, while potash and phosphoric acid^ are 
 the most important. A few other substances, as chlorine 
 and manganese, are also present. 
 
 In aU soils upon which plants grow well and in a healthy- 
 manner, every one of these substances exists. If they or one 
 of them be altogether absent, the plant refuses to grow. If 
 they or one of them be present in too small quantity, the plant 
 will be stunted and imhealthy. If the same kind of plant bo 
 grown for too long a time in the same soil, one or more of 
 these substances will become scarce, or wiU not exist in an 
 available form suitable for absorption by the plant, and henco 
 the roots will be unable to obtain as much of them as the 
 health and growth of the plant require. It is plain enough, 
 therefore, why plants often refuse to grow even on the kind of 
 soils they especially prefer, and why, having grown well on 
 them for a while, they refuse to do so any longer. The soil 
 does not contain aU they require for their support, and in the 
 proper form ; or having once contained them all in sufficient 
 proportions, it does so no longer. And the remedy for this 
 special evil is equally clear. Add to the sdl the mineral 
 ingredients which are deficient, or introduce them in an 
 available form, and tho plant will spring up vrith its old 
 luxuriance. But accumulations of organic matter, or the 
 presence of plant-poisons, may also be the cause of such 
 defects, which burning othming often cures. 
 
 In like manner, that part of the soil which bums away — 
 the organic and volatile part — when minutely examined, is 
 found to consist of ntimerous different forms of matter. These 
 are all included, however, in one or other of two groups — 
 those which contain the element nitrogen, described in the 
 first chapter,* and those which contain none of this element. 
 The nitrogenous compounds are never very abundant, but 
 there are several of them in the volatile part of the soil. One 
 of them is ammonia, another is nitric acid, or rather the 
 nitrates of potash and Hme ; and a third, of less immediate 
 use as plant-food, consists of a more complex substance or 
 
 1 Sulphuric acid, so called from its containing sulphur, is the name given 
 by chemists to oil of vitriol ; and phosphoric acid is formed by adding water to 
 the white substance produced when phosphorus is burned in the air. 
 
 ' See "The Air we Breathe." 
 
46 THE SOIL WE CULTIVATE. 
 
 substances, to which the name of albuminoid matter is given. 
 The latter material, by its slow decay, yields the two former. 
 
 As to those organic or combustible matters in the soil which 
 are free from nitrogen, but contain carbon, hydrogen, and 
 oxygen, they do not seem to nourish the plant directly, but 
 only after they have been changed or oxidised into carbonic 
 acid gas. This gas dissolves many of the mineral matters of 
 the soil, and so enables the roots to take them in. Moreover, 
 this organic matter helps to absorb and retain moisture, and 
 many usefiil manurial matters, as ammonia and potash. 
 Without a little organic matter, sandy soils, containing all 
 other kinds of plant-food, may be barren through lack of 
 moisture. Thus, in the absence of organic matter, the 
 sand-loving plant may refuse to grow even in a sandy soil, 
 or one which loves lime where lime abounds, even when all 
 the other mineral matters it requires are abundant in the soil, 
 because the necessary organic constituent is stiU wanting. 
 The full remedy, therefore, is obtained only when we supply 
 to the unproductive soil the necessary organic as well as the 
 necessary inorganic or mineral matters of which it may stand 
 in need. • 
 
 I may in some measure illustrate ^this by referring to a 
 special case, common in nature, and to which I have abeady 
 alluded in the present chapter. The granitic rocks, I have 
 said, produce generally poor, the trap rocks, on the other 
 hand, generally fertile soils. To what difference in the min- 
 eral matter of the rocks is this economical difference in the 
 soils chiefly to be ascribed ? 
 
 If a piece of each of the two kinds of rock be submitted to 
 analysis, a remarkable but almost constant difference is dis- 
 covered in their comparative composition. Besides the silica 
 and alumina of which I have abeady spoken as existing in 
 clays, the granites contain a copious supply of potash and 
 soda, with minute quantities of magnesia, lime, oxide of iron, 
 and phosphoric acid. The traps, on the other hand, abound 
 in all these ingredients; and as experience has shown that the 
 * presence of all, in sensible proportion, is necessary to make a 
 soil fertile, one reason of the natural difference between gran- 
 ite and trap soils becomes apparent. The one is defective, 
 while the other abounds in the mineral constituents of a fertile 
 soil. And the means for improving the granite soils become 
 
PHYSICAL STATE INFLUENCES FERTILITY. 47 
 
 equally apparent. Add, as a fiiet step, the mineral substances 
 in -which granite is deficient, and fertility may gradually 
 ensue. It is for this reason that in granite countries the 
 application oT lime, in some of its forms, is a favourite practice 
 — one discovered to be remunerative long before chemistry 
 had shown the reason why. But the traps are not only more 
 varied and rich in their constituent minerals, but their texture 
 is Buoh as to suffer more complete and rapid disintegration. 
 
 Although, therefore, the first use of the soil in reference to 
 the general vegetation of the globe is to afford to plants a firm 
 anchorage, so to speak, for their roots — and although the 
 growth of many useful plants seems at first sight to be de- 
 pendent on the rude and general question only, as to whether 
 the soil they occupy be a sand, a clay, or a calcareous marl, — 
 yet a minute chemical examination shows that their usefolness 
 to plants is in reality dependent upon the presence of a large 
 number of chemical substances, chiefly of mineral, but in a 
 measure of organic origin. If these are present, any plants 
 wiU grow upon them that are suited to their mechanical tex- 
 ture, and to the climate of the place. If they, or one of them, 
 be absent, whatever be the texture of the soil, and whatever 
 the climate, the plant will languish and die. And the whole 
 art of manuring consists in adding to the soil those things 
 in which it is deficient — at the right time, in a proper chemi- 
 cal and mechanical condition, and in the requisite proportions. 
 What services, chemical and physiological, the several constit^ 
 nents of the fertile soil really render to the plant that grows 
 ■upon it, will appear in the succeeding chapter. 
 
 But suppose all the necessary chemical adjustments to be 
 made — the composition of the soil, that is, to be such as is 
 usually attendant upon fertility — physical conditions and 
 agencies often intervene to falsify the predictions of chemistry. 
 Thus, the fall of rain may be too small to keep the land in 
 that condition of moisture which is required for the growth of 
 plants. Hence the wide and naked deserts which extend 
 over the rainless regions of the earth's surface. Whatever 
 be the chemical composition of the soil in these Tegions, vege- 
 tation is impossible, and the labour of man, except he bring 
 in water, almost in vain. Or the surface of a country may be 
 so flat that the rains which descend upon it can find no out- 
 let. They stagnate, therefore, and render it unpropitious to 
 4 
 
48 THE SOIL WE CULTIVATE. 
 
 the cultivator, so that fertility cannot show itself, whatever 
 the soil may contain, unless an easy escape for the superfluous 
 water be first provided. Or the rains may fall unseasonably, 
 as they do in Iceland, where they appear in the attumn, when 
 the barley should be ripening, in far too copious showers to 
 permit even this hardiest of grain crops to be cultivated with 
 profit in the island. 
 
 So the thermal conditions of a region may interfere with its 
 fertility. Chemistry says, " Let the soil contain the necessary 
 constituents, and any crop wiU grow upon it." But physi- 
 ology modifies this broad statement, by showing, first, that 
 whatever be the chemical composition of the soU, it must 
 possess a certain physical texture before this or that plant 
 will grow well upon it. That which naturally affects a clay 
 soil will not grow well upon a sand ; so one which delights 
 in a blowing sand wiU languish in a moorish peat, however 
 rich in chemical ingredients it may be. And, secondly, that . 
 the climate of a place determines equally whether its naturally 
 rich soils shall grow this crop or that. Upon the combined 
 influences, in fact, of warmth, and of the amount and distribu- 
 tion of rain, which make up what we call climate, depend in 
 a great degree the varied floras and cultivated crops of the 
 different regions of the globe. Thousands of plants, which 
 beneath the tropics produce abundantly, will in the same soil 
 scarcely expand a flower when placed beneath an arctic sky. 
 
 However important, therefore, the geological origin of a soil 
 and its chemical composition may be, where climate is favom- 
 able, neither is able to effect anything in the way of raising 
 food for man, where a duly attempered moisture and warmth 
 are wanting. Similarly, but in a less degree, the differences 
 between one season and another affect this result. 
 
 But man also exercises an influence on the soil, which is 
 worthy of attentive study. He lands in a new country, and 
 fertility everywhere surrounds him. The herbage waves thick 
 and high, and the massive trees raise their proud stems loftily 
 towards the sky. He clears a fai-m from the wUdemess, and 
 ample returns of com pay him yearly for his simple labours. 
 He ploughs, he sows, he reaps, and from her seemingly ex- 
 haustless bosom the earth gives back abundant harvests. But 
 at length a change appears, creeping slowly over and gradu- 
 ally dimming the smiling landscape. The com is first less 
 
INFLUENCE OF MAN. 49 
 
 beautiful, then less abundant, and at last it appears to die 
 altogether beneath the resistless scourge of an unknown insect, 
 or a parasitic fungus. In New England and the British pro- 
 vinces of North America the wheat is overwhelmed by the 
 fly ; in New Jersey and Maryland, the wide peach-orchards by 
 the borer, and a mysterious disease called the yellows ; and in 
 Alabama the cotton plant by the rust. The farmer forsakes, 
 therefore, his long-cultivated farm, and hews out another irom 
 the native forest. But the same early plenty is followed by 
 the same vexatious disasters. His neighbours partake of the 
 same experience. They advance like a devouring tide against 
 the verdant woods. They trample them beneath their ad- 
 vancing culture. The axe levels its yearly prey, and genera- 
 tion after generation proceeds in the same direction — a wall 
 of green forests on the horizon before them, a half desert and 
 naked region behind. 
 
 Such is the history of colonial culture in our own epoch ; 
 such is the vegetable history of the march of European culti- 
 vation over the entire continent of America. From the shores 
 of the Atlantic, the unrifled soil retreated first to the Alle- 
 ghanies and the shores of the great lakes. These are now 
 overpassed, and the reckless plunderer, axe in hand, scarcely 
 retarded by the rich banks of the Mississippi and its tributary 
 waters, is 'hewing his way forward to the Kocky Mountains 
 and the eastern slopes of the Andes. No matter what the 
 geological origin of the soil may be, or what its chemical com- 
 position ; no matter how warmth and moisture may favour it, 
 or what the staple crop it has patiently yielded from year to 
 year, the same inevitable fate overtakes it. The influence of 
 long-continued human action overcomes the tendencies of all 
 natural causes. 
 
 I need scarcely refer, as special exaipples of this fact, to the 
 tracts of abandoned land which are stUl to be seen along the 
 Atlantic borders of Virginia and the Carolinas. It is more 
 interesting to us to look at those parts of America which lie 
 farther towards the north, and which, in modes of culture and 
 kinds of produce, m'ore nearly resemble our own. 
 
 The flat lands which skirt the lower St Lawrence, and 
 which near Montreal stretch into wide plains, were celebrated 
 as the granary of America in the times of the French dominion. 
 Fertile in wheat, they yielded for many years a large sur- 
 
60 THE SOIL WE CULTIVATE. 
 
 plus for exportation ; now they grow less of this grain than 
 is required for the consumption of their own population. The 
 oat and the potato have taken the place of wheat as the staples 
 of Lower Canadian culture, and as the daily sustenance of those 
 who live on the produce of their own farms. 
 
 So, in New England, the cultivation of wheat has gradually 
 become unprofitable. The tiller of the worn-out soils of this 
 part of the "United States cannot compete with the cultivator 
 of the fresh land yearly won by the axe and the plough from 
 the western wilderness, and he is fain to betake himself to the 
 raising of other crops. The peculiarly wheat-producing zone 
 is yearly shifting itself more completely towards the west. 
 This has long been evident to the careful observer, and to the 
 collector of statistical data. I brought it distinctly before 
 the public in my work on North America.^ And a striking 
 proof of the correctness of my views is afforded by the subse- 
 quent return of the United States census of 1850. From these 
 it appears that, while the produce of wheat in the New Eng- 
 land States in 1840 amounted to 2,014,000 bushels, it was 
 reduced in 1850 to 1,078,000 bushels. So rapidly does the 
 influence of human agency on the natural tendencies of the 
 soil in these countries manifest itself. Great as the cereal 
 produce of the States is, yet the American farmer gets but half 
 the grain from an acre of land that the British farnfer obtains. 
 
 But the influence of man upon the productions of the soil is 
 exhibited also in other and more satisfactory results. The 
 improver takes the place of the exhauster, and foUows his 
 footsteps on these same altered lands. Over the sandy for- 
 saken tracts of Virginia and the Carolinas he spreads large ap- 
 plications of shelly marl, and herbage soon covers them again, 
 and profitable crops. Or he strews on them thinner sowings 
 of gypsum, and as if by magic the yield of previous years is 
 doubled or quadrupled.^ Or he gathers the droppings of his 
 cattle and the fermented produce of his barnyard, and lays it 
 upon his fields — when, lo ! the wheat comes up luxuriantly 
 again, and the midge, and the rust, and the yeUows, all dis- 
 appear from his wheat, his cotton, and his" peach-trees ! Arti- 
 
 *, Notes on North America, voL j. chap. xiii. 
 
 " For examplea of both these results, see the Essay on Calcareous Manures, 
 by Edward Ruffin, the publication of which in Virginia, in 1832, marks an 
 epoch in the agricultural history of the slave States of North America. 
 
RESTORATION OF FERTILITY. 61 
 
 fioial and concentrated manures, such as superphosphate of 
 lime, nitre, potash salts and guano, for the direct restoration 
 of the soil, with new and richer foods for the live-stock of the 
 farm, and many other improvements in agriculture, based upon 
 scientific knowledge, have all worked marvels in the same 
 direction. 
 
 But the renovator marches much mo»e slowly than the ex- 
 hauster. His materials are collected at the expense of both 
 time and money, and barrenness ensues from the easy labours 
 of the one far more rapidly than green herbage can be made 
 to cover it again by the most skilful, zealous, and assiduous 
 labours of the other. But nevertheless, among energetic na,- 
 tions, this second tide follows inevitably upon the first, as 
 they advance in age, in wealth, and in civUisation. Though 
 long mismanagement has, in a minor sense, desolated large 
 portions of north-eastern America, a new fringe of verdant 
 fields has already begun to follow towards the west, though 
 at a long interval, the fast-retiring green belt of the virgin 
 forests. A race of new cultivators, taught to treat the soil 
 more skilfully, to give . their due weight to its geological 
 origin, to its chemical history, to the conditions of climate by 
 which it is affected, and to the reckless usage to which it has 
 so long been subjected — this new race may — will, I hope, in 
 time — bring back the whole region to more than its original 
 productiveness. Both the inherited energy of the whole 
 people, and the efforts which State agricultural societies, and 
 numerous zealous and patriotic individuals in each State, are 
 now making, justify us in believing that such a race of in- 
 structed men will gradually spread itself over the rural dis- 
 tricts in every part of the Union. The previous success of 
 the mother country guarantees a similarly successftd result to 
 their kindred exertions. 
 
 For we have not to go far back in the agricultui-al history 
 of Great Britain to find a state of things not much differing 
 from the present condition of the land in North America. We 
 require to turn aside but a short way from the highi-oad, in 
 some districts of England, still to find in living operation 
 nearly all the defects and vices of the present American 
 system of farming.^ A century and a half has, I may say, 
 
 ' See, for instance, the state of farming in Lancashire, as described in the 
 Royal Agricultural Journal, vol. x. part 1. 
 
52 THK SOIL WE CULTIVATE. 
 
 changed the whole surface of our island. But what labour 
 has been expended, what wealth buried in the soil, what 
 thought lavished in devising means for its recovery from long- 
 inflicted sterility I Chemistry has discovered, and commerce 
 has brought in from aU parts of the world new manurial 
 riches, to replace those which a hundred previous generations 
 had permitted rains and rivers to wash out of the soil, or to 
 carry away to the sea. Mechanical skill has given us the 
 means of tilling the surface economically, of bringing up 
 virgin soils from beneath, and of laying dry that which over- 
 abundant water had prevented our forefathers from utterly 
 impoverishing ; and scientific investigation has taught us how 
 best to apply all these new means to the attainment of the 
 desired end. 
 
 It may be said, with truth, that Great Britain at this mo- 
 ment presents a striking illustration of the influence of man 
 in increasing the productiveness of the soil. This example 
 guarantees, as I have said, the success of similar operations 
 in the United States of America and in our British colonies ; 
 while the now advanced condition, especially of our chemical 
 knowledge, both in regard to the soil which is to be culti- 
 vated, to artificial manures, to the economical use of cattle 
 food, and to the plants we wish to grow, insures a far more 
 easy and certain advance in the process of restoration in these 
 countries than in past times could take place among our- 
 selves ; less waste of time and money in iU-adjudged experi- 
 ments, and less cost of labour in all the necessary operations 
 of husbandry. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE PLANT WE EEAll. 
 
 A perfect plant, what?— Effocts of heat upon it. — Contains carbon, water, and 
 mineral matter. — Eolations of the plant to the air.— Structure of the leaf. 
 — Ita pores absorb cai'bouic acid, and give off oxygen gas. — Kelations to 
 water. — Structure of the root. — Purposes served by water. — delations to 
 the soil. — Plants affect peaty, sandy, luauiy, or clayey soils. — Effects of the 
 drain, of lime, or of manure.— The art of manuring.— How the colours of 
 flowers may be changed. — Effect of culture upon wild plants. — The carrot, 
 the cabbage, the turnip. — Garden fruits, flowers, and vegetables.— Supposed 
 origin of wheat, audits varieties. — How these changes are produced. — Plants 
 which follow the footsteps of man ; why they follow him.— Rapidity of 
 growth in favourable circumstances. — The yeast plant in grape-juice. — 
 Manufacture of dry yeast. — Chemical changes within the plant. — Produc- 
 tion of numerous peculiar substances — medicines, perfumes, and things 
 useful in the arts. — The green of the leaf, and the poison of the nettle. — 
 The covering of the ripe potato, apple, and young twig. — General purposes 
 served by vegetation. — It adorns the landscape ; in relation to dead nature, 
 it purifies the atmosphere, produces vegetable mould, and forms deposits 
 of combustible matter ; in relation to living tinimals, it supplie.° subsidiary 
 luxuries and comforts, but its main use is to feed them. — Numerous in- 
 teresting chemical inquiries suggested by the natural diversities and differ- 
 ent effects of the vegetable food consumed by herbivorous and omnivorous 
 races. 
 
 A FAMILIARITY With the chemical relations of the plant we 
 rear makes still more apparent the relations of chemistry to 
 the soil we cultivate. 
 
 A perfect plant consists essentially of two parts — the axis 
 and its appendages. The npper or aerial part of the axis 
 forma the stem, the lower or terrestrial part the root. The 
 appendages of the axis are leaves and flowers, the latter con- 
 sisting, in point of fact, of modified leaves. 
 
54 THE PLANT WE HEAR. 
 
 . When any part of a plant is heated in a close vessel, it 
 gives off water, vinegar, and tarry matters, and leaves behind 
 a black, bulky, coaly mass, known by the name of wood-char- 
 coal ; or if billets of wood be heaped up in the open air, 
 covered carefully over with sods, and smother-hnnied^ as it is 
 called, with little access of air, the tar and other matters 
 escape into the atmosphere, while the charcoal remains nn- 
 dissipated beneath the sod. This charcoal is an impure form 
 of carbon. The manufacturer of wood-vinegar collects the 
 volatile substances as the more important products. The 
 ■ charcoal-burner allows them to escape, the black residue being 
 the object of his process. Both experiments, however, are 
 the same in substance, and both prove that carbon and water 
 form large parts of the weight of aU plants. 
 
 If a piece of wood-charcoal be burned in the air it gradually 
 disappears ; but when all combustion has ceased, there remains 
 behind a small proportion of ash. The same is seen if a por- 
 tion taken from any part of a living plant be burned in the 
 air. Even a bit of straw kindled in the flame of a candle (fig. 
 6), and allowed to bum, will leave a sensible quantity of ash 
 ■p. g behind. All plants therefore, and all 
 
 >>^~2,^ ' ' parts of plants, besides water and car- 
 
 .•/ .^HRi^ i bon, contain also a sensible proportion 
 
 of mineral inorganic matter which is 
 incombustible, and which remains nn- 
 consumed when they. are burned in 
 the air. 
 
 The carbon of the plant is chiefly 
 derived from the air, the water and 
 the mineral matter wholly from the 
 soil in which it grows. Thus the 
 plant we rear has close chemical re- 
 lations with the air we breathe, with 
 the water we drink, and with the soil we cultivate. I shall 
 briefly illustrate these several relations in their order. 
 
 First, The plant is in contact vrith the air, through its 
 leaves. The surface of the leaf is studded over with numer- 
 ous minute pores or mouths (stomata), through which gases 
 and watery vapour are continually entering or escaping, so 
 long as the plant lives. In the daytime, and especially dur- 
 ing sunshine, they absorb carbonic acid gas, and they give oflF 
 
THE PLANT AND THE AlK. 55 
 
 oxygen. During the night this process is apparently, and to 
 a slight degree, reversed — they then absorb oxygen and give 
 ofiF carbonic acid. It must be borne in mind, however, that 
 this is true only of the green parts of the plant ; for the other 
 parts, such as the flowers, even in daytime, absorb oxygen and 
 give out carbonic acicf — the amount, however, being trifling. 
 
 We have already seen that carbonic acid consists of carbon 
 and oxygen.^ It is from the large excess of this gas which 
 plants absorb during the day that the greater part of the 
 carbon they contain is usually derived. 
 
 The number and activity of the little mouths which stud 
 the leaf are very wonderfuL On a single square inch of 
 the leaf of the common lilac as many as 120,000 have been 
 counted ; and the rapidity with which they act is so great, 
 that a thin current of air passing over the leaves of an 
 actively -growing plant is almost immediately deprived by 
 them of the carbonic acid it contains. 
 
 The gas thus absorbed enters into the circulation of the 
 plant, and there undergoes a series of chemical changes,* which 
 it is very difficult to follow. The result, however, we know 
 to be, that its carbon becomes the principal ingredient of the 
 starch, sugar, oil, woody fibre, &c., which build up the plant, 
 while its oxygen is given off to maintain the purity of the air. 
 
 These pores of the leaf absorb also other gaseous substances 
 in smaller quantity — such as ammonia, when it happens to 
 approach them ; but it is doubtful whether they absorb watery 
 vapour, even when previous heat or drought has dried tho 
 plant, and made the leaves droop soft and flaccid. Vapour or 
 falling water moistens the soil and thus supplies their want 
 of fluid, while it washes also the dusty surface of the leaves, 
 and clears their many mouths, so that with fresh vigour they 
 can suck ia new nourishment from the surrounding air. 
 
 The green bark of the young twig is perforated with pores 
 like the green leaf, and acts upon the air in a similar way ; 
 but as it hardens and gets old the pores become obliterated, 
 and it ceases to aid the leaves in absorbing carbonic acid, or 
 in giving off oxygen to the atmosphere. 
 
 Secondly, The water which fills the cells and vessels of the 
 
 > See "Tho Air we Breathe." 
 
 ' For the part performed by the green colouring matter of leaves in these 
 changes, sea "The Colours wo Admire." 
 
66 THE PLANT WE KEAE. 
 
 plant is principally, if not wholly, sucked up by the roots 
 from the earth in which it grows. These roots, as I have 
 said, are only downward expansions of the stem. At the 
 surface of the ground they exhibit a bark without and a pith 
 within the woody portion. But as they^desoend, these several 
 parts disappear, and graduate into a porous, uniform, spongy 
 mass, which forms the ends of the fibrous rootlets. Upon the 
 surface of these rootlets, especially when young, the micro- 
 scope enables us to perceive numerous minute hairs which 
 thrust themselves laterally among the particles of the soiL 
 Through these root-hairs the plant draws from the earth the 
 supplies of water it constantly requires, and which it so 
 copiously pours out from its leaves into the air. With this 
 water it likewise takes up in solution the mineral or saline 
 matters which it needs. 
 
 How interesting it is to reflect on the minuteness of the 
 organs by which the largest plants are fed and sustained I 
 Microscopic apertures in the leaf suck in gaseous food from 
 the air ; the surfaces of microscopic hairs suck a liquid food 
 from the soil. We are accustomed to admire, with natural 
 and just astonishment, how huge rocky reefs, hundreds of 
 miles in length, can be built up by the conjoined labom-s of 
 myriads of minute zoophytes labouring together on the surface 
 of a coral rock ; but it is not less wonderful that, by the cease- 
 less working of similar microscopic agencies in leaf and root, 
 the substance of vast forests should be built up, and made to 
 grow before our .eyes. It is more wonderful, in fact ; for 
 whereas in the one case the chief result is that dead matter 
 extracted from the sea is transformed into a dead rock, in the 
 other the lifeless matters of the earth and air are converted 
 by these minute plant-builders into living forms, lifting their 
 heads alofb to the sky, waving with every wind that blows, 
 and beautifying whole continents with the varying verdure of 
 their ever-changing leaves. 
 
 The water which the roots absorb, after it has entered the 
 plant, serves many important physiological and chemical pur? 
 poses. It fills up mechanically and distends the numerous 
 vessels ; it mechanically dissolves, and carries with it, as it 
 ascends and descends, the various substances which are con- 
 tained in the sap ; it moistens and gives flexibility to all the 
 parts of the plant, and, by evaporation from the leaves, keeps 
 
THE PLANT AND THE SOIL. 57 
 
 it comparatively cool, even in the sunniest weather. But 
 its chemical agencies, though less immediately sensible, are 
 equally important. It combines with the carbon, which the 
 leaf brings in from the air, and forms woody fibre, sugar, 
 starch, and gum — all of which consist of carbon and water 
 only ; and if we accept the current doctrine of the direct or 
 indirect decomposition of water taking place within the plant, 
 the water will serve as a constant and ready storehouse, also, 
 for the supply of oxygen and hydrogen, which are required, 
 now here and now there, for the formation of the numerous 
 different substances which, in smaller quantity than starch or 
 woody fibre, are met with in the different parts of the plant. 
 Many diverse chemical changes are every instant going on 
 within the substance of a large and quickly-glowing tree, 
 and in nearly all these the constituent elements of water — its 
 oxygen and hydrogen — play a constant part. The explana- 
 tion of the nature of these products of vegetable activity fills 
 up already a large division of our modern treatises on organic 
 chemistry. 
 
 Thirdly, To tho soil the plant is perceived, evun by the 
 least instructed, to have the closest relations. To the most 
 instructed these relations every day appear more interesting 
 and wonderful. 
 
 I have already adverted, in the preceding chapter, to what 
 may be called the physiological habits of plants, which incline 
 them to grow upon soils which are more or less wet, more or 
 less sandy and porous, and more or less heavy in the agricul- 
 tural sense. Owing to these habits, every variety of soil, in 
 every climate, supports its own vegetable tribes. Thus, of 
 the five thousand flowering plants of central Europe, only 
 three hundred grow on peaty soils, and these are chiefly 
 rushes and sedges. In the native forests of northern Europe 
 and America, the unlettered explorer hails the gleam of the 
 broad-leaved trees glittering in the sun, amid the ocean of 
 solemn pines, as a symptom of good land on which he may 
 5)rofitably settle. And so, many a rough peasant at home 
 knows that wheat and beans affect clay soils, — the humblest 
 North German, that rye alone and the potato are suited to his 
 blowing sands, — and the Chinese peasant, that warm sloping 
 banks of light land are fittest for his tea plant, and stiff, wet, 
 impervious clays for his rice. Nicer differences do not pass 
 
58 THE PLANT WE REAR. 
 
 unnoticed by the least observant. The English farmer knows 
 that barley from heavy clays will not malt well though it wiU 
 feed excellent pork. The -Scotch hind living in a bothy knows 
 that oats from strong land will give him a more nourishing 
 meal for his daily brose. The poorest Irish peasant knows 
 that his most beloved laughing mealy potato wiU give him a 
 wet and waxy crop on a stiff clay instead of on a light and 
 open soU. And the Norman peasant can distinguish by his 
 practised taste whether the cider he is drinking has been 
 produced from a chalk soil, a sand, or a clay. Even the 
 negro of Alabama is aware that dry open alluvials, and porous 
 uplands, suit best the cotton he cultivates ; and the degraded 
 slave of Pemambuco, that the cocoa grows only on the sandy 
 soils of the coast — just as in his native West Africa the oil- 
 palms flourish on the moist sea-sands that skirt the shore, and 
 the mangroves, where muddy shallows are daily deserted by 
 the retiring tide. 
 
 Hundreds of square miles of grass-prairies and sage-prairies 
 exist in the central parts of the North American continent. 
 The rough grasses are buffalo-grass, and gramoma or mez- 
 quite ; the wild sage of these deserts is an Artemisia. 
 
 But these relations of plants become more conspicuous 
 when we examine somewhat closely the influence of artificial 
 changes in the soU upon the kind, the growth, and the char- 
 actcE or appearance of the plants which spring up or are sown 
 upon it. 
 
 Thus when a peaty soil is drained, the heaths disappear, 
 and a soft woolly grass {Holcus lanatus) overspreads its sur- 
 face. A wet clay is laid dry, and the inishes and water-loving 
 plants are succeeded by sweet and nutritious herbage. Lime 
 is applied, and sorrel and sour grasses are banished from the 
 old pasture ; and com then ripens and fiUs the ear where 
 formerly it languished and yielded scanty returns of unhealthy 
 grain. Crushed bones are strewed over a meadow, and abun- 
 dant milk and cheese show how the eatage of cattle has been 
 improved — or they are drilled into the ploughed land, and 
 luxuriant root -crops exhibit their ameliorating eifect. Or 
 guano, or the droppings of cattle, or the liquid of the farm- 
 yard, or nitrate of soda, are spread upon the scanty pastm'e, 
 and straightway the humble daisy and the worthless moss — 
 symbols of poverty — disappear, and rejoicing crops of most 
 
PLANTS AND MANUEES. 50 
 
 fragrant hay prove the close connection of the plant with 
 the soil on which it grows. Or again, gypsum or a potash 
 manure such as the kainite of Stassforth is scattered upon 
 the meadow, when the nutritious clovers and vetches are 
 strengthened and become abundant. 
 
 The plant derives, as I have elsewhere said, the whole of 
 its mineral matter from the soil, and some portion also of that 
 which forms its combustible part. A naturally fertile soil 
 contains all these things in sufiBcient abundance, and can 
 readily supply them to the craving roots. The waters which 
 moisten the soil dissolve them, and the minute hairs I have 
 spoken of suck them up, and send them through the roots and 
 stem to the several parts of the plant. Manures supply to 
 the soil those necessary forms of vegetable food in which it 
 is deficient ; and the effects which follow from the addition of 
 manures show how closely the welfare of the plant is con- 
 nected with the chemical composition of the soil. The raw 
 materials also, which it takes up by the root, like those 
 which enter by the leaf, undergo within the plant numerous 
 Buccessive chemical changes, by which they are converted 
 into the substance of the plant itself, and are fitted for those 
 after purposes, in reference to animal life, which, in the econ- 
 omy of nature, the plant fulfils. 
 
 Among the pleasing proofs of such chemical changes taking 
 place within the plant, I may mention the effects upon the 
 colour of their flowers, which foUow from the apphcation of 
 certain substances to the roots of plants. Charcoal-powder 
 darkens the flowers of the dahlia, the rose, the petunia, &c. ; 
 peat changes the red of the hydrangea to blue ; while many 
 chemical salts in minute proportions modify or enrich the 
 colours of garden flowers. Carbonate of soda reddens orna- 
 mental hyacinths, and superphosphate of lime alters in various 
 ways the hue or bloom of other cultivated plants. As the 
 dyor prepares the chemical ingredients of the . baths into 
 which his stuffs are to be dipped, and varies the one with the 
 colour he is to give to the other — so within the plant the 
 substances applied to the root are chemically prepared and 
 mixed, so as to produce the new colour imparted by their 
 means to the petals of the flower. 
 
 But such effects of chemical art are far inferior both in in- 
 terest and importance to those which protracted nursing have 
 
CO THE PLANT WE REAR. 
 
 produced upon our commonly cultivated plants. The large 
 and juicy Altringham carrot is only the woody spindly root of 
 the wild carrot {Daucus Garota), common enough on our south 
 coast, luxuriously fed. Our cabbages, cauliflowers, kohl- 
 rabis, and turnips, in aH their varieties, spring from one or 
 more species of Brassica, which in their natural state have 
 poor woody bitter stems and leaves, and useless woody and 
 spindle-shaped roots. Our cultivated potato, with all its 
 varieties, springs from the tiny and bitter root of the wild 
 potato, which has its native home on the woody sea-shores 
 of ChUi ; and our apples, plums, grapes, and other prized 
 fruits, from well-known wild and little-esteemed progenitors. 
 Our kitchen-gardens are fuU of such vegetable transforma- 
 tions, of which the seakale, the beet, and the asparagus are 
 notable examples. 
 
 It is so likewise with our corn-plants. On the French and 
 Italian shores of the Mediterranean grows a wild neglected 
 grass known by the name of JEgilops ovata. Transplanted 
 to the garden or to the field, and differently fed, its seed en- 
 larges, and after a few years' cultivation, changes into a grain 
 resembling wheat. It is not proved that the jEgilops ovata 
 was the origin of our wheat. But this and other cereals, oats 
 and barley, and rye and maize, in all their varieties, as well 
 as the numerous forms of the eastern dhurra, rice and miUet, 
 and of the less -known quinoa of Upper ChiU and Peru, 
 doubtless sprang by natural and artiiicial selection and im- 
 provement from wild plants of little nutritive value. It is the 
 new chemical and physical conditions in which the plants are 
 placed, which mainly cause the more abundant introduction 
 of certain forms of food into their circulation, and the more 
 full development, in consequence, either of the whole plant, 
 or of some of its more useful parts. 
 
 It is with unconscious reference to these improved condi- 
 tions that certain wild and useless plants attach themselves 
 to and appear affectionately to linger in the footsteps of man. 
 They foUow him in his migrations from place to place — ad- 
 vance with him, like the creeping and sow thistles, as he 
 hews his way through primeval forests — reappear constantly 
 on his manure-heaps — spring up, like the common dock, about 
 his stables and bams — occupy, like the common plantain, the 
 roadsides and ditches he makes — or linger, like the nettle, 
 
YEAST. 61 
 
 over the unseen ruins of his dwelling, to mark where hie 
 abode has formerly been. Thus, with the European settler, 
 European weeds in hundreds have spread over aU Northern 
 America, '^ and are readily recognised as familiar things, 
 speaking to them of a far-off home, by the emigrants to the 
 shores of Australia and New Zealand. We cannot say that all 
 these have followed the European. Many of them have only 
 accompanied him, and, like himself, taken root in what has 
 proved a favourable soil. But those which cling closest to 
 his footsteps, which go only where he goes — which, like his 
 cat or his dog, are in a sense domesticated — these attend 
 upon him, because near his dwelling the appropriate chemi- 
 cal food is found, which best ministers to the wants of their 
 growing parts. 
 
 How singularly dependent the plant is upon the chemical 
 nature of the medium in which it is placed, is beautifully 
 illustrated by the manner in which the humblest forms of 
 vegetation are seen to grow and propagate. The yeast with 
 which we raise our bread is a minute plant belonging to the 
 protophytes or simplest and smallest of vegetable organisms. 
 If we make a thick syrup of cane-sugar, and strew a few cells 
 of this yeast upon it, they will begin to grow and propagate, 
 will cause minute bubbles of gas to rise, and the whole syrup 
 gradually to ferment. But if, instead of a syrup of sugar, we 
 take a thick solution of gum, the yeast will produce no sen- 
 sible effect ; it wiU neither propagate nor cause a fermentation. 
 In the one case the minute plant has met with a somewhat 
 congenial food ; in the other it has found nothing which it can 
 affect and on which it can live and grow. 
 
 But in the juice of ripe grapes it has a more favourable 
 
 medium still. " If we filter this juice, we obtain a clear, 
 
 transparent liquid. Within half an hour this liquid begins to 
 
 grow, first cloudy, and afterwards thick, to give off bubbles of 
 
 gas, or to ferment, and in three hours a greyish-yeUow layer 
 
 of jeast has already collected on its surface. In the heat of 
 
 the fermentation the plants are produced by millions — a single 
 
 cubic inch of such yeast, free from adhering water, containing 
 
 eleven hundred and fifty-two millions of the minute organ- 
 
 jsms." The annexed woodcut (fig. 7) shows the appearance 
 
 J the yeast plant, as seen under the microscope when the 
 
 1 See the author's Notes on North America, voL i. p. 109. 
 
62 THE PLANT WE EEAR. 
 
 propagation is in full activity. The cells or globules axe 
 shown magnified 400 diameters. 
 
 The juice of the grape thus readily propagates the spores of 
 III- 7 yeast which accidentally reach it, because 
 
 ^' ■ it contains the food which, in kind, in 
 
 form, and. in quantity, is best suited to 
 its rapid growth.^ 
 
 And so it is with larger plants in the 
 soil. They grow well and healthily if it 
 contains the food in which they delight. 
 They droop if such food is absent, and 
 
 The Yeast plant. . , ^ . . . - , t^ , 
 
 agam burst mto joynil hie when we sup- 
 ply by art those necessary ingredients in which the soil is 
 deficient. 
 
 But the special chemical changes that go on within the 
 
 1 Whence come the seeds, spores, or germs of this yeast plant, which propa- 
 gates itself with such wonderful rapidity ! Do they exist already in the juice of 
 the living grape ? Do they cling to the exterior of the fruit, and only hecome 
 mixed with the juice when it is in the wine-press, or do they float perpetually in 
 the air, ready to germinate and multiply wherever they obtain a favourable 
 opportunity ? Whichever way they come, it would be too slow a process to 
 wait for the natural appearance of these plants in the worts of the brewer and 
 distiller. In these manufactbries, therefore, it is customary to add a little 
 yeast to the liquor as soon as it is considered ready for the fermentation. 
 Then, as in the case of the grape, the growth and propagation of the plant 
 proceed with astonishing rapidity, and large quantities of yeast are produced. 
 This yeast in many distilleries forms an important by-product of the manufac- 
 tory, and is collected and sold under the name of dry yeast, for the use of the 
 private brewer and the baker. When this is done, the process adopted is 
 nearly as follows : Crushed rye is mashed with the proper quantity of barley 
 malt, and the wort, when made, cooled to the- proper temperatiire. For every 
 hundred pounds of the crushed grain, there are now added half a pound of 
 carbonate of soda, and six ounces of oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid) diluted wTth 
 much water, and the wort is then brought into fermentation by the addition 
 of yeast. From the strongly fermenting liquid the yeast is skimmed off, and 
 strained through a hair sieve into cold water, through which it is allowed to 
 settle. It is afterwards washed with one or two waters, and finally pressed in 
 cloth bags till it has the consistence of dough. It has a pleasant fruity smell, 
 and in a coo! place may be kept for two or three weeks. It then passes into a 
 putrefying decomposition, acquires the odour of decaying cheese, and, like 
 decaying cheese, has now the property of changing sugar into lactic acid, 
 instead of into alcohol, as before. A hundred pounds of crushed grain will 
 yield six to eight pounds of the pressed yeast. It is made largely at Eotter- 
 dam, and is imported thence to this country through Hull. In 1876 more 
 than 8000 tons arrived here. 
 
CHANGES WITHIN THE PLANT. 63 
 
 plant, could we follow them, would appear not less wonderful 
 than the rapid production of entire microscopic vegetables 
 from the raw food contained in the juice of the grape. It is 
 as yet altogether incomprehensible, even to the most refined 
 physiological chemistry, how, from the same food taken in 
 from the air, and from generally similar food drawn up from 
 the soil, different plants, and different parts of plants, should 
 be able to extract or produce substances so very different from 
 each other in composition and in all their properties. From 
 the seed-vessels of one (the poppy), we collect a jtiice which 
 dries up into our commercial opium ; from the bark of another 
 (cinchona) we extract the quinine with which we assuage the 
 raging fever ; from the leaves of others, like those of hemlock 
 and tobacco, we distil deadly poisons, often of rare value for 
 their medicinal uses. The flowers and leaves and seeds of some 
 yield volatile oils, which we delight in for their odours and their 
 aromatic qualities ; the seeds of others give fixed oils, which are 
 prized for the table or for use in the arts. The wood of some is 
 rich in valuable dyes, while from that of others exude turpen- 
 tines and resins of varied degrees of worth — from the cheap 
 rosin of the tinsmith and soap-maker to the costlier myrrh 
 and aloes and benzoin which millions stiU bum, as acceptable 
 incense, before the altars of their gods. The slender stems 
 of others fiirnish the raw material out of which ropes, linen, 
 and lawn are made. The bark of the lace-tree yields a deU- 
 cate network of woody fibre of great utility ; and even from a 
 nettle — the China-grass — a kind of flax is produced, which is 
 made into handkerchiefs. 
 
 These, and a thousand other similar facts, tell us how 
 wonderfully varied are the changes which the same original 
 forms of matter undergo in the interior of hving plants. 
 Indeed, whether we regard the vegetable as a whole or ex- 
 amine its minutest parts, we find equal evidence of the same 
 diversity of changes, and of the same production, in com- 
 paratively minute quantities, of very different, yet often very 
 characteristic forms of matter. 
 
 Thus, looking at a large tree as a whole, we are charmed 
 with the brilliant green foliage which invests it when 
 summer has come, and to which the landscape owes half its 
 charms. Yet chemistry teUs us that aU this effect of colour 
 is produced by a few ounces of colouring matter distributed 
 
64 
 
 THE PLANT WE KEAR. 
 
 Fig. 8. 
 
 evenly over its thousands of leaves. The microscope tells us 
 something more, revealing as it does that the liquid sap of 
 the greenest plant is not itself green. The cells which seem 
 green to the unassisted eye, are 
 seen, under the microscope, to con- 
 tain minute granules of a green sub- 
 stance called chlorophyll, embedded 
 in a layer of formative matter, or 
 protoplasm, lining their walls. 
 
 The same microscope, aided by 
 chemistry, explains how the nettle 
 acts upon our hands, assuring us 
 that the pain it causes, ■when allowed 
 to pierce the skin, arises from a 
 reservoir of a peculiar acid (the for- 
 mic acid), which, like the poison of 
 the serpent's tooth, is squeezed into 
 the wound which the spikelet makes. 
 The characteristic property of the 
 minute nettle-hair, and the peculiar 
 charm of the wide landscape, are 
 equally dependent upon the produc- 
 tion in living, plants of special forms of matter in compara- 
 tively minute proportions — upon hereditary tendencies to- 
 wards definite lines of chemical activity transmitted by the 
 most minute seed or bud from generation to generation. 
 
 The tuber of the potato, the ripening apple, and the grow- 
 ing ty,^g, present us with another illustration of special 
 chemical changes proceeding continuously in the plantj 
 and with a definite reference to a specific and useful end. 
 The unripe potato, when taken from the earth, withers and 
 shrivels, becomes unsightly to the eye, and vapid to the taste ; 
 the unripe apple shrinks in, refuses to retain its natural 
 dimensions, and cannot be kept for any length of time ; 
 while the unripe twig perishes amidst the chiUs of winter, 
 and remains black and dead when the green buds of spring 
 were expected to enUven its surface. These effects are the 
 consequence of the thin bark which covers potato, apple, 
 and twig alike, not having attained its matured composition. 
 While unripe, this coating is porous and pervious to water, 
 so that, when removed from the parent plant, tuber, fruit, 
 
 The acid is driven ftom the 
 prickly hair, oa its point be- 
 ing brolten, by tlie elastic 
 cells at the base. 
 
PURPOSES SERVED BY VEGETATION. 65 
 
 and tvfig all give oflf water by evaporation to the air, and 
 thus shrivel and shrink in as I have described. But when 
 ripe, this porous covering has become chemically changed 
 into a tliin impervious coating of cork, through which water 
 can scarcely pass, and by which, therefore, it is confined 
 within for months together. It is this corky layer which 
 enables the potato to keep the winter through ; the winter 
 pear and winter apple to be brought to table in spring of 
 their full natural dimensions ; and the ripened twig to retain 
 its sap undried, and to feed the young bud when the April 
 sun first wakens it from its winter's sleep. 
 
 Nor are the general purposes for which the entire plant 
 lives, and is the theatre, so to speak, of so many changes, to 
 be properly, I may say at all appreciated, without the assist- 
 ance of chemical research. ' 
 
 It is true that every one can recognise in the natural her- 
 bage and the wild forest the ornaments of the landscape ; in 
 the thousand odours they distil, and in the varied hues and 
 forms with which they sprinkle the surface, the most agree- 
 able and refined ministers to our sensuous pleasures. And in 
 these things we unquestionably see some of the true pur- 
 poses served by vegetation in the economy of nature. But 
 they are subsidiary purposes — which they serve by the way, 
 as it were, while labouring to ftdfil their true and greater 
 vocation. 
 
 This vocation may be viewed in two aspects : frst, as re- 
 gards dead nature ; and, secondly/, as regards living things. 
 
 First, In its relation to dead nature, the plant serves, while 
 living, to purify the air we breathe. Its green parts continu- 
 ally absorb carbonic acid and give off oxygen gas during the 
 day, and thus become a chief instrument in maintaining the 
 normal condition of the atmosphere. It renders the air more 
 fit for the support of animal life, both by removing that which 
 is noxious (the carbonic acid), and by pouring into it that 
 which is salutary (the oxygen) to animal health and life. And 
 then, when it dies, it either covers the earth with a vegetable 
 mould, which favours the growth of new generations of plants, 
 or it accumulates into beds of peat or mineral coal, by which 
 man is long after to be warmed, and the arts of life promoted. 
 But in either case it only lingers for a while in these less 
 sightly mineral forms. It gradually assumes again the gase- 
 
66 THE PLANT WE EEAE. 
 
 ous state, and whether it is allowed naturally to decay, or is 
 burned in the fire, ultimately rises again into the air in the 
 form of carbonic acid. By this means, in part, vegetation is 
 perpetuated upon the globe, and the natural composition of 
 the atmosphere, as regards the proportion of the carbonic 
 acid gas, is permanently maintained. And, 
 
 Secondli/, As regards living animals, we all know and feel 
 that plants are necessary to our daily life. Utterly dry up 
 and banish vegetation from a region, and nearly every sensi- 
 ble form of animal life forthwith disappears. But how do 
 plants feed us ? And by what virtues in their several parts 
 can the ox thrive on the straw, while man can live only on 
 the grain ? How can human life be permanently sustained 
 on the nut and fruit of the tree ? How can the leaves and 
 twigs of the thick forest support the lordly elephant ? 
 
 As to dead nature, the plant serves a_ subsidiary purpose in 
 covering and adorning it — so to living nature, to man espe- 
 cially, it serves a similar subsidiary purpose in producing 
 the numerous remarkable products, to which I have already 
 alluded as being usefiil in medicine and the arts, and as min- 
 istering to the luxuries and comfort of civilised life. In the 
 production of these we recognise a destined and benevolent 
 purpose served by the general vegetation of the globe, in ref- 
 erence to living things. But this purpose is only secondary, 
 and, as it were, ornamental. The main object of the plant, 
 in its relations to the animal, is to feed it. This it does with 
 various forms of vegetable matter in different climes and 
 couatiles, and it provides for each herbivorous and carnivor- 
 ous race those peculiar forms on which it best loves, because it 
 is best fitted, to feed. It is so with man. His vegetable food 
 varies with the part of the world in which he is situated ; yet 
 upon all the varieties with which different climates furnish 
 him, he discovers the means continuously to sustain himself. 
 
 Of what chemical substances do these different forms of 
 nutritious food consist ? What do they possess in common ? 
 In what do they differ ? Why do some of them, weight for 
 weight, sustain the body more completely or for a longer 
 time than others? Why do they affect the dispositions of 
 those who consume them- — not only the constitution of indi- 
 viduals, but the habits, temperament, and character of whole 
 
THE PLAKT AS FOOD. 67 
 
 nations ? Why do we choose to mix the forms of vegetable 
 food we consume — whence come the fashions of universal 
 cookery — whence the peculiarities of national dishes ? 
 
 What a host of curious chemical inquiries spring up in 
 connection with the plant we rear, regarded as the main sus- 
 tenance or staff of common life ! I shall consider some of 
 them in the following chapter. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE BREAD WE EAT. 
 
 The grain of wheat. — Bran and flour. — Separation of flour into starch and 
 gluten. — Fermenting of dough. — ^Baking of bread. — New and stale bread. 
 — Proportion of water in flour and in bread. — Composition of bread. — 
 Bran richer in gluten. — Comparative composition. — Wheaten and rye 
 bread compared. — Oatmeal and Indian-corn meal. — Composition of rice. — 
 Buckwheat, quinoa, Guinea corn, and dhurra. — Composition of beans, 
 peas, and lupins. — The sago-palm, and the seeds of the araucaria. — The 
 fruits of the banana, the date-palm, the fig-tree, and the bread-fruit tree. — 
 Water contained in fruits and roots. — The turnip, carrot, and potato. — 
 The 'composition of rice, the potato, and the plantain compared. — Defor- 
 mity among the eaters of these three vegetables. — The Siberian lily. — ^The 
 use oHeaves as food. — The cabbage very nutritious. — Natural tendency of 
 man to adjust the constituents of his food, — Irish kol-cannon. — Starvation 
 upon arrowroot and tapioca. — General characters of a nutritious diet. — 
 National and individual influence of diet. 
 
 The bread we eat I take as the type of our vegetable food. 
 On such food of various kinds, and eaten in varions forms, 
 man and animals are sustained in all parts of the globe. The 
 study of our common wheaten bread will give us the key to 
 the composition and known usefulness of them all. 
 
 1°. Wheat. — -When the grain of wheat is crushed between 
 the stones of the mill, and is then sifted, it is separated into 
 at least two parts — the bran and the flour. The bran con- 
 sists chiefly of the outside, harder part of the grain, which 
 does not crush so readily, and when it does crush, darkens 
 the colour of the flour. It is therefore generally sifted out by 
 the miUer, and is used for feeding horses, oxen, and pigs. 
 Whole meal and brown meal contain both bran and flour, and 
 are much used for making brown bread. 
 
GLUTEN AND STARCH. 
 
 69 
 
 If the flour be mixed with a quantity of water sufficient to 
 moisten it thoroughly, the particles cohere and form a smooth, 
 elastic, and tenacious _. 
 
 dough, which admits 
 of being drawn out to 
 some extent, and of 
 being moulded into a 
 variety of forms. If 
 this dough be placed 
 upon a sieve or on a 
 piece of muslin, and 
 worked with the hand 
 Tinder a stream of water 
 (fig. 9), as long as the 
 water passes through 
 milky, there wiU re- 
 main at last upon the 
 sieve a white sticky 
 substance very much 
 resembling bird-lime. 
 This is the substance 
 which gives its tenacity to the dough. From its glutinous 
 character it has obtained among chemists the name of gluten. 
 When the milky water has become clear by standing, a white 
 powder will be found at the bottom of the vessel, which is 
 common wheaten starch. Thus the flour of wheat contains 
 two principal substances, gluten and starch. Of the former, 
 every 100 lb. of fine English flour contain about 10 lb., and 
 of the latter about 70 lb. 
 
 The way in which the bran, the gluten, and the starch are 
 respectively distributed throughout the body of the seeds of 
 our com plants is shown in the following section (fig. 10) of 
 a fragment of a grain of wheat when fully ripe. 
 
 In the figure, a represents the several seed and fruit coats 
 of the grain ; b a layer of cells containing much gluten. 
 These together form the bran, c represents the cellular tissue 
 of the albumen,^ consisting of large hexagonal cells, which 
 contain granules of starch. 
 
 ' The reader must not confoand this word albumen, used by botanists to 
 denote the white inner pai-t of the seed, with the same word used in chemistry 
 as the name of the characteristic constituent of the white of the egg. 
 
 Mode of separating the Gluten from the Starch 
 of Wheat. 
 
70 
 
 THE BREAD WE EAT. 
 
 Fig. 10. 
 
 BectioQ of part of a Wheat-grain. 
 
 Figure 11 exhibits one of tlie cells of the albumen more 
 highly magnified, and shows how the grains of starch are 
 
 disposed in it. The 
 small figures to the 
 right are grains of 
 starch still more high- 
 ly magnified. Their 
 natural size varies 
 from a ten-thousandth 
 to a six-hundredth of 
 an inch. 
 
 The outer coating 
 contains only 4 or 5 
 per cent of gluten, 
 the inner coating from 
 14 to 20 per cent. AH 
 this is separated in the bran. Throughout the mass of the 
 grain around and within the albumen - cells the gluten is 
 diffiised everywhere among the grains of starch. 
 
 When a little yeast is added to the flour before or while it 
 is being mixed with water into a dough, and the dough is then 
 
 placed for an hour or two in a 
 warm atmosphere, it begins to 
 rise — ^it ferments, that is, and 
 1 swells or increases in bulk.- 
 Bubbles of gas (carbonic acid 
 gas) are disengaged in the in- 
 terior of the dough, which is 
 thereby rendered light and po- 
 rous. If it be now put into a 
 
 Single ceu. Granules of Starch. ^°^ o^^n, the fermentation and 
 
 swelling are at first increased 
 by the high temperature ; but when the whole has been heated 
 nearly to the temperature of boiling water, the fermentation 
 is suddenly arrested, and the mass is fixed by the after-baking 
 in the form it has then attained.^ 
 
 ■ It is now newly-baked bread, and if it be cut across it 
 will appear light and spongy, being regularly sprinkled over 
 with little cavities, which were produced in the soft dough 
 
 ^ The formation of Lard crusts on the loaf may be prevented by rubbing a 
 little melted lard or by sprinkling a little milk over it after it is shaped, and 
 before it is set down to rise or by baking it in a covered tin. 
 
 Fig. 11. 
 
NEW AND STALE BREAD. 71 
 
 by tlio bubbles of gas given off during the fermentation. 
 This fermentation is the consequente of a peculiar action 
 which yeast exercises upon moist flour. It first changes a 
 part of the starch of the flour into sugar, and then converts 
 this sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid, in the same way 
 as it does when it is added to the worts of the brewer or the 
 distUler. As the gas cannot escape from the glutinous dough, 
 it coUecta within it in bubbles, and makes it swell, till the 
 heat of the oven kills the yeast plant, or so changes or fixes 
 its active ingredients as to cause the fermentation to cease. 
 The alcohol escapes, for the most part, during the baking of 
 the loaf, and is dissipated in the oven, but a little remains in 
 the bread, which has been found to contain about two parts 
 of alcohol in a thousand. 
 
 New-baked bread possesses a peculiar softness and tenacity, 
 and though generally considered less digestible, is a favourite 
 with many. After a day or two it loses this softness, becomes 
 free and crumbly, and apparently drier. In common language, 
 the bread becomes stale, or it is stale bread. This change 
 does not arise wholly from the bread becoming actually drier 
 by the gradual loss of water. Stale bread contains nearly the 
 same proportion of water as new bread after it has become com- 
 pletely cold. The change is in the internal arrangement of the 
 molecules of the bread. A proof of this is, that if we put a stale 
 loaf into a closely-covered tin, expose it for half an hour or an 
 hour to a heat not exceeding that of boihng water, and then re- 
 move the tin, and allow it to cool, the loaf when taken out wiU be 
 restored in appearance and properties to the state of new bread. 
 
 The quantity of water which well-baked wheaten bread con- 
 tains, amounts on an average to about 40 per cent. The 
 bread wo eat, therefore, is more than one-third water. 
 
 The flour of wheat and of other kinds of grain contains 
 water naturally, but it absorbs much more during the process 
 of conversion into bread. 100 lb. of fine wheaten flour take 
 up 45 lb., or nearly haK their weight of water, and give 145 
 lb. of bread. Thus, 100 lb. of EngHsh flour and 145 lb. of 
 bread contain respectively — 
 
 The flour contains The bread contains 
 
 Dry flour, 85 85 
 
 Natural water 15 15 
 
 Water added, *5 
 
 100 lb. 145 lb. 
 
72 THE BREAD WE BAT. 
 
 One of tlie reasons why bread retains so much water is, 
 that during the baking -a portion of the starch is converted 
 into a kind of gum called dextrine, which holds water more 
 strongly than starch does ; a second is, that the gluten of 
 flour, when once thoroughly wet, is very diflScult to dry again, 
 and that it forms a tenacious coating roimd every little hoUow 
 ceU in the bread, which coating does not readily allow the 
 gas contained in the cell to escape, or the water to dry up and 
 pass off in vapour ; and a third reason is, that the dry crust 
 which forms round the bread in baking is nearly impervious 
 to water, and, like the skin of a potato which we bake in the 
 oven or in the hot cinders, prevents the moisture within from 
 escaping. 
 
 The proportions of water, gluten, and starch or gum, in 
 well-baked wheaten bread, are nearly as follows : — 
 
 Water, 40 
 
 Gluten, 7 
 
 Starch, sugar, and gum, 51 
 
 Salt, and other mineral matters, .... 2 
 
 100 
 
 The bran or husk of wheat, which is separated from the fine 
 flour in the mill, and is often condemned to humbler uses, is 
 somewhat more nutritious, so far as concerns flesh-forming 
 and bone-forming constituents, than either the grain as a 
 whole, or the whiter part of the flour. The nutritive quality 
 of any variety of grain depends much upon the proportion of 
 gluten which it contains ; and the proportions of this in the 
 whole grain, the bran, and the fine flour respectively, of the 
 same sample of wheat, are very nearly as follows : — 
 
 Whole grain 12 per cent. 
 
 Whole hran (outer and inner skins), . 14 to 18 „ 
 Fine flour, 10 „ 
 
 If the grain, as a whole, contain more than 12 per cent of 
 gluten, the bran and the flour will also contain more than is 
 above represented, and in a like proportion. The whole meal 
 obtained by simply grinding the grain is equally nutritious 
 with the grain itself. By sifting out the bran we render the 
 meal less nutritious, weight for weight ; and when we con- 
 sider that the bran is rarely less than one-fifth of the whole 
 weight of the grain, we must see that the total separation of 
 
WHOLE-MEAL BREAD. 73 
 
 the covering of the grain causes nmch waste of wholesome 
 Imman.food. Bread made from the whole-meal is therefore 
 more nutritious ; and as many persons find it also a more 
 salutary food than white bread, it ought to be more generally 
 preferred and used. Another reason for supposing it to be 
 more nutritious is derived from the discovery that the bran of 
 wheat, besides the nutritious quality it derives from the large 
 percentage of gluten it contains, possesses also the property 
 of dissolving the flour or bread with which it is mixed, and of 
 rendering it more easily digestible in the stomach. It con- 
 tains a peculiar species of ferment, which, in the presence of 
 water, and aided by the heat of the oven in baking, and of 
 the stomach during digestion, gradually converts the starch 
 of the bread into sugar. To this property of bran, as well as 
 to the nourishment it yields, is to be ascribed a portion of 
 those wholesome qualities which many persons have recog- 
 nised in whole-meal bread. Like oatmeal, it is a somewhat 
 laxative food ; and, moreover, it must not be forgotten, that 
 the roughness of whole-meal bread causes it to be hurried 
 through the alimentary canal before all its goodness has been 
 extracted and absorbed. 
 
 The woodcut and explanation given on p. 70 show that tho 
 gluten of tho husk occurs chiefly in the inner coverings of the 
 grain. Hence the outer covering may be removed without 
 sensible loss of nutriment, leaving the remainder both more 
 nutritious than before, weight for weight, and also more 
 digestible than when the thin outer covering is left upon the 
 com. This removal of the outer fibrous coat involves the loss 
 of about 2 lb. in 100 of grain. It may be accomplished by 
 moistening the grain and rubbing it, or by a special process 
 of milling known as decortication. 
 
 It is also a point of some interest that the small or tail 
 com, which the farmer separates before bringing his grain 
 to market, and usually grinds for his own use, is richer in 
 gluten than tlie plump full-grown grain, and is therefore 
 more nutritious. 
 
 The amount of wheat annually consumed per head in the 
 United Kingdom has been gradually increasing — 
 
 In 1848 it amounted to 311 lb. 
 
 In 1868 „ , . . . . 335 „ 
 In 1877 „ 8^ .. 
 
74 THE BKEAD "WE EAT. 
 
 Unfortunately, both flour and bread are frequently adulter- 
 ated with injurious substances. Some flour seized at a mill 
 in Apperley Bridge, Yorkshire, contained 1 part of alum in 
 240 of wheat. Of 20 samples of bread bought in the east of 
 London in 1871, Mr Muter found 7 containing alum, and 1 
 sulphate of copper. He gives the following percentages as 
 representing the general condition of London bread at that 
 time : Pure bread, 52 per cent ; alumed, 23 per cent ; cop- 
 pered, 15 per cent. 
 
 2°. Barley and Eye resemble the grain of wheat very much 
 in composition and nutritive quality. They differ from it 
 somewhat in flavour and colour, and do not make so fair and 
 spongy a bread. They are not generally preferred, therefore, 
 in countries where wheat and other grains thrive and ripen. 
 In composition and nutritive quality wheaten and rye bread 
 very closely resemble each other ; and except as concerns our 
 taste, it is a matter of indi£ference whether we live on the one 
 or the other. Eye bread possesses one quality which is in 
 some respects a valuable one : it retains its freshness and 
 moisture for a longer time than wheaten bread, and can be 
 kept for months without becoming hard, dry, or unpalatable. 
 This arises principally from certain peculiar properties pos- 
 sessed by the variety of gluten which exists in the grain of 
 rye. On the other hand, rye is pecidiarly liable to the attacks 
 of a fungus causing the " ergot." On the Continent, rye 
 gangrene of the limbs, induced by eating bread made from 
 the ergoted grain, has proved fatal. 
 
 3°. Indian Corn or Maize, the "corn'' of the United States, 
 also resembles wheat in. composition and nutritive quahty. 
 Its grain has a peculiar flinty hardness, and its flour, i;sually 
 known as Indian meal, a flavour which in this country is not 
 at first relished. It does not bake into the same light spongy 
 loaves as wheaten flour, but is excellent in the form of cakes._ 
 The chief peculiarity in its composition is, that it contains 
 more oil or fat than any of our common grains, except the 
 oat. This oil sometimes amounts to as much as 9 lb. in 
 100, and is supposed to impart to Indian com a peculiar 
 fattening quality, by those who conclude that all the fat eaten 
 makes fat, and who would order a nursing mother to drink 
 milk. But it is not fat-eaters who are the fattest ; nor is all 
 the fat in the body formed from fat in the food. Maize soaked 
 
OATS AND OATMEAL. 
 
 76 
 
 in water for Bome time, then ground into pulp, yields the 
 material of the Mexican cakes called tortillas. The Mexican 
 women are often employed six hours a-day over this work. 
 
 4°. Oats are a favourite food in our island for horses, and 
 in Scotland especially are much esteemed as an agreeable, 
 nutritious, and wholesome food for man. The meal of this 
 grain is distinguished for its richness in gluten, and for con- 
 taining more fetty matter than any other of our cereal grains. 
 To these two circumstances it owes its eminently nutritious 
 and wholesome character. The average relative proportions 
 of gluten, fat, and starch contained in fine wheaten flour, in 
 Scotch oatmeal, and in Indian-corn meal, are represented by 
 the following numbers : — 
 
 
 English 
 
 line wheaten 
 
 flour. 
 
 Bran of 
 English 
 wheat. 
 
 Scotch 
 oatmeal. 
 
 Indian-corn 
 meaL 
 
 Water, . . 
 Gluten, . . 
 Fat, . . . 
 Starch, &c., . 
 Fibre, . . 
 Ash, . . . 
 
 13 
 10 
 
 1 
 74 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 U 
 18 
 
 4 
 4;i 
 17 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 16 
 
 10 
 
 63 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 15 
 9 
 6 
 
 64 
 5 
 2 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 The large proportion of fatty matter contained in Indian 
 com is supposed to adapt it well for fattening animals ; it 
 certainly makes it more grateful to the alimentary canal, and 
 therefore more wholesome. I have inserted in the above table 
 a column showing the average composition of the bran of 
 Engligh wheat, for the purpose of showing, Jirst, how large a 
 proportion of fat it also contains, compared with fine wheaten 
 flour ; and, secondly, the remarkable similarity in composition, 
 in some respects, which exists between the bran of wheat and 
 the meal of the oat. 
 
 Owing to a peculiar quality of the gluten which the oat 
 contains, the meal of this grain does not admit of being baked 
 into a light fermented spongy bread. It has been alleged 
 against oatmeal, that when used as the sole food, without milk 
 or other animal diet, it produces heat and irritability of the 
 skin, aggravates skin diseases, and sometimes occasions boils, 
 in the same way as salt meat tends to produce scurvy. Dr 
 
76 THE BREAD WE EAT. 
 
 Pereira, a higli authority, states that this charge has been made 
 without just grounds. At all events, it must be very rarely 
 that circumstances render necessary for any length of time 
 such an exclusive consumption of oatmeal. 
 
 5°. EicE is remarkable chiefly for the comparatively small 
 proportion of gluten it contains. This does not exceed seven 
 or eight per cent — ^less than half the quantity contained in 
 oatmeal. In rice countries, it has often been noticed that the 
 natives devour -what to us appear enormous quantities of the 
 grain, and this circumstance is ascribed to the small propor- 
 tion it contains of the highly nutritive and necessary gluten, 
 Eice contains also little fat, and hence it is less laxative than 
 the other cereal grains, or rather it possesses something of a 
 binding quaHty. It has been observed that, when substituted 
 for potatoes in some of our workhouses — in consequence of 
 the failure of the potato — this grain has after a few months 
 produced scurvy. This may have been partly owing to the 
 effects of sudden change of diet, and partly to the deficiency 
 in mineral matters characteristic of this grain. Still it sug- 
 gests, as many other facts do, the utility and wholesomeness 
 of a mixed food. Eice is, however, an easily digested food. 
 Its composition is — 
 
 Water, 14J 
 
 Fibrin, 7^ 
 
 Starch, 76 
 
 Fat, J 
 
 Fibre, 1 
 
 Ash i 
 
 100 
 
 6°. Buckwheat flour is about as nutritious as English 
 wheaten flour, and makes excellent cakes, which, when eaten 
 hot with maple-honey, in the backwoods of America, are 
 really delicious. 
 
 7°. QuiNOA. — A variety of grain scarcely known in this 
 country is the quinoa (fig. 12), a small roundish seed which . 
 is extensively cultivated and consumed on the high table- 
 lands of Chili and Peru. There are two varieties of it — ^the 
 sweet and the bitter — which grow at elevations rising to 
 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, where both rye and 
 barley refiise to ripen. It is still the principal food of the 
 many thousands of people who occupy these high lands, 
 and, before the introduction of European grains by the 
 
DAEI OE DHUEEA. 
 
 77 
 
 Spaniards, is said to have formed the chief nourishment of 
 the Peruvian nation. It is very nutritious, and in its com- 
 position approaches very nearly to that of oatmeal, but con- 
 tains rather less fat. A grain so nutritious as this is a very 
 precious gift to the inhabitants of the elevated regions of 
 the Andes. Without it, those lofty plains could only be 
 runs for cattle, like the summer pastures among the valleys 
 on the Alps. 
 
 Fig. 12. 
 
 Fig. 13. 
 
 Chenopodium Quinoa — 
 
 The Quinoa plant. 
 Scale, 1 inch to 2 feet. 
 
 Sorghum vulgare~One of the plants 
 
 yielding Dhun'a or Indian Millet. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 2 feot. 
 
 8°. Guinea Corn, a small grain, used to some extent in the 
 West Indies, is a little less nutritious than ordinary English 
 wheat. 
 
 9°. Dam, Dhuera orDnooRA (fig. 13), a small kind of grain 
 much cultivated and extensively consumed in India, Egypt, 
 and the interior of Africa. On the alluvial soils of the Uj^er 
 Nile, one of the numerous species included under this name, 
 often attains a height of from 1 5 to 20 feet, and is very pro- 
 
78 THE BREAD WE EAT. 
 
 ductive. It is nearly equal in nutritive value to the average 
 of our English wheats, and yields a beautiful white flour. 
 According to recent analyses, buckwheat, deprived of its 
 husk, contains 15, and dari meal 8 to 9 per cent of gluten. 
 
 10°. The Bean, the Pea, the Lupin, the Vetch, the Lentil, 
 and other varieties of pulse, contain, as a distinguishing char- 
 acter of the whole class, a large percentage of gluten, mixed 
 with a comparatively small percentage of lat. On an average, 
 the proportion of gluten is about 24, and of fat about 2 in 
 every 100. The gluten of these kinds of grain resembles 
 that of the oat, and does not, therefore, fit bean or pease meal 
 for being converted into a spongy bread. The large propor- 
 tion in which this ingredient is present in them, however, 
 renders all kinds of pulse very nutritious. Eaten alone, 
 however, they have a constipating or costive quality ; but a 
 proper admixture of them with other kinds of food, ■ espe- 
 cially with such as contain a larger proportion of oil or fat, 
 is found to give both strength and endurance to animals 
 which are subjected to hard labour. It is in this way that a 
 certain quantity of beans given to horses among their oats, is 
 found so serviceable in this country. 
 
 It is because also of the same large percentage of gluten 
 that the chick-pea, one of the seeds known as gram in the 
 East, is considered, when roasted, to be more capable of sus- 
 taining life, weight for weight, than any other kind of food. 
 For this reason it is selected by travellers about to cross the 
 deserts, where heavy and bulky food would be inconvenient. 
 
 Of all these varieties of grain a kind of bread is made by 
 those who live upon them, and they are all more or less used 
 in this form for human food. Only two of them, however, I 
 believe — wheat and rye — possess the property, when mixed 
 with yeast or leaven, of forming a light spongy bread, which 
 can be kept for a time without becoming unpalatable. And 
 of the two varieties of bread yielded by these grains, that 
 made irom wheat is the more dry and crummy, the more fair 
 to look upon, and the more agreeable to the taste. Hence 
 the universal preference which exists for the flour of wheat 
 and for wheaten bread wherever they can easily be obtained. 
 
 The cereals raised in the United States may be cited as an 
 illustration of the enormously increased prodiiction of bread- 
 stuffs during the thirty years, 1840 to 1870 : — 
 
THE SAGO-PALM. 
 
 79 
 
 Cereals. 
 
 Indian corn, 
 Oats, . 
 Wheat, 
 Barley, 
 Eye, . . 
 
 Millions of bnahels in 
 
 1840. 
 
 377 
 
 123 
 
 85 
 4 
 
 19 
 
 1850. 
 
 592 
 
 146 
 
 100 
 
 5 
 
 14 
 
 I860. 
 
 838 
 
 172 
 
 173 
 
 16 
 
 21 
 
 1870. 
 760 
 282 
 288 
 30 
 17 
 
 Total, 
 
 867 1220 1377 
 
 Fig. 14. 
 
 But trees also share with corn-bread to a considerable ex- 
 tent in the nutrition of the human race. Among these the 
 sago-palm, the Chilian pine, the banana or plantain, and the 
 date, the fig, and the bread-fruit tree, are deserving of especial 
 notice. 
 
 11°. The Sago-palm {Sagus rumphii) is cultivated in many 
 places, but it is the chief support of 
 the inhabitants of north-western 
 New Guinea, and of parts of the coast 
 of Africa. The meal is extracted 
 from the pith by rubbing it to pow- 
 der, and then washing it with water 
 upon a sieve. It is baked by the 
 natives into a kind of bread or hard 
 cake, by putting it for a few minutes 
 into a hot mould. The exact nutri- 
 tive value of this meal has not been 
 chemically ascertained. It has been 
 stated, however, that 2 J lb. of it are 
 sufficient to serve for a day's suste- 
 nance to a healthy full-grown man. 
 And as each tree, when cut down in 
 its seventh year, yields 700 lb. of 
 sago - meal, it has been calculated 
 that a single acre of land planted with 300 trees — one- 
 seventh to be cut down every year — would maintain 33 
 men. 
 
 Other so-called sago -palms are known. One of these, 
 Ci/caa pecttnata, has a stem 10 feet high crowned with 
 beautiful foliage, and grows on the flats of the Great Eunjeet 
 Kiver in Sikkim, &c. 
 
 12°. But the Chilian Pine (Araucaria inibricata), now 
 known among us for its beauty, is still more conspicuous as 
 
 Sagus rwmpAii— The Sago-palm. 
 Scale, 1 inch to 20 feet. 
 
80 
 
 THE BREAD "WE EA.T. 
 
 a feeder of men. In onr British woods the tiny squirrel sup- 
 ports its life during the winter months on the seeds of the 
 laroh, the pine, and the Scotch fir, which we plant for omar 
 
 Fig. 15. 
 
 -^='~S^^;i.isJ-' 
 
 Arawxtria imftrioato — The Chili Fine,. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to iO feet. 
 
 a Kernel of seed, the nairiiral size ; & Cone, 1 inch to 10 inches. 
 
 ment or use. But on the western slopes of the Andes of 
 Chili and Patagonia, the lofty araucaria extends in natural 
 forests, bearing huge cones six inches and more in diameter. 
 The seeds contained in these are large, 200 or 300 in number, 
 and twice the size of an almond, and supply the natives 
 with a great part of their usual food. " The firuit of one laxge 
 tree will maintain eighteen persons for a year ; " and this year 
 by year, without the necessity of cutting down and replanting, 
 as in the case of the sago-palm. 
 
THE BANANA OR PLANTAIN. 
 
 81 
 
 We do not know the composition of these pine-seeds, but 
 they probably do not differ much from the beechnut, the 
 chestnut, and the acorn, all of which are rich in gluten. 
 
 13°. The Banana or Plantain Tree.— Of some fruits, tales 
 nearly as wonderful are 
 told. The beautiful ban- ^'^- "• 
 
 ana, for example, the orna- 
 ment of country-houses in 
 tropical countries, is said 
 to yield from the same ex- 
 tent of ground a larger 
 supply of human food than 
 any other known vegetable. 
 It is distinguished by a 
 • large waving fanlike leaf 
 and pendent branches of 
 golden fruit. The fruit of 
 a single tree sometimes 
 weighs 70 or 80 lb., but 
 averages from 30. to 40 lb. ; 
 and, according to Hum- 
 boldt, the same space of 
 1000 square feet, which 
 will yield only 462 lb. of 
 potatoes, or 38 lb. of wheat, 
 will produce 4000 lb. of 
 bananas, and in a shorter 
 period of time 1 
 
 The fruit, however, con- 
 tains when ripe 74 per cent 
 of water. Of the 26 re- 
 maining parts 20 are sxigar, 
 and 2 gluten or flesh-form- 
 ing substances. Thus, like rice, it is not by itself a perfect 
 food, requiring the addition of some more nitrogenous mate- 
 rial, as pulse or lean meat. Even when dried and converted 
 into meal, it is less nutritious than the meal of any of the 
 varieties of grain above mentioned. In tropical countries it 
 is nevertheless a most valuable food, and is so extensively 
 consumed as to take the place of our cereal grains as the 
 common article of diet. About 6|^ lb. of the fruit, or 2 lb. of 
 
 Mitsa sapientiim—The Banana Tree. 
 Scale, 1 inch to 10 feet. 
 Fruit, 1 inch to 5 inches. 
 
82 
 
 THir BREAD WE EAT. 
 
 Fig. 17. 
 
 the dry meal, with J lb. of salt meat or fish, form, in tropical 
 
 America, the daily allowance for a labourer. 
 
 The unripe fruit is sometimes used ; it is dried in the oven, 
 and in this state is eaten in the 
 manner of bread. When thus 
 dried, it may be kept for a long 
 time without spoiling, and is usu- 
 ally carried with them in this dry 
 state by the natives when they 
 are proceeding on a long journey. 
 The chemical reason why the 
 unripe fruit is chosen for this 
 purpose is, that while unripe, the 
 fruit is filled with starch, so that 
 when dried it has a resemblance 
 to bread both in taste and com- 
 position. As the fruit ripens, 
 this starch changes into sugar, 
 and the fruit becomes sweet. In 
 this state, though more pleasant 
 to eat when newly pulled, it is 
 less fit either for drying or for 
 preserving. 
 
 14°. The Date. — Many other 
 fruits are more nutritious, weight 
 for weight, than the banana, 
 though none may probably be 
 compared with it as an abundant 
 producer of food. The date, for 
 example, " the bread of the de- 
 sert," is much less watery, and 
 though somewhat deficient in 
 flesh-formers, is capable of sup- 
 porting life, and of sustaining un- 
 aided the strength of man, for an 
 indefinite period. 
 
 The date-palm (Phoenix dactyli- 
 fera), the tree which yields this 
 fruit, is invaluable amid parched 
 
 sands and arid deserts. Wherever a spring of water appears. 
 
 amid the sandy deserts of Africa (between 19° and 35° N. 
 
 Phcenix dactyli/era — The Date-palm. 
 Scale, 1 inch to 20 feet. 
 Fruit, 1 inch to 2 inches. 
 
THE BREAD-FEUIT. 83 
 
 latitude), this graceful palm yields at once both its grateful 
 shelter and its nourishing fruit. The date-palm comes into 
 fall bearing in thirty years : then for seventy years it annu- 
 ally produces 15 to 20 bunches of fruit, each bunch weighing 
 15 to 20 lb. Where all other crops fail from drought, the 
 date-tree still flourishes. In Egypt and Arabia it forms a 
 large portion of the general food, and among the oases of 
 Fezzan " nineteen-twentieths of the population live upon it 
 for nine months of the year." It is dned and pounded, and 
 forms a sort of cake. 
 
 15°. The Fig. — The fig, like the date, is a native of warm 
 climates. Of the chemical history of this and some other 
 fruits we know more than we do as yet of the date. In the 
 perfectly dry state it is about as nutritious as rice. In tho 
 moist state, as it is imported, it will go considerably further 
 in feeding, and especially in fattening or adding generally 
 to the weight of an animal, than an equal weight of wheaten 
 bread 1 
 
 Thus figs as imported, and wheaten bread in its usual 
 state, consist respectively of — 
 
 Figs. Wheaten Bread. 
 
 Water l^ 40 
 
 Gluten, 6 7 
 
 Starch, sugar, gum, &c,, . . . 66 SI 
 
 Mineral matter, 2^ 1) 
 
 Fibre .7 i 
 
 100 100 
 
 The fig, it wiU -be seen by comparing the above columns, 
 contains nearly as much gluten as wheaten bread, while in 
 starch and sugar it is sixteen per cent richer. The perfectly 
 dry gooseberry is about as nutritive as ordinary wheaten 
 flour. 
 
 16°. The Bread-fruit Tree [Artocarpus incisa and A. 
 integrifolia) is remarkable for its large and brilliant leaf, and 
 for the general beauty of its appearance, in which respect 
 none of our forest-trees can compare with it. But it is most 
 remarkable for the abundant, peculiar, and nutritious fruit it 
 yields. This fruit is nearly round, and attains to a consider- 
 able size. It grows abundantly, and covers the tree for eight 
 or nine months without interruption, and the crops ripen in 
 succession. There are various ways of cooking it, for it is 
 
84 
 
 THE BEEAD WE EAT. 
 
 Fig. 18. 
 
 seldom relished raw. While the finiit is on the tree, it is 
 plucked before it is perfectly ripe, while the rind is still green, 
 
 but the pith snow-white, 
 and of a porous and mealy 
 texture. It is then peeled, 
 wrapped in leaves, and bak- 
 ed on hot stones. In this 
 state it tastes like wheaten 
 bread, sometimes rather 
 sweeter. When quite ripe, 
 the starch, as in the banana, 
 has become partly changed 
 into sugar, so that the pith 
 is pulpy, and of a yellow 
 colour, and can be eaten 
 uncooked, but it has still a 
 disagreeable flavour. To 
 serve for food during the 
 tlu:ee months when the tree 
 ceases to bear, the unripe 
 fruits, after being peeled, 
 are laid in a paved pit and 
 covered with leaves and 
 stones ; they there ferment 
 and become sour, and form 
 a kind of paste, which 
 tastes like black Westpha- 
 lian bread when not thor- 
 oughly baked. The quantity required for daily use is taken 
 from the pit, made into lumps about the size of the fist, rolled 
 in leaves, and baked on stones as before. These lumps of 
 bread keep for weeks, and are a very good provision iu 
 journeys. 
 
 The crops of this fruit are so abundant that three trees are 
 said to be sufficient to maintain a man for eight months. If 
 so, it is more productive even than thebanana or the sago tree. 
 " Whoever," says Captain Cook, " has planted ten bread-finiit 
 trees, has fulfilled his duty to his own and succeeding genera- 
 tions as completely and amply as an inhabitant of owe rude 
 clime who, throughout his whole life, has ploughed during 
 the rigour of winter, reaped in the heat of summer, and not 
 
 Artoairp^ts incisa — The Brcail-fruit Tree. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 40 feet. 
 Leaf and &uit, 1 inch to a foot and a half. 
 
WATER IN FRUITS AND ROOTS. 85 
 
 only provided his present household with bread, but painfully 
 saved some money for his children." 
 
 On the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and on the island 
 groups of the South Sea, this tree is found. The iruit is best, 
 however, on the Friendly and Marquesas Islands. It has 
 never been observed wild, but the whole species has passed 
 into a cultivated state, and it is therefore probable, says 
 Meyen, "that man settled wherever he found a bread-fruit 
 tree. Even yet, the favourite situation of the fragile Indian 
 huts is under its shady branches." ^ 
 
 While unripe, it contains much starch, which during the 
 ripening is partly changed into sugar ; but how much gluten, 
 fet, cellulose, and water are present in it does not appear to 
 have been ascertained. The jah fruit is the produce of Arto- 
 carpus integrifolia. 
 
 The quantity of water they contain is a character of fruits 
 which is very important. By this they are distinguished in 
 a remarkable manner from the different varieties of grain. 
 Thus the fruits of 
 
 Bananas or plantains contain . 71 per cent of water. 
 Plums, and other fleshy fruits, , 77 „ „ 
 
 Apples, gooseberries, &c., . . 83 „ „ 
 
 The consequence of this composition is, that in fruits all 
 the nutritive matter is diluted with a large quantity of water, 
 and in this state experience has shown that all nutritive sub- 
 stances are more grateful to the healthy stomach, and more 
 easily digested. It is for this reason that, in preparing our 
 dry grains for food, we almost invariably imitate this prepar- 
 atory process of nature. Even in baking our bread, as we 
 have seen above, the result of our operations is that we con- 
 vert it into a light and spongy mass containing nearly half 
 its weight of water. And yet wo talk of this as dry bread, 
 and rarely eat it without some accompanying fluid. 
 
 The EooTS and Tubees we use as food are naturally still 
 more watery than fruits. The potato, the carrot, and the tur- 
 nip, for example, contain respectively in 100 lb. — 
 
 Water. Dry food. 
 
 The potato, 75 25 
 
 The carrot, 88 12 
 
 The turnip, . . ■ 92 8 
 
 1 Meyen's Geography of Plants (Kay Society), p. 321. 
 
86 THE BKEAD WE EAT. 
 
 The gourd tribe are still more remarkable for the quantity 
 of water they contain. The water-melon, for example, con- 
 tains 94 per cent, the vegetable marrow 95 per cent, and the 
 cucumber 97 per cent of water ! No wonder that Jonah's 
 gourd could spring up in a night — that this tribe of plants 
 should be so much esteemed in hot climates where thirst 
 rages — or that old Mehemet Ali should have been able to eat 
 up an entire 40-lb. melon after the substantials of his dinner 
 were disposed of ! 
 
 The food of the Sandwich Islanders largely consists of a 
 preparation called poi, made from the tuber of a semi-aquatic 
 plant, the Oolocasia escuknta, called in the native language 
 kalo. The root or tuber is baked in heated stones, pounded 
 into a paste, mi±ed with water, and allowed to ferment. 
 After standing for a few days, the sour mixture is ready for 
 use. A patch of kalo 40 feet square will supply food for one 
 man for a year. One square mile would support 15,000 in- 
 habitants. But the land must be flooded a few inches, and 
 careftilly cultivated. The same plant [Colocasia esculenta) is 
 also largely grown in Egypt, where it is known as koulkass. 
 Colocasia macrorhiza is extensively grown in the South Sea 
 Islands. 
 
 17°. The Tuenh? and Carrot. — The dry substance of the 
 roots and green vegetables we use as food resembles that of 
 seeds and fruits in general composition. The dried meal of 
 the parsnip, for example, contains gluten associated with 
 starch and sugar, and is very nutritious. That of the turnip 
 is quite equal in this respect to Indian-corn meal, being only 
 deficient in fat. Hence a little oily food should be always 
 used along with a turnip diet. Attempts have been made to 
 manufacture a palatable meal from dried turnips, but the dis- 
 agreeable taste of the root so clings to the meal as hitherto 
 to have rendered it unsuited for human consumption. 
 
 18°. The Potato is more important as a variety of human 
 food than any other root we cultivate, and is remarkable for 
 being grown over a greater range of latitude than any other 
 cultivated plant. The dry substance which it contains — the 
 potato-meal, that is — is unsuited' for being made into bread 
 alone, though it is used to some extent as an admixture with 
 wheaten flour, and is said in most cases to improve the bread 
 in hghtness and general appearance. The dried potato is less 
 
POTATOES. 87 
 
 nutritive, weight for weight, in the sense of supporting the 
 strength, and enabling a man to undergo fatigue, than any 
 other extensively used vegetable food of which the compo- 
 sition is known, not even excepting rice or the plantain. 
 It approaches nearest, indeed, to the plantain, though it is 
 somewhat inferior to that fruit. Thus, the dry substance of 
 these three forms of food contains— 
 
 Rico. Potato. ^a^«-^r 
 
 Gluten, 9 6 7 
 
 Starch, sugar, &c., . . . 89 81 85 
 
 Fat \ 1 3 
 
 Salts \ 4 1 
 
 There is, therefore, some similarity among these three kinds 
 of food, in 60 far as they all differ from our cereal and other 
 grains and roots, in containing a smaller proportion of the 
 ingredient represented by the gluten of wheat. And in the 
 use of them all, it is remarkable that a chemical or physiologi- 
 cal likeness is indicated by the observation that the tribes of 
 people who live exclusively or even chiefly on any of these 
 three vegetable productions, are distinguished by the size and 
 prominence of their stomachs I The Hindoo who lives chiefly 
 on rice, the negro who lives on the plantain, the Russian 
 soldier who consumes much sour soup, and the Irishman who 
 lives exclusively on the potato, are all described as being 
 more or less pot-bellied. This peculiarity is to be ascribed 
 in part, I suppose, to the necessity of eating a large bulk of 
 food, in order to be able to extract from it a sufficient amount 
 of necessary flesh-forming or nitrogenous sustenance. And 
 that this deformity is somewhat less conspicuous in the Irish 
 potato-eater than in the plantain-loving negro, or even the 
 rice-devouring Chinaman and Hindoo, is probably to be as- 
 cribed to the somewhat larger proportion of the ingredient 
 gluten which is present in the more mixed diet of the potato- 
 eater. 
 
 One remarkable ciroumstance in which the three kinds of 
 meal just spoken of differ from each other, is in the size of the 
 grains of starch in each. As seen in the following figures — 
 all drawn to the same scale — the starch-granules in the potato 
 are very large, having sometimes a length of two or three 
 thousandths of an inch. Those of the plantain, though con- 
 siderably larger than the granules of wheat or rye (p. 70), 
 
88 
 
 THE BEEAD WE EAT. 
 
 average less than half the size of those of the potato ; while 
 those of rice are angiilar, and have an average diameter of 
 less than one five-thousandth of an inch. 
 
 Fig. 19. 
 
 Granules of Potato- Granules of Plantain- 
 
 starch. 
 
 starch. 
 
 Granules of Rice- 
 starch. 
 
 19°. The Onion is worthy of notice as an extensive article 
 of consumption in this country. It is largely cultivated at 
 home, and is imported, to the extent of seven or eight hun- 
 dred tons a-year, from Spain and Portugal. But it rises in 
 importance when we consider that in these latter countries it 
 forms one of the common and universal supports of life. It is 
 interesting, therefore, to know that in addition to the peculiar 
 flavour which first recommends it, the dry substance of the 
 onion is remarkably rich in flesh-formers. According to my 
 analyses, the dried onion-root contains from twenty-five to 
 thirty per cent of gluten. It ranks in this respect with the 
 nutritious pea and the gram of the East. It is not merely as 
 a relish, therefore, that the wayfaring Spaniard eats his onion 
 with his humble crust of bread, as he sits by the refreshing 
 spring : it is because experience has long proved that, like 
 the cheese of the English labourer, it helps to sustain his 
 strength also, and adds — beyond what its bulk would suggest 
 — to the amount of nourishment which his simple meal sup- 
 plies. It has been used as a nutritive and medicinal food for 
 fowls. 
 
 20°. Among roots which are important articles of diet in 
 more limited districts, may also be mentioned the tuber of a 
 hly [Lilium pomponium) which is roasted and eaten in Kamt- 
 oliatka. and is there cultivated as we rear the potato. The 
 
LEAVES AS FOOD. 
 
 89 
 
 swoet potato, a plant belonging to the Convolvulus Order, 
 must not be forgotten : it is as rich as the common potato. 
 It is grown chiefly in the warmer parts of the American con- 
 tinent. The yam, another tuber of tropical and sub-tropical 
 countries, is not so rich as the sweet potato, but fornis an im- 
 portant article of food in the East and West Indies, the South 
 Sea Islands, and Japan. In the following table of percentage 
 composition will be found much information as to the roots 
 commonly used for food, with a column giving the proportions 
 of the two chief nutrients in each root. Let it be remembered 
 that such proportion in a perfect food is about 1 : 6. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 natio of 
 
 
 Water. 
 
 Flesh- 
 formers. 
 
 Starch, 
 iia. 
 
 Fot. 
 
 AslL 
 
 flcsh-fonners 
 to heat- 
 givers. 
 
 Potato 
 
 75.0 
 
 1.2 
 
 18.0 
 
 0.3 
 
 1.0 
 
 1 ;16 
 
 Carrot, . . 
 
 
 
 89.0 
 
 0.6 
 
 6.0 
 
 0.2 
 
 1.0 
 
 
 10 
 
 Parsnip, . , 
 
 
 
 81.0 
 
 1.2 
 
 8.7 
 
 1.6 
 
 1.0 
 
 
 10 
 
 Turnip, . . 
 
 
 
 92.8 
 
 0.5 
 
 4.0 
 
 0.1 
 
 0.8 
 
 
 8 
 
 Onion, . . 
 
 
 
 91.0 
 
 1.5 
 
 4.8 
 
 0.2 
 
 0.5 
 
 
 H 
 
 Swoet potato, 
 
 
 
 74.0 
 
 15 
 
 20.2 
 
 0.1 
 
 1.5 
 
 
 13^ 
 
 Yam, . . . 
 
 
 
 79.6 
 
 2.2 
 
 16.3 
 
 0.8 
 
 1.6 
 
 
 7i 
 
 Beetroot, . . 
 
 
 
 82.2 
 
 0.4 
 
 13.4 
 
 0.1 
 
 0.9 
 
 
 30 
 
 Jerusalem articholie. 
 
 80.0 
 
 2.0 
 
 14.4 
 
 0.6 
 
 1.1 
 
 
 7 
 
 Leaves. — From roots we turn to leaves, which form no in- 
 considerable proportion of the daily sustenance of European 
 nations. The greater number of animals, wild as well as 
 domestic, live upon the leaves of plants. Our oxen feed upon 
 the grasses ; and even the huge elephant and the sloth find 
 their nourishment on the leaves of the forests in which they 
 live. Among those which are raised for human food, the 
 cabbage is a regular field-crop ; and many others are culti- 
 vated less extensively in our gardens. 
 
 Leaves are generally rich in gluten ; many of them, how- 
 ever, contain other substances in smaller quantity, associated 
 with the gluten, which are unpleasant to the taste, or act 
 injuriously upon the general health, or are fibrous and indigest- 
 ible, and which therefore render them unfit for human food. 
 Dried tea-leaves, for example, contain about twenty-five per 
 cent of gluten ; and therefore, if they could be eaten with 
 relish, and digested readily, they might furnish as much flesh 
 as beans or peas. 
 
90 THE BREAD WE EAT. 
 
 21°. The Cabbage, the Cauliflower, and Broccoli, thougli 
 containiiig ninety per cent of water, are, so far as concerns 
 their dry matter, rich in flesh-formers or gluten. The unripe 
 pods of the scarlet runner and French bean are stiU more 
 nitrogenous. In Thibet and Nepaul the paper mulberry, 
 Broussonetta papi/rt/era, is used for feeding cattle in the winter 
 months. The young leafy shoots are cut, dried, and stacked 
 as fodder. When eaten frequently, however, and in large 
 quantity, any vegetable foods rich in gluten or flesh-formers, 
 have a costive or binding tendency ; hence the propriety of 
 eating them with fat and oily food. Bacon and greens, like pork 
 and pease-pudding, is a conjunction of viands which does not 
 owe its popularity either to old habit or to the mere taste of 
 the epicure. It is in reality an admixture which constitutional 
 experience has prescribed as better fitted to the after comfort 
 of the alimentary canal of every healthy individual, than either 
 kind of food eaten alone. 
 
 And so with a dish common in Ireland under the name of 
 Kol-cannon. The potato, as we have seen, is poor in gluten — 
 the cabbage is unusually rich in this ingredient ; mix the 
 two, and you approach the composition of wheaten bread. 
 Beat the potatoes and boiled cabbage together, put in a little 
 pork-fat, Salt, and pepper, and you have a kol-cannon which 
 has all the good qualities of the best Scotch oatmeal, and to 
 many would be more savoury and palatable. Take a pot- 
 bellied potato-eater, and feed him on this dish, and he will 
 become not only stronger and more active, but he will cease 
 to carry before him an advertisement of the kind of food he 
 lives upon, and his stomach will fall to the dimensions of the 
 same organ in other men. In Provence small farmers dine 
 from a pot-aurfeu containing only potatoes and cabbages, beaten 
 together, without milk or butter. 
 
 Such are the principal varieties of vegetable food which — 
 partly in the form of baked bread, and partly cooked in other 
 ways — are, at the present day, most largely employed in the 
 feeding of the human race. We have seen in all of them — 
 
 First, That they contain a sensible proportion of four im- 
 portant constituents — gluten, starch, fat, and mineral matter. 
 
 Secondly/, That when the proportion of any of these is too 
 small, chemistry indicates, and experience suggests, that an 
 additional quantity of this deficient substance should be added 
 
STARVATION ON STAECH. 91 
 
 in the process of cooking, or preparatory to eating. Thus we 
 Bonsume butter with our bread, and mix it with our pastry, 
 Tocause wheaten flour is deficient in natural fe,t ; or w.e eat 
 cheese or onions with the bread, to add to the proportion of 
 gluten it naturally contains. Salt, oil, and milk kneaded with 
 the finest flour made the celebrated bread of Cappadocia, 
 greatly relished by wealthy Eomans. Imitations of this are 
 seen in milk-bread and Scotch shortbread. So we eat some- 
 thing more nutritive along with our rice or potatoes — we add 
 fat to our cabbage — we enrich our salad with vegetable oil — 
 eat our cauliflowers with melted butter — and beat up potatoes 
 and cabbage together into a nutritious kol-cannon. 
 
 Thirdly, That in all natural varieties of vegetable food 
 which are generally suitable for eating without cooking, a 
 large percentage of water is present. In preparing food in 
 our kitchens we imitate this natural condition. Even in 
 converting our wheaten flour into bread, we, as one important 
 result aimed at, mix or unite it with a large proportion of 
 water. 
 
 All the kinds of food by which the lives of masses of men 
 are sustained being thus constituted, it is obvious that those 
 vegetable substances which consist of one only of the con- 
 stituents of wheaten bread, cannot bo expected to prove 
 permanently nutritious ; and experience has proved this to 
 be the case. The oils or fats alone do not sustain life, 
 neither does starch or sugar alone. With both of these 
 classes of substances, as we have seen, a certain proportion 
 of gluten is associated in all our grains, fruits, and nutritive 
 roots. And there must likewise be a small though distinct 
 quantity of mineral matter present. Some of this we add, as 
 common salt, but most vegetables contain the phosphates 
 and potash salts which are necessary for the formation of bone 
 and the renewal of the saline matter in the blood. 
 
 Hence arrowroot, which is only a variety of starch, cannot 
 give strength without an admixture of gluten in some form or 
 other. To condemn a prisoner to be fed on arrowroot or the 
 maize-starch sold as corn-flour, alone, woiild be to put him to 
 certain death by a lingering, torturing starvation. The same 
 is true, to a less extent, of tapioca, and of most varieties of 
 sago, all of which consist of starch, from which nearly all the 
 gluten has become removed. Even gluten, when given alone 
 
92 THE BEE AD WE EAT. 
 
 to dogs, has not kept them alive beyond a few weeks ; so 
 that no vegetable production, it may be said, and no kind of 
 artificially prepared food, in which starch, sugar, or some 
 similar substance, and gluten at least are not united, will sup- 
 port Ufe. If they contain at the same time a certain proportion 
 of fat, they will admit of more easy digestion, and of a more 
 ready application in the stomach to the purposes of nutrition ; 
 and if they are either naturally permeated with a large quan- 
 tity of water, or are transfused with it by artificial means, 
 they will undergo a more complete and easy-jiissolution in 
 the alimentary canal, and will produce the greatest possible 
 effect in ministering to the wants of animal life. 
 
 It is interesting to observe how very generally adjustments 
 of this kind have been made to the wants of animals, in the 
 natural composition of the eatable parts of plants. But it is 
 still more interesting to observe how experience alone has 
 almost everywhere led men to a rude adjustment, in kind and 
 quantity, of the forms of nutritive matter which are essential 
 to the supply of their animal wants under the circumstances 
 in which they are placed. Climate as well as the tempera- 
 ment of a race has much to do with the adjustment of foods 
 and dietaries. A vegetable diet does not suit John Bull. 
 That gentleman would be much troubled with dyspepsia, and 
 have to take enormous quantities of quack pills to keep him 
 in good humour. In Spain it produces no mischief; but even 
 the Dons find it desirable to mix their oil, bread, onions, and 
 lettuce in proportions which the dictates of taste and the exi- 
 gencies of the system have settled. And the absolute neces- 
 sity for such adjustment is proved by all physiological history. 
 For when, through force of circumstances, or through dis- 
 torted taste, the natural instinct for such adjustment cannot 
 be gratified, or is foolishly thwarted, the health is endangered, 
 the constitution gradually altered, the temperament modified, 
 life shortened, families extinguished, and whole races of men 
 swept from the face of the earth. Such, looked at in their 
 final effects, are the influences of the kind of food in which 
 individuals indulge, or by which nations are supported. 
 
 I have omitted to describe for lack of space many other 
 vegetable foods used by man. Bromicolla aleutica, a sea-weed, 
 is eaten by the natives of the Aleutian Isles whenever their 
 supply of fish fails. It forms a layer two feet thick at Unimah, 
 
UCHEN9 AS FOOD. 93 
 
 where it is covered with a grassy growth. Iceland moss, 
 really a lichen, is gathered by the peasants of Iceland, boiled 
 with water, and then added to milk : sometimes it is dried, 
 ground to powder, and made into cakes and baked. The lives 
 also of arctio travellers have been supported on lichens ; while 
 numerous kinds of fungi or mushrooms are not only edible 
 bat nutritious. 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE BEEF WE COOK. 
 
 The fibrin or myosin and water of beef — Composition of beef compared with that 
 of wheaten bread and wheateu flour. — Striking differences. — Dried flesh com- 
 pared with dried oat-cake.— More fat in domesticated animals and such as 
 are fed for the butcher. — Composition of fish. — Kichness of the sabnon and 
 the eel. — Less fat in fowls. — Eating butter with fish. — Composition of the 
 egg. — Albumen or white ; its properties and relations to gluten and fibrin. 
 — Oil in the yolk, and in the dried egg. — Composition of milk. — Milk 
 allied both to animal and vegetable forms of food. — Milk a model food. — 
 Importance of a mixed food, containing much liquid. — Adjustment of the 
 several ingredients of food in cooking. — Qualities of different kinds of cheese. 
 — Composition of new and skimmed milk cheeses. — Comparison with milk. 
 — Cheese as a digester. — Solvent power of decayed cheese. — Customary 
 practices in cooking. — Comparative value of different kinds of animal 
 food. — Loss of beef and mutton in cooking. — Effects of heat upon meat. — 
 Constituents of the juice of meat. — Kreathie. — Effects of salt upon meat. — 
 Loss of nutritive val ue in salting. — How to boil meat and make meat-soup. 
 — Animal fats ; their analogy to vegetable fats. — The solid fat of beef, 
 mutton, and palm-oil. — Composition of human fat, goose-fat, butter, and 
 the oil of the egg. — The liquid part of animal fats. — Identity of animal and 
 vegetable food as regards the mineral matters they respectively contain. 
 
 Beef and bread are tlie staples of Englisli life ; and as the 
 study of wheaten bread in the preceding^ chapter gave us the 
 key to the composition and nutritive qualities of all other 
 vegetable substances, so an examination of beef ■will help us 
 to a clear knowledge of all other kin^s of animal food. 
 
 1°. Flesh. — If a piece of lean fresh beef be dried in the hot 
 sunshine, or in a basin over boiling water, it will shrink, 
 dry up, diminish in bulk, and lose so much water, that four 
 pounds of fresh, newly-cut beef, will leave only one pound of 
 dried flesh. 
 
BEEF AND BREAD COMPAEED. 95 
 
 Again, if we take a piece of lean beef and wash it in 
 separate portions of clean water, its colour will gradually 
 disappear. The blood it contains will be washed out, and a 
 white mass of muscular or fibrous tissue with a little fat and 
 a few membranes wiU remain. If this be put into a bottle 
 with alcohol or ether, a variable proportion of fat will be dis- 
 solved out of it, and the whole fibrous mass will now be drier 
 and more compact than before. Through this fibrous mass 
 many minute vessels are scattered, but it chiefly consists of a 
 substance to which chemists, from its fibrous appearance, 
 until recently, gave the name of fibrin, believing it to be 
 identical with the fibrin of the blood. It is now called viyosin. 
 
 The annexed woodcut (fig. 20) shows the structure of 
 muscle, as seen under _. .„ 
 
 the microscope. Tno af^s^o/a^ 
 cross wrinkles repre- 
 sent the way in which 
 the fibres contract in 
 the living animal. 
 
 Of this myosin the 
 lean partof the muscles 
 of all animals chiefly 
 
 consists ; it is therefore The nbres of lean muscle, showing how they are dis- 
 tViA nrinninnl cntistitn- posed or arranged, the porticles of which they 
 tne prmcipai oonsxiiu- iro composed, and how tliey shrink or contract. 
 
 ent of animal flesh. It 
 
 resembles the gluten of plants very closely in composition 
 and properties — insomuch that, in a general comparison of 
 animal with vegetable food, we may consider them for the 
 present as absolutely identical. 
 
 Thus we have separated our beef — besides the small quan- 
 tity of blood and other matters washed out of it by the water 
 — into three substances, water, myosin, and fat. Its com- 
 position, as compared with that of wheaten bread and wheaten 
 flour, is represented as follows : — 
 
 Lean beef. Wheaten bread. Wheaten flour. 
 Water (and blood), . . 77 40 15 
 
 Myosin or gluten, . . 19 7 10 
 
 Fat, .'.... 3 1 1 
 
 Starch, ic, 60 73 
 
 Salt and other mineral matters, 12 1 
 
 100 100 100 
 
96 THE BEEF WE COOK. 
 
 Lean beef, therefore, agrees with, wheaten flour and bread, 
 in containing water and fat^only in beef the water is as great 
 as it is in the potato or the plantain. It agrees with them 
 also in containing a substance, myosin, which represents in 
 the animal the gluten of the plant. The main differences 
 between beef and bread are, first, that the flesh does not 
 contain a particle of starch, which is so large an ingredieat 
 in plants ; and, secondly, that the proportion of myosin in 
 ordinary flesh is about three times as great as that of gluten 
 is in ordinary wheaten bread. Or a pound of beefsteak is as 
 nutritive as three pounds of wheaten bread, in so far as the 
 nutritive value of food depends upon this one ingredient, 
 which is, however, only an approximative gauge. In the 
 dry matter of lean flesh, also, the proportion of myosin is 
 greater than^that of gluten in any known vegetable food, and 
 very much greater than in dried bread made from any of our 
 cultivated grains. 
 
 This latter fact wiU become more apparent if we compare 
 •perfectly dry lean flesh with perfectly dry oat-cake — oatmeal 
 being the richest of our common kinds of meal, both in gluten 
 or nitrogenous matter, and in fat. 
 
 
 Dried flesh. 
 
 Dried oat-cake. 
 
 Myosin, gluten, &c,. 
 
 85 
 
 18 
 
 Fat, ... 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 Starch, . ... 
 
 
 
 66 
 
 Salts, . . . . 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 Fibre 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 100 100 
 
 Here we have the main differences between the lean flesh of 
 animals and the most nutritive of our grains presented in a 
 very striking light. The animal food contains nearly five 
 times as much of what for the moment we may call gluten ; 
 but it is wholly deficient in the other main ingredient of 
 vegetables — the starch — which in the dried oatmeal forms 
 nearly seven-tenths of the whole weight. 
 
 The flesh of wild animals is represented very nearly by the 
 lean beef of which the composition is given above. Wild 
 animals generally contain little fat. But it is not bo with 
 our domesticated animals, and especially such as are reared 
 for food. They all contain much fat, either collected by 
 itself in various parts of the body (the suet or tallow), or 
 
AMOUNT OF FAT IN FLESH. 97 
 
 intermingled with the muscular fibre, as in the highly-prized 
 marbled beef in which the English epicure delights. In the 
 boiling-houses at Port Phillip, a small merino sheep of 55 lb. 
 weight gives 20 lb. of tallow, which is nearly two-fifths of 
 the whole. In heavier sheep the proportion of fat increases, 
 four-fifths of aU the weight above 55 lb. being taUow. In 
 beef and mutton, such as is met with in our markets, from a 
 third to a fourth of the whole dead weight generally consists 
 of fat. And Lawes and Gilbert have shown by numerous 
 experiments in fattening oxen, sheep, and pigs, that two- 
 thirds of the dry increase in weight of these animals is fat. 
 About one-fourth, of the dry substance of ordinary meat may 
 be set down as fat, which to a certain extent represents and 
 replaces the starch of vegetable food. Indeed, travellers 
 living upon dry wild game have found it necessary to kill 
 sheep for the sake of their fat only, or to introduce oil, sugar, 
 or starchy matter. But a simple diet of flesh is often prac- 
 ticable. A South African sheep of about 200 lb. weight 
 served one of Mr Galton's people — he taking two meals a-day ' 
 — ten days, or ton men one day, without bread or vegetables. 
 An average ox was equal to seven sheep, and a giraffe to two 
 oxen. 
 
 Fowls contain less fat than butcher-meat ; tnough, when 
 crammed and fed upon food rich in fat, the capon and the 
 ortolan, and the diseased livers of the goose, become as rich 
 as the fattest beef or mutton. 
 
 The composition of other kinds of flesh which we eat as 
 food is much the same as that of beef. Veal and venison 
 contain less fat, while pork contains more. Each variety 
 also possesses a peculiar flavour and a faint odour, which is 
 characteristic of the species, and sometimes of the variety of 
 the animal. In some oases, as with our mountain mutton, 
 this peculiar flavour is a high recommendation ; in others, as 
 with the sheep of the Low Countries, and with the goat, it 
 renders them to many altogether unpalatable. 
 
 2°. Fish varies a good deal in the amount of fat present in 
 association with the myosin, albumen, and fibrin. Wliiting, 
 Boles, and pike are less rich in fat than salmon, mackerel, and 
 eels. But the proportions in the same kind of fish are liable 
 to variation — the herring especially being very much fatter 
 at some seasons and on some coasts than on others. But 
 
98 THE BEEF WE COOK. 
 
 salmon is justly considered a rich fish, since it commonly con- 
 tains three times as much fat as the haddock. The epicvu-e 
 has also a substantial reason for his attachment to the eel, 
 since it contains a considerably greater weight of fat than 
 it does of muscular fibre. Schutz has made a comparative 
 analysis of lean muscle or pure flesh of oxen and of carp, 
 and the results are as follows : — 
 
 Beet Carp. 
 
 Fibrin or myosin, &o., . . . . 15.0 12.0 
 
 Albumen 4.3 5.2 
 
 Extract, soluble in alcohol, and salts, . 1.3 1.0 
 
 Extract, soluble in water, and salts, . 1.8 1.7 
 
 Phosphates, traces. traces. 
 
 Fat, 0.1 „ 
 
 Water, 77.5 80.1 
 
 100.0 100.0 
 
 It appears, therefore — 
 
 First, That the dried flesh of all the animals which we most 
 usually consume for food consists essentially of the nitrogen- 
 ous matters known as myosin, fibrin, and albumen. 
 
 Secondly, That the proportion of fat is variable, and that 
 those varieties of animal food are usually most esteemed for 
 human food in which a considerable proportion of fat is pres- 
 ent. Hence, 
 
 Thirdly, Where the proportion of fat is naturally small, we 
 endeavour to increase it by art ; as in feeding the capon. Or 
 we eat along with those varieties in which it is small some 
 other food richer in fat. Thus we eat bacon with veal, with 
 liver, and with fowl ; or we capon the latter, and thus in- 
 crease its natural fat. We use melted butter with our white 
 fish, or we fry them with fat ; while the herring, the sahnon, 
 and the eel, are usually both dressed and eaten in their own 
 oil. If the reader will take the trouble of consulting any 
 popular cookery-book, he wiU find that sausage, and other 
 rich mixed meats, are made in general with one part of fat 
 and two of lean — ^the proportion in which they exist in a 
 piece of good marbled beef, — art thus unconsciously again 
 imitating nature. 
 
 3°. The Egg, — AMn to flesh and fish is another form of 
 animal food — the egg. The egg of the domestic hen is that 
 which is most commonly known, and most extensively used 
 
COMPOSITION OF THE EGG. 99 
 
 as food. It consists of three principal parts — the shell, the 
 white, and the yolk. The shell is mainly composed of carho- 
 nato of lime or hard chalk, and is intended chiefly as a protec- 
 tion to the inner part. It is penetrated, however, by numer- 
 ous minute holes or pores, through which the air is capable 
 of passing, and by means of which it is conveyed to the 
 young bud during the process of hatching.* It forms rather 
 more than a tenth part of the weight of the egg, the white 
 forms sixth-tenths, and the yolk three-tenths. A common- 
 sized hen's egg weighs about 900 grains, and consists of 
 about — 
 
 Wliite, 530 grains. 
 
 Yolk 270 „ 
 
 Shell and membraneii 100 ,, 
 
 900 
 
 The white of the egg is so called, because, when heated, 
 it coagulates into a white solid substance, which is insoluble 
 in water, and almost free from taste. It contains a substance 
 of nitrogenous and flesh-forming character called albumen. 
 White of egg always contains a small proportion of fat, and 
 1 per cent of phosphate of lime. Though diflerent in ap- 
 pearance and in sensible properties from myosin and gluten, 
 it has a very close chemical relation to these substances, and 
 serves the same purpose in the feeding of animals. We may, 
 for the present, therefore, consider all the three — gluten, 
 myosin, and albumen — as, in a nutritive sense, absolutely 
 identical. 
 
 The yolk is of a yellow colour. It consists, in part, of a 
 variety of albumen, and therefore, like the white, coagulates, 
 though in a less degree, when the egg is heated. But if, after 
 boiling, the dry hard yolk bo crushed, and digested in ether, 
 it becomes colourless, while the ether extracts and dissolves 
 a bright yellow oil. This oil forms nearly two-thirds of the 
 weight of the yolk, in its perfectly dry state. Thus the yolk, 
 hke flesh and fish, consists of fat intermixed with a sub- 
 stance which has a close resemblance to the gluten of plants. 
 
 1 Through these pores, also, the air enters, hy the agency of which eggs, 
 ■when kept, soon become rotten. If these pores are filled up by rubbing the 
 new-laid egg over with fat, or in any similar way, it will keep fresh for a long 
 time. It is then very nearly in the condition of the hermetically sealed meats 
 now prepared for use on voyages or imported from Australia. 
 
100 
 
 THE BEEF WE COOK. 
 
 The egg contains, besides, a large percentage of water, 
 amounting, as in fresh bntoher-meat, to nearly three-fourths 
 of its whole weight. Thus the egg, when deprived of its 
 shell, consists, in the natural and in the dried states respec- 
 tively, of — 
 
 Constituents. 
 
 In natural state. 
 
 Dried at 212° F. 
 
 White. 
 
 Yolk. 
 
 "Whole egg. 
 
 Whole egg. 
 
 Water, .... 
 Albumen, . . . 
 Fat, &o., . . . 
 Phosphates, &o., 
 
 85 
 
 12 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 51J 
 
 15 
 
 32 
 
 71f 
 
 14 
 
 13 
 
 494 
 46 
 
 *4 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 The egg, therefore, as a whole, is richer in fat than fat 
 beef. It is equalled, in this respect, among common Ldnds of 
 food, only by pork and by eels. It is of interest to remark, 
 however, that the white of the egg has but a trace of fat, and 
 that albumen is a very constipating variety of animal food, so 
 that it requires much fat to be eaten along with it, when con- 
 sumed in any quantity, in order that this quality may be 
 counteracted. It is, no doubt, because experience has long 
 ago proved this in the stomachs of the people, that " eggs 
 and bacon" have been a popular dish among Gentile nations 
 from time immemorial. But eggs ate in reality too rich in 
 flesh-formers to be eaten alone, requiring the addition of fat 
 or starch (as rice) to fit them for common use. 
 
 4°. Milk. — Another nutritious form of animal food is the 
 weU-known fluid milk. This, as we should expect, contains 
 more water than beef or the egg ; yet, contrary to what we 
 might expect, not so much as the turnip, and much less than 
 the melon. 
 
 Milk, by one well-known process, yields butter or fat, and 
 by another, curd or cheese. The curd, to which chemists 
 give the name of casein, from its forming cheese, resembles 
 the gluten, myosin, and albumen, of which we have already 
 spoken, and is classed along with them as a flesh-forming 
 substance. It possesses also, weight for weight, about the 
 same value, when used as food ; and, like albumen, is distin- 
 guished, when eaten alone by adults, by a remarkably consti- 
 pating property. 
 
COMPOSITION OF MILK. 101 
 
 When the whey of milk, from which the ctird and butter 
 Lave been completely separated, is evaporated to dryness, a 
 colourless sweet substance is obtained, which is kno^vn by 
 the name of sugar of milk. When dried and burned in the 
 air, milk also leaves behind a quantity of ash. These several 
 ingredients exist in cow's milk, in the natural and in the 
 dried states, in the following average proportions : — 
 
 
 Natural state. 
 
 Evaporated 
 to dryneaa. 
 
 Water 
 
 . 87 
 
 
 Curd, chiefly casein, . 
 
 4 
 
 81 
 
 Butter, or milk-fat, . 
 
 34 
 
 27 
 
 Sugar of milk, . 
 
 . • ii 
 
 S6 
 
 Ash 
 
 ■ • 1 
 
 6 
 
 100 100 
 
 Thus milk appears to partake of the nature of both animal 
 and vegetable food. It contains a large proporti(jn of curd 
 and butter, which represent the myosin and fat of beef, and, 
 at the same time, a large proportion of sugar, which repre- 
 sents the starch of wheaten bread. The ratio of flesh-formers 
 to heat-givers reckoned as starch is 1 to 31. 
 
 Human milk differs somewhat from the milk of the cow. 
 Its average composition is as follows : — 
 
 Water, 89i 
 
 Curd or casein, 1| 
 
 Butter or milk-fat 2| 
 
 Sugar of milk, ^ 6^ 
 
 Salts or asli J 
 
 100 
 
 Tlie principal differences are to be found in the proportions 
 of saline matter, which in human milk is only one-third of 
 that of cow's milk ; and of curd, which is rather less than 
 half The milk of the mare and the ass closely resembles 
 human milk ; the milk of the goat, pig, and sheep, differs little 
 from that of the cow. 
 
 Neither goat's milk nor cow's milk is so well adapted to the 
 infant as human milk ; and experienced mothers have learned 
 to dilute and sweeten cow's milk when they have been forced 
 to give it to their infants ; thus the proper ratio of flesh- 
 formers to heat-givers reckoned as starch, namely, 1 to 7, may 
 be secured. 
 
102 THE BEEF WE COOK. 
 
 But human milk is far from yielding the same proportions 
 of organic matter in every case. Strictly speaking, it is 
 never the same in two individuals. It differs at different 
 ages, in different constitutions, and in different states of 
 health. The milk of women| from fifteen to twenty years of 
 age, contains more solid constituents than that 'of women be- 
 tween thirty and forty. In two women of the same age, 
 twenty-two, one a brunette and the other a blonde, L'Heritier 
 found the milk of the former to be richer in solid nutrients 
 than that of the latter by 5 parts in 100 of milk. WhQe 
 differences occur in different temperaments, other differences 
 arise from disease. 
 
 As the natural food of the young mammalian animal of every 
 species is the mUk of its mother, that milk may be looked 
 upon as a kind of model food for the species to which the 
 animal belongs. Woman's milk, therefore, is the type of 
 human food, and after its form and composition all other 
 kinds of food should be adjusted, especially in the case of 
 persons whose condition approaches to that of the child. 
 Hence it seems reasonable to infer — 
 
 First, That our food ought to contain a due admixture of 
 vegetable and animal substances, in which the proportions of 
 the three most important constituents, (1) fat, (2) starch or 
 sugar, and (3) fibrin, gluten, or some other nitrogenous or 
 flesh-forming nutrient, are present in properly adjusted pro- 
 portions. 
 
 Secondly, That the food, if not naturally liquid, should be 
 intimately mixed with a large quantity of water before it is 
 introduced into the stomach. This lesson we have already 
 learned from the study of various natural forms of vegetable 
 food. 
 
 The attainment of these two ends, in such a way as at the 
 same time to please the eye and the palate, should guide, for 
 the most part, the operations of the cook in his kitchen. 
 They ought always to guide the operations of those who wish 
 to prepare what it will be wholesome for the majority of men 
 to eat. 
 
 5°. Condensed Milk. — Several methods of preserving and 
 concentrating millc have been proposed and carried out. Of 
 these the most successful consists in boiling down the milk 
 after the addition of sugar. The condensed milk thus ob- 
 
CHEESE. 103 
 
 tained is met with in commerce as a thick opaque syrup pre- 
 served in closed tins, but capable of keeping good for some 
 time after having been exposed to the air. It contains, in 
 100 parts, about — 
 
 Water, 26 
 
 Casein, 15 
 
 Milk-fat, 12 
 
 Milk-sugar, 18 
 
 Cane-sugar, 27 
 
 Mineral matter 2 
 
 100 
 
 6°. Cream, Skim-milk, Whey. — The cream which rises to 
 the surface of milk consists mainly of the little globules of 
 milk-fat previously suspended in the liquid, but these being 
 specifically lighter than the liquid in which they float, ulti- 
 mately rise towards the top. Cream contains about 40 per 
 cent of milk-fe,t or butter, and 55 of water. Skim-milk con- 
 tains much milk-sugar and casein or flesh-forming matter, 
 while whey is httle else but a solution of milk-sugar with 
 one per cent of albumen. 
 
 7°. Butter. — As ordinarily met with in the market, good 
 fresh butter contains 88 parts of milk-fat in 100, with 10 of 
 moisture. Half a per cent of casein or cm-d, and a little 
 milk-sugar and salt make up the remainder. Much salt and 
 water are present in low-class butters, sometimes amounting 
 to 33 per cent, or more ; while other animal fats are largely 
 used as adulterants or substitutes. 
 
 8°. Cheese. — The manufacture of cheese of different varie- 
 ties, and the qualities which these varieties severally possess, 
 are illustrations of the importance of a mixed food. 
 
 Cheese is eaten for two very different purposes ; either as 
 a part of the regular food, for the general sustenance of the 
 body — or as a kind of condiment taken in small quantity along 
 with or after the usual fare, as is common at dinner-tables. 
 
 In the making of cheese many different varieties are ob- 
 tained, according as the proportion of cream is increased or 
 diminished. When it is made from cream alone, what is called 
 a cream cheese is obtained, which must be used when com- 
 paratively fresh, as it soon becomes rancid. When the cream 
 of the previous night's milking is added to the new milk of 
 the morning, a very rich cheese is made, like our Enghsh 
 
104 THE BEEF WE COOK. 
 
 Stilton ; when good new milt only is employed, rich cheeses 
 like the Cheddar are obtained ; when an eighth or tenth of 
 the cream is removed, highly esteemed cheeses, like the large- 
 sized (120 lb.) Cheshires, are made, which will not hold 
 together if all thq cream be left in. There seems, at first 
 sight, to be no connection between the application of bones to 
 the Cheshire farmer's poor grass - land and the unexpected 
 crumbling of the Cheshire dairymaid's cheese. Yet the con- 
 nection is plain enough. The bones bring up richer grass ; 
 this gives richer milk ; lind this, treated in the old way, a 
 fatter and therefore more crummy cheese. When the skim- 
 med milk of the evening is added to the new milk of the 
 morning, the mixed milk yields cheeses like the single 
 Glo'ster. If the cream be once removed from the whole of the 
 milk, it yields common skimmed-milk cheese ; if it be twice 
 creamed, it gives cheeses like some of the poorer sorts made in 
 Friesland ; and if skimmed for three or four days in succes- 
 sion, it yields the hard homy cheeses of Suffolk, locally known 
 by the name of Suffolk bank, — a cheese which often requires 
 an axe to cut it, and which is so hard " that pigs grunt at it, 
 dogs bark at it, but neither of them dare bite it." 
 
 Now, in the making of cheese, the milk is first curdled — 
 sometimes by the use of vinegar, but generally by means of 
 rennet. The curd is then separated from the whey, in which 
 the sugar of milk, and a small quantity of flesh-forming mat- 
 ter, remain dissolved ; after this it is carefully pressed and 
 dried. Were there no cream taken off the milk, therefore, 
 the cheese as a food would dififer from the milk chiefly in con- 
 taining less water and little or no sugar. But when more or 
 less of the cream is removed from the milk employed, the 
 cheese becomes further removed from mUk in its composition, 
 and less fitted, therefore, to serve alone as a nutritious animal 
 diet. The following numbers represent the composition of a 
 rich Cheddar cheese when two years old, and of a common 
 one-year-old skimmed-milk cheese made in Lanarkshire : — 
 
 Cheddar. Skim-milk. 
 
 Water, 36 44 
 
 Curd, or casein, 29 45 
 
 Milk-fat 30J 6 
 
 Salt and phosphates, . . . . 4J 5 
 
 100 100 
 
CHEESES. 
 
 105 
 
 Both contain a very considerable proportion of water, and 
 therefore in this respect they are not unsuited for immediate 
 consumption as food. But while the fat in one amounts to 
 nearly one-third of the whole weight, in the other it only 
 reaches to six per cent. 
 
 But we shall have a clearer idea of the value of these varie- 
 ties of cheese for a general diet, by comparing their composi- 
 tion in a dried state with those of milk, beef, and eggs, also 
 in the dried state. This is seen in the following table : — 
 
 
 Milk. 
 
 Clicesc. 
 
 Beef. 
 
 Eggs 
 
 46 
 "*4 
 
 Cheddar. 
 
 Skim-milk. 
 
 . Casoin (curd), . . . 
 Fat (butter), . , . 
 
 Sugar, 
 
 Mineral matter, . . 
 
 31 
 
 27 
 
 36 
 
 6 
 
 45 
 
 48 
 
 "i 
 
 80 
 11 
 
 "9 
 
 85 
 
 ID 
 
 "5 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 We see from this table that both cheeses are free from sugar. 
 Either of them, therefore, must be eaten with a quantity of 
 vegetable food which may supply the starch or sugar required 
 to make it equal to milk as a general nourishment. Again, 
 the Cheddar cheese contains more fat o\en than the egg. It 
 is too rich, therefore, to bo used as an everyday diet by tlio 
 generality of stomachs. It is partly for this, and partly for 
 the previous reason, that " bread and cheese " are almost 
 invariably eaten together. 
 
 Then, in the skim-milk cheese, we have only eleven of fat 
 mixed witli eighty of the very constipating curd. Experience 
 has shown this to be far too little, and therefore butter or fat 
 bacon, as well as bread, must be consumed along with these 
 poorer cheeses, when much of them is intended to be eaten ; 
 or they must be cooked, in made dishes, along with some 
 other variety of fat, or better, with some starchy food, as rice. 
 
 It is with a view to similar adjustments in the proportions 
 of the several necessary ingredients of a nourishing food, that 
 we mix eggs with sago, tapioca, and rice in our puddings, 
 shred the oily yolk into our salad, boil rice with milk, and 
 eat rich cheese with our macaroni. We also add bacon to 
 liver, for the latter is poor in fat. Flour and soft curd of mili 
 were kneaded together to make bread for the athletes of 
 ancient Rome. 
 
106 THE BEEF WE COOK. 
 
 But cheese is often eaten also as a relisli or condiment, 
 only in small quantities at a time. It is cliiefly the older and 
 stronger-tasted varieties that are so used. They are generally 
 very wholesome and digestible when taken in this way. As 
 a digester, as some call it, cheese — that which is decayed and 
 mouldy being preferred by connoisseurs — is often eaten after 
 dinner. The action which experience seems to have proved 
 it to possess, in aiding the digestion of what has previously 
 been eaten, is both curious and interesting, and has had some 
 light thrown upon it by chemical research. 
 
 When the curd of milk is exposed to the air in a moist state 
 for a few days at a moderate temperature, it begins gradually 
 to decay, to emit a disagreeable odour, and to ferment. When 
 in this state, it possesses the property, in certain circumstan- 
 ces, of inducing a species of chemical change and fermenta- 
 tion in other moist substances with which it is mixed or is 
 brought into contact. It acts after the same manner as sour 
 leaven does when mixed with sweet dough. 
 
 Now, old and partially decayed cheese is said to act in a 
 similar way when introduced into the stomach. It causes 
 chem.ical changes gradually to commence among the particles 
 of the food which has previously been eaten, and thus facili- 
 tates the dissolution which necessarily precedes digestion. 
 Digestion, however, is only in part a species of fermentation ; 
 and the gastric juice, it is well Iniown, arrests the process of 
 putrefaction instead of facilitating it. Even if cheese, by some 
 unexplained process, should assist digestion, it is only some 
 kinds of cheese which wiU effect this purpose. Those are 
 generally considered the best in which some kind of cheese- 
 mould has established itself.^ Hence the mere eating of a 
 morsel of cheese after dinner does not necessarily promote 
 digestion. If too new or of improper quality, it will only add 
 to the quantity of food with which the stomach is probably 
 already overloaded, and will have to await its turn for diges- 
 tion by the ordinary processes. 
 
 We have seen that it is one of the special advantages pos- 
 sessed by the varieties of flour obtained from wheat and rye, 
 
 ' It is an interesting circumstance that such kinds ot cheese-mould, and the 
 flavoar and digestive quality which accompany them, may he propagated even 
 in newer cheeses by inoculation — removing a hit of the new, that is from tha 
 interior, and putting in a hit of the old in its place. 
 
COMPARISON OF ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FOOD. 107 
 
 that in the hands of the baker they form light and spongy 
 bread. This is owing, as I have explained, to a peculiarly 
 tenacious property which is possessed by the kinds of gluten 
 contained in these two species of grain. But the same pro- 
 perty is possessed to some extent by the white of the egg. It 
 has a glairy consistence, which enables it, when mixed up with 
 moistened flour, arrowroot, sago, &c., to retain the globules 
 of air or of steam which are produced within it by fermenta- 
 tion or by heat. Thus, like the gluten of wheat, it enables 
 the mixed materials to swell up into a porous mass. Hence 
 the lightness which the white of egg gives to puddings, to 
 cakes, and even to wheaten bread. In a less degree, a similar 
 quality resides in the curd of mUk, and hence one cause of 
 the improvement in the appearance of bread which has been 
 wholly or in part prepared with milk. 
 
 Before leaving this part of the subject, it may be useful to 
 exhibit in a tabular form the composition, in 100 parts, of 
 dried beef, eggs, and milk, compared with that of dried 
 wheaten flour and dried oatmeal : — 
 
 
 Beef. 
 
 Kggs. 
 
 Milk. 
 
 Fino 
 wheat 
 flour. 
 
 Oat- 
 meal. 
 
 Fibrin, coseiii, albumen, or gluten, . 
 
 Fat, 
 
 Starch or sugar, &o., . , . 
 Ash or mineral matter, 
 
 85 
 10 
 
 "5 
 
 49i 
 46 
 
 31 
 
 27 
 
 36 
 
 6 
 
 12 
 1 
 
 86 
 1 
 
 17 
 
 10 
 
 71 
 
 2 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 lOO 
 
 From this table many interesting comparative deductions 
 may be drawn. 
 
 9°. Cooking Flesh -meat. — In cooking animal food, plain 
 boiling, roasting, and baking, are in most general favour in 
 OUT islands. During these operations, fresh beef and mutton, 
 when moderately fat, suffer on an average about these losses — 
 
 In boiliDg. In baking. In roasting. 
 
 4 lb. of beef lose, . 1 lb. 1 lb. 3 oz. 1 lb. 5 oz. 
 
 4 lb. of mutton lose, . 14-oz. 1 lb. 4 oz. 1 lb. 6 oz. 
 
 The greater loss in baking and roasting arises chiefly from 
 the greater quantity of water which is evaporated, and of fat 
 which is melted out during these two methods of cooking. 
 Two circumstances, however, to which it has not hitherto 
 
108 THE BEEF WE COOK. 
 
 been necessary to advert, have mucli influence upon the suc- 
 cessfdl result of these and some other modes of cooking. 
 
 If we put moist flesh-meat into a press and squeeze it, a 
 red liquid will flow out. This is water coloured by blood, and 
 holding various saline and other substances in solution. Or 
 if, after being cut very fine, or chopped very fine, the flesh 
 be put into a limited quantity of clean water, the juices of the 
 meat will be gradually extracted, and by subsequent pressure 
 will be more completely removed from it than when pressure 
 is applied to it in the natural state, and without any such 
 mincing and steeping. The removal of these juices leaves 
 the beef or mutton nearly tasteless. 
 
 When the juice of the meat extracted in either way is 
 heated nearly to boiling, it thickens or becomes muddy, and 
 flakes of whitish matter separate, which resemble boiled 
 white of egg. They are, in fact, white of egg or albumen, 
 and they show that the juice of flesh contains a certain 
 quantity of this substance in the same liquid and soluble 
 state in which it exists in the unboiled egg. Now, the pres- 
 ence of this albumen in the juice of butcher-meat is of much 
 importance in connection with the skilful preparation of it 
 for the table. 
 
 The first effect of the application of a quick heat to a piece 
 of fresh meat is to cause the fibres to contract, to squeeze out 
 a little of the juice, and to a certain extent to close up the 
 pores so as to prevent the escape of the remainder. The 
 second is to coagulate the albumen contained in the juice, 
 and thus effectually and completely to plug up the pores, and 
 to retain within the meat the whole of the internal juice. 
 Thereafter, the cooking goes on through the agency of the 
 natural moisture of the flesh. Converted into vapour by the 
 heat, a kind of steaming takes place within the piece of meat, 
 so that whether in the oven, on the spit, or in the midst of 
 boiling water, it is in reality, when skilfully done, cooked by 
 its own steam. 
 
 A well-cooked piece of meat should be full of its own juice 
 or natural gravy. In roasting, therefore, it should be exposed 
 to a quick fire, that the external surface may be made to con- 
 tract at once, and the albumen to coagulate, before the juice 
 has had time to escape from within. And so in boiling. 
 When a piece of beef or mutton is plunged into boiling water, 
 
BEEF-TEA. 109 
 
 tho outer part contracts, the albumen which is near the sur- 
 face coagulates, and the internal juice is prevented either 
 from escaping into the water by which it is surrounded, or 
 from being diluted and weakened by the admission of water 
 into it. When cut up, therefore, the meat yields much 
 gravy and is rich in flavour. Hence a beefsteak or a mutton- 
 chop is done quickly, and over a quick fire, that the natural 
 juices may be retained. 
 
 On the other hand, if the meat be exposed to a slow fire, 
 its pores remain open, the juice continues to flow from within 
 as it is dried from the surface, and the flesh pines and be- 
 comes dry, hard, and unsavoury. Or if it be put into cold or 
 tepid water, which is afterwards gradually brought to a boil, 
 much of the albumen is extracted before it coagulates, the 
 natural juices for the most part flow out, and the meat is 
 served in a nearly tasteless state. Hence, to prepare good 
 boiled meat, it should bo put at once into water already 
 brought to a boil. But to make beef-tea, mutton-broth, or 
 other meat-soups, the flesh should be put into the cold water, 
 and this afterwards very slowly warmed, and finally boiled. 
 The advantage derived from simmering, a term not unfrequent 
 in cookery-books, depends very much upon the effects of slow 
 boiling as above explained. 
 
 10°. Beef-tea. — It has lately been recommended to make 
 beef-tea by simply chopping the meat small, pouring upon it 
 its own weight, or any other desired quantity, of cold water, 
 and bringing it quickly to a boil. This process extracts aU 
 the natural juices and gives a most agreeable and savoury tea, 
 which liolds in solution about one-eighth part of the solid 
 substance of the beef. But it has been stated, as a recom- 
 mendation of this process, first, that the tea obtained contains 
 all the nutritive qualities of the meat, which is said to be no 
 longer of any value ; and, secondly/, that it is as nutritious 
 as if the meat were boiled long enough to give a tea which 
 should stiffen to a jelly when cold. 
 
 But this statement is incorrect, and is made only in con- 
 sequence of two very opposite things being confoimded. 
 The juice of the meat contains a small proportion of a sub- 
 stance called krecUine, which is rich in nitrogen, has a certain 
 chemical relation to the peculiar principle of tea and coffee 
 {theine) — of which I shall speak in a subsequent chapter — 
 
110 THE BEEF WE COOK. 
 
 and exercises, as I believe, a special tonic and exhilarating 
 influence upon the system. This substance, with all the 
 soluble salts (which are chiefly phosphate and chloride of 
 potassium) of the flesh, the beef-tea made after the above pro- 
 cess contains, and the residual fleshy fibre is tasteless, and 
 will not alone support animal life for any length of time. 
 But eaten along with the tea thus made, or with what the 
 tea contains, or made into savoury meat by the addition of 
 ordinary gravy, it will sustain and strengthen the body, as 
 all experience proves. The meat-tea will perhaps be rather 
 more nutritious, the more of the jelly-forming substance of the 
 meat it holds in solution, though this gelatine is of much less 
 value than albumen or fibrin. It will bear, in fact, to the 
 thinner and more quickly made beef-tea, a similar relation to 
 that which cocoa bears to the infusion of China tea.^ Both 
 of these last-named beverages contain a peculiar principle 
 rich in nitrogen, which exercises a special influence on the 
 activity of the brain ; but the cocoa is rich besides in the 
 substances which form our ordinary nourishment. And as, 
 in consequence of this difference, cocoa is not so well suited 
 as tea or coflfee to the digestive powers of some constitutions, 
 so it probably is with the meat-teas or decoctions prepared 
 by the two processes referred to. The correct values, both 
 relative and absolute, of the meat-teas made after the two 
 methods, as well as of the undissolved residue of the meat, 
 are therefore easily seen and understood. The extract of 
 meat introduced by Liebig, is an excellent tonic and stimu- 
 lant, in moderate doses, and aids the digestion of the true 
 nutrients ; but it is not in itself a true food, much less a per- 
 fect one. Some notion of the favour in which it is now held 
 may be gained from the statement that 570,000 lb. of ex- 
 tractum carnis were produced in 1871 at a single establish- 
 ment at Uruguay. To yield this quantity 122,075 cattle were 
 slaughtered. 50 lb. of meat give 1 lb. extract. 
 
 11°. Salting op Meat. — The application of salt to fi:esh 
 meat has very much the same effect as the application of a 
 quick heat. It causes the fibres to contract, the meat to 
 lessen in bulk, and the juice to flow out from its pores. 
 Hence the reason why dry salt strewed upon fresh lean meat 
 gradually dissolves into a fluid brine. The effect of the salt, 
 1 See " The Beverages we Infuse," 
 
SAI.TED MEAT. Ill 
 
 if a large quantity be applied, penetrates deep, so that as 
 much as one-third of the juice of the meat is often forced 
 out by tlie contraction of the fibres. The effect of this upon 
 the meat is twofold. It diminishes the natural flavour, by 
 removing a large proportion of the peculiar substances con- 
 tained in the juice, and adding pure salt in their stead. At 
 the same time it closes up the pores of the meat, and prevents 
 the entrance of atmospheric air, thus diminishing tlie liability 
 to decay. 
 
 The preservation of flesh-meat by salting, depends, there- 
 fore, upon the separation of water, upon the exclusion of air, 
 upon the saturation with salt of the juice which remains in 
 the meat, and upon the formation of a weak compound of the 
 flesh with common salt, which does not readily undergo de- 
 cay. But this preservation is attended by a diminution in 
 its nutritive qualities, for the juice which flows out contains 
 albumen (white of egg), kreatine, phosphoric acid, and potash. 
 These substances are precisely the same as are more fully 
 extracted by water, in the method of making savoury beef- 
 toa, ah-eady described ; and in proportion as they are extracted 
 they diminish the nutritive properties of the meat. Hence 
 one reason why long feeding on salt meat affects the health, 
 and why vegetable and other substances which are capable 
 of supplying whfit the meat had lost, are found to be the best 
 means of restoring it. These vegetables contain potash-salts 
 and but little common salt. We cannot live on them alone 
 without adding common salt. So, on the other hand, we 
 cannot maintain our health on salted meats unless we restore 
 the potash-salts which they drive out of the body. 
 
 As a whole, flesh-meat is eminently nutritious, because it 
 contains all the materials which are necessary to build up our 
 own flesh ; but remove from it a portion of these materials, 
 and the remainder becomes more or less useless, — as bricks 
 and stone become useless to the builder if we refuse him the 
 requisite quantity of mortar. 
 
 12°. The Fat of Animal and Vegetable Suustances. — We 
 have seen that, as a whole, there is much analogy between 
 the bread and the beef, — the vegetable and the animal forms 
 of food on which we live. Between the gluten of the one 
 and the fibrin of the other, we have also found a very close 
 similarity, and that in the animal economy they are both 
 
112 THE BEEF WE COOK. 
 
 fitted and intended to serve the same main purpose. If we 
 compare the fatty portions of both, we find new resemblances. 
 
 Most of the varieties of fat yielded by our common Euro- 
 pean vegetables are fluid and oily at ordinary temperatures. 
 Such is the case with the fat extracted from linseed and 
 poppy-seed, from the olive, the walnut, &c. The fat of the 
 oil-palin, however, commonly known by the name of palm- 
 oil, and some other vegetable fats or butters, are solid in the 
 natural state, and at ordinary temperatures. And even the 
 oily fats (olive-oil for example), when exposed to a low tem- 
 perature, congeal or freeze to a certain extent, and allow of 
 the separation of a solid fat in a greater or less proportion. 
 On the other hand, those which are solid yield to pressure a 
 quantity of a liquid fatty oil! So that in reality all vegetable 
 fats consists of at least two fatty substances, one of which is 
 solid, and the other liquid, at ordinary temperatures. 
 
 Now the same is the case with the animal fats — with those 
 of beef and mutton for example, with the butter of milk, and 
 with the oil contained in the yolk of the egg. All consist of 
 a solid and a liquid fat, and in this fact we see a new analogy 
 between our vegetable and our animal food. 
 
 But a still further and more intimate analogy exists be- 
 tween the solid portions of the fatty substances of the animal 
 and vegetable kingdoms. When the solid fat of palm-oil is 
 properly purified it is found to consist of a solid, beautifully 
 white, peculiar fatty body, to which the name of palmitin has 
 been given. On the other hand, when beef and mutton fats 
 are pressed from the oil they contain, and then purified, the 
 most abundant substance obtained is a peculiar fat which is 
 known by the name of stearin. The remainder consists prin- 
 cipally of palmitin. 
 
 Now, of these two fatty bodies the solid fat of all our 
 domestic animals almost entirely consists. In beef and 
 mutton fats the stearin is the more abundant. In human 
 fat, in that of the goose, and in that of butter, the palmitin 
 occurs in large quantity. It is the same with vegetable fats. 
 They consist of these two varieties in difierent proportions. 
 In some, the solid part consists chiefly of stearin ; in others, 
 as in olive-oil, the stearin and palmitin are nearly equal in 
 quantity ; while in others again, as in palm-oil, the palmitin 
 is the principal ingredient. Thus, as there is a kind of iden- 
 
VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL FATS. 113 
 
 tity in nutritive quality and value among tlie compounds 
 represented respectively by gluten in plants and by fibrin in 
 animals, so there is an absolute identity of substance — as 
 regards thoir solid part at least — among the fatty compounds 
 which are met with in the eatable productions of both king- 
 doms. There are several other solid fatty substances found 
 in various vegetable and animal products, but they are all 
 closely related to those above named. 
 
 The liquid portions of the fats of animals and vegetables 
 consist in great measure of an oily substance called okin. 
 They usually absorb oxygen freely fi'om the air, and become 
 hard, as in the drying oils — or rancid, as in those oils which 
 do not harden. Fat meat keeps longer, when salted, if the 
 fat be hard. And hence the reason why, in finishing off fat 
 animals for the butcher, especially if they are to be salted, it 
 is usual to give dry food for some time before killing, that the 
 fat may be hardened and the flesh made firm. 
 
 It may be conveniently stated here that all the constituents 
 of oils and fats above named, and many others as well, are 
 known to chemists under the name of glycerides. These are 
 compounds which, when acted on by water, are resolved into 
 tlie sweet substance called glycerine, and various fatty acids 
 — stearic, palmitic, oleic, &c. 
 
 In another matter I might show Low, in still more minute 
 details, animal and vegetable kinds of food are nearly identi- 
 cal. When the parts of plants are burned in the open air 
 they disappear for the most part, as I have already shown,' 
 and leave only a smaU. proportion of ash behind. This ash 
 consists of a mixture of various substances, spoken of as their 
 mineral, earthy, saline, or inorganic constituents. 
 
 The same takes place when the parts of animals are burned ; 
 and the mixture of mineral matters obtained consists, in either 
 case, of the same substances, only differing more or less in their 
 relative proportions. The same things occur in the ash of bread 
 as are found in the ash of beef. In whatever degree, therefore, 
 the nutritive properties of our food depend upon the kind of 
 mineral matter it contains, it is almost a subject of indifier- 
 ence whether we live upon an animal or a vegetable diet. 
 
 But to this interesting point I shall have occasion to return 
 in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 1 See " The Plant we Rear," p. 54. 
 
CHAPTER VIL 
 
 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 THE TEAS. 
 
 Artificial drinks nearly all vegetatle infusions, Tritli or witliont sntseqnent 
 chemical changes. — Tea, extensive use of. — The tea-plant ; how its leaves 
 are gathered. — The aroma produced ty roasting. — Mode of preparing green 
 and black teas from the same leaves. — Principal varieties of green and 
 black teas. — Differences in fragrance and flavour. — Ancient use of tea in 
 China and the adjoining countries. — Introdaction into Europe. — Total 
 amount of tea produced. — Consumption in the United Kingdom. — Sensible 
 effects of tea. — Active chemical ingredients in tea. — The volatile oil, its 
 action. — The theine, its composition. — Occurs in coffee, in mat€, in kola, 
 and in guarana. — Its effect in retarding the waste of the tissues. — Why tea 
 is a favourite with the poor. — The tannin, its properties and effects. — ^The 
 gluten. — ^Tea-leaves and beans com^pared in nutritive quality. — Tartar mode 
 of using tea. — Eating the exhausted leaves. — Tea varies in composition. — 
 Proportion extracted by water varies. — How tea is coloured or dyed green 
 in China. — Lie tea. — Mat4 or Paraguay tea ; its ancient use in South Amer- 
 ica. — ^The Ilex paragwayensis or mat^-tree, where it grows, and how its 
 leaves are collected. — Gongonha of Brazil, a variety of mat4. — Frequent 
 use of mate, and its effects. — Composition of the leaf. — The volatile oil, 
 the theine, the tannic acid, and the gluten. — Coffee-tea made from the leaf 
 of the coffee-tree ; use of this tea in the Eastern Archipelago ; effects ob- 
 served from its use in Sumatra ; contains the same active ingredients as 
 the leaves of the tea-tree. — Labrador tea used in North America .^—Abys- 
 •sinian tea or kaat. — Tasmanian teas. — ^Faham tea. — ^Table of substitutes 
 for Chinese tea and for mat^. 
 
 The two most important natural liquids, water and milk, have 
 already been treated of. Various artificial drinks, however, 
 are prepared both in civilised and in semi-barbarous countries, 
 and are in daily use among vast multitudes of men. Such 
 
BEVERAGES IN USE EVERYWHERE. 115 
 
 are tea, coffee, and cocoa, beer, wine, and ardent spirits. The 
 preparation and effects of each of these are connected •with 
 interesting chemical considerations. 
 
 These drinks agree in being all prepared from or by means 
 of substances of vegetable origin, and in being generally 
 classed among the luxuries rather than the necessaries of life. 
 
 The mode in which they are prepared, however, naturally 
 divides them into two classes. Tea, coffee, and cocoa are 
 roasted and prepared before they are infused in water, and 
 the infusion is then drunk without further chemical treat- 
 ment. These are simply infused beverages. Beer, wine, 
 and ardent sprits are prepared from infusions which, after 
 being made, are subjected to important chemical operations. 
 Among these operations is the process of fermentation, and 
 hence they are properly distinguished Sls fermented liquors. 
 
 I shftll therefore consider these two classes of drinks sep- 
 arately, and in the order in which I have mentioned them. 
 
 The infused beverages are drunk hot, fermented drinks are 
 usually taken cold. The love of such warm drinks prevails 
 almost universally. In frozen Labrador and snowy Russia, the 
 climate might account for this predilection, but the craving is 
 really deeper seated. The practice prevails equally in tropi- 
 cal and in arctic regions. In Central America, the Indian of 
 native blood and the Creole of mixed European race indulge 
 alike in their ancient chocolate. In Southern America the tea 
 of Paraguay is an almost universal beverage. The native 
 North American tribes have their Appalachian tea, their 
 Oswego tea, their Labrador tea, and many others. From 
 Florida to Georgia, in the United States, and over aU the 
 West India Islands, the naturalised European races sip their 
 favourite coffee ; while over the Northern States of the Union, 
 and in the British provinces, the tea of China is in constant 
 and daily use. 
 
 All Europe, too, has chosen its prevailing beverage. Spain 
 and Italy delight in chocolate ; France and Germany, and 
 Sweden and Turkey, in coffee ; while Eussia, Holland, and 
 England are particularly partial to tea. 
 
 AU Asia feels the same want, and in different ways has 
 long gratified it. Coffee, indigenous in Abyssinia, has spread 
 to the adjoining countries, and has followed the banner of 
 the Prophet, wherever in Asia or Africa his false faith has 
 
116 THE BEVEKAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 triumphed. Tea, a native of Bengal, and possibly also of parts 
 of China, has spread spontaneously over the hUl-cotmtry of 
 the Himalayas, the table-lands of Tartary and Thibet, and 
 the plains of Siberia — ^has climbed the Altais, overspread all 
 Kussia, and is equally despotic in Moscow as in St Peters- 
 burg. In Sumatra, the coffee-leaf yields the favourite tea 
 of the dark-skinned population, while Central Africa boasts 
 of the Abyssinian haat as the indigenous warm drink of 
 its Ethiopian peoples. Everywhere unintoxicating and non- 
 narcotic beverages are in general use, — among tribes of 
 every colour, beneath every sun, and in every condition of 
 life. The custom, therefore, must meet some universal want 
 of our poor human nature. 
 
 The beverages we infuse naturally arrange themselves 
 into three classes. First, the teas or infusions of leaves ; 
 second, the coffees or infusions of seeds ; and third, the 
 cocoas, which are more properly soups or gruels than simple 
 infusions, as they are made by dififasing, through boiling 
 water, the entire seeds of certain plants . previously ground 
 into a paste. 
 
 The Teas. — Of teas there are many varieties in use in 
 different parts of the world ; but China tea, Paraguay tea or 
 mate, and perhaps coffee-tea, are' the most extensively con- 
 sumed as national beverages. There are some others in 
 constant though less general employment, to which it will 
 be necessary somewhat briefly to advert. 
 
 I. China Tea is not only the most important of these 
 beverages to the British and other English-speaking peoples, 
 but it forms the daily drink of a larger number of men than 
 aU the others put together. Among the two hundred and 
 fifty millions of China, and among the inhabitants of Japan, 
 Thibet, and Nepaul, it is an article of consumption with all 
 classes three or four times a-day. In Asiatic Eussia also, 
 in a large proportion of Europe, in North America, and in 
 Australasia, it is in, or is coming into, almost equally ex- 
 tensive use. It is consumed at the present moment by 
 probably not less than five hundred millions of men, or more 
 than one-third of the whole human race ! 
 
 The tea-plant [Thea sinensis) has much resemblance to the 
 Camellia japonica. There are several varieties of it, dis- 
 
MAP OF TEA-COUNTEIES. 
 
118 
 
 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 6 feet. 
 
 Scale for leaf, 1 inch 
 
 to 2 inches. 
 
 Fig. 22. 
 
 tinguished by some botanists as tbe Thea 
 viridis, T. bohea, and T. stricta, but all are 
 now recognised as belonging to one single 
 species, somewhat altered in habit and 
 appearance by cultivation, climate, and 
 soil. The two most marked varieties are 
 represented by the annexed woodcuts. The 
 smaller (fig. 21) is the Thea sinensis, var. 
 bohea, which produces the inferior green and 
 black teas which are made about Canton. 
 The larger (fig. 22) is the Thea sinensis, var. 
 viridis — the more northern variety, from 
 which are made all the fine green teas in 
 Tiua sinsri$is,mT.ioiiea the great Hwuychow and adioinins: pro- 
 
 — The Bohea Tea- . ° . •' i. t j i i. 
 
 plant _ vmces. ihe plant is believed to be a 
 native of Bengal, but it appears to grow 
 wild among the hUls of China. It thrives 
 best in the cooler parts of the tro- 
 pical zone, but grows in the tem- 
 perate zone even_as far north as 
 the 40th degree of north latitude. 
 The districts of China which sup- 
 ply the greater portion of the teas 
 exported to Europe and America 
 lie between the 25th and the 31st 
 degrees of north latitude, and the 
 best districts are those between 
 27° and 31°.— (Fortune.) 
 
 The tea-plants are raised from 
 seed which, to secure germination, 
 is kept over winter in moist earth, 
 and sown in March. When a year 
 old, the young bushes are planted 
 out, and then by cropping the main 
 shoot for the first yeaj they are 
 kept down to a height of about 
 3 feet, and made to grow bushy. 
 Being placed in rows 3 or 4 feet 
 apart, they have some resemblance 
 to a garden of gooseberry-bushes. 
 The cropping of the leaves begins 
 
 7'hea sinensis, var. viridis— The 
 
 Green Tea-plant. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 5 feet. 
 
 Scale tor leaf, 1 inch to 2 inches. 
 
CULTURE OF THE TEA-PLAOT. 119 
 
 in the fourth and fifth years, and is seldom continued beyond 
 the tenth or twelfth, when the bushes are dug up and renewed. 
 The plant thrives best on dry sunny slopes, where occasional 
 showers fall and springs appear, and where an open, somewhat 
 stony but rich soil, prevents the water from lingering about its 
 roots. The season for gathering varies in dififerent districts, 
 but the principal leaf-harvest ends in May or June. The leaves 
 are plucked by the hand, and chiefly by women. They are 
 generally gathered at three successive seasons. The youngest 
 and earliest leaves are the most tender and delicate, and give 
 the best-flavoured tea. The second and third gatherings 
 are more bitter and woody, and yield less soluble matter to 
 water. The refuse and decayed leaves and twigs are pressed 
 into moulds and sold under the name of brick-tea. These 
 bricks are often made harder by mixing the leaves with the 
 serum of sheep and ox blood. This inferior variety is chiefly 
 consumed in northern China and Thibet. In western China 
 the leaves of a coarse toa-plant are picked in June and July, 
 slightly fermented, and then pressed into " bricks," of which 
 about 6,000,000 lb. are yearly exported into Thibet. 
 
 The first in order, and not the least interesting point, in 
 the cliemical history of the tea we use, is the mode in which 
 it is prepared for the market. The leaves when freshly 
 plucked have neither a decidedly astringent, an aromatic, 
 nor a bitter taste. They possess nothing, in fact, either of 
 the odour or flavour of the dried leaves. The pleasant taste 
 and delightful natural scent for which they are afterwards so 
 highly prized, are all developed by the roasting which they 
 undergo in the process of drying. The details of this process 
 were first made known to us through the investigations of Mr 
 Fortune. 
 
 Another interesting chemical fact is, that different qualities 
 of tea are prepared from the same leaves, according to the 
 way in which they are treated in the drying. This we should 
 expect to a certain extent. But the inquiries of Mr Fortune 
 have shown that either green or black tea — though these 
 varieties are so unhke each other — may be prepared at will 
 from the same leaves, gathered at the same time and under 
 the same circumstances. The mode of drying and roasting 
 the leaves generally, and the specific processes by which the 
 green and the black teas are severally obtained, have been 
 7 
 
120 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 minutely described by Mr Fortune ; ■* and from his description 
 we learn — 
 
 First, That in the process of drying, the leaves are fer- 
 
 1 His description is as follows : — 
 
 For Oreen Tea, — When the leaves are brought in from the plantations they 
 are spread out thinly on flat bamboo trays, in order to dry off any super- 
 fluous moisture. They remain for a very short time exposed in this manner, 
 generally from one to two hours ; this, however, depends much upon the state 
 of the weather. 
 
 In the meantime the rdasting-pans have been heated with a brisk wood-iire. 
 A portion of leaves is now thrown into each pan, and rapidly moved about 
 and shaken up with both hands. They are immediately affected by the heat, 
 begin to make a crackling noise, and become quite moist and flaccid, while at 
 the same time they give out a considerable portion of vapour. They remain 
 in this state for four or five minutes, and are then drawn quickly out and placed 
 upon the rolling-table, and rolled with the hands. 
 
 Having been thrown again into the pan, a slow and steady charcoal-fire is 
 maintained, and the leaves are kept in rapid motion by the hands of work- 
 men. Sometimes they are thrown upon the rattan-table and rolled a second 
 time. In about an hour, or an hour and a half, the leaves are well dried, and 
 their colour has becomej^a;^^, — ^that is, there is no longer any danger of their 
 becoming black. They are of a dullish-green colour, but become brighter 
 afterwards. 
 
 The most particular part of the operation has now been finished, and the 
 tea may be put aside until a larger quantity has been made. The second 
 part of the process consists in winnowing and passing the tea through sieves 
 of different sizes, in order to get rid of the dust and other impurities, and to 
 divide the tea into the different kinds known as twankay, hysou-skin, hyson, 
 young hyson, gunpowder, &o. During this process it is re-fired — the coarse 
 kinds once, and the finer sorts three or four times. By this time the colour 
 has come out more fully, and the leaves of the finer kinds are of a dull bluish 
 green. 
 
 For Blacic Tea. — ^When the leaves are brought in from the plantations they 
 are spread out upon large bamboo mats or trays, and are allowed to lie in this 
 state for a ccnsideralle time. If thiey are brought in at night, they lie until 
 next morning. 
 
 The leaves are next gathered up by the workmen with both hands, thrown 
 into the air, and allowed to separate and- fall down again. They are tossed 
 about in this manner, and slightly beaten or patted with the hands, for a con- 
 siderable space of time. At length, when they become soft and flaccid, they 
 are thrown in heaps, and aUotoed to lie in this state for about an hour or per- 
 haps a little longer. When examined at the end of this time, they appear to 
 have undergone a slight change in colour, are soft and moist, and emit a 
 fragrant smell. 
 
 The rolling process now commences. Several men take their stations at the 
 rolling-table, and divide the leaves amongst them. Each takes as many as he 
 can press with his hands, and makes them up in the fonu of a ball. Tliis is 
 rolled upon the rattan-worked table, and greatly compressed, the object being 
 
THE PREPARATION OF TEA-LEAVES. 121 
 
 mentcd, roasted, and scorclied in such a way as necessarily 
 to bring about many chemical changes within the substance 
 of the leaves themselves. The result of these changes 
 is to produce the varied flavours, odours, and tastes by 
 
 to get rid of a portion of the sap and moisture, and at the same time to twist 
 the leaves. These balls of leaves are frequently shaken out, and passed from 
 hand to hand until they reach the head workman, who examines them care- 
 fully to see if they have taken the requisite twist. When he is satisfied of 
 this, the leaves are removed from the rolling-table and shaken out upon flat 
 trays, until the remaining portions have undergone the same process. In no 
 cose arc they allowed to lie long in this state, and sometimes they are taken 
 at once to the roasting-pan. 
 
 The next part of the process is exactly the same as in the manipulation of 
 green tea. The leaves are thrown into an iron pan, where they are roasted for 
 about five minutes, and then rolled upon the rattan-table. 
 
 After being rolled, the leaves are shaken out, thinly, on sieves, and 
 exposed to the air out of doors. A framework for this purpose, made of 
 bamboo, is generally seen in front of all the cottages among the tea hills. 
 The leaves are allowed to remain in this condition for about three hours : 
 during this time the workmen are employed in going over the sieves in rotation, 
 turning the leaves and separating them from each other. A fine dry day, 
 when the sun is not too bright, seems to be preferred for this part of the 
 operation. 
 
 The leaves having now lost a large portion of their moisture, and having 
 l)ecome considerably reduced in size, are removed into the factory. They are 
 put a second time into the roasting-pan for three or four minutes, and taken 
 out and rolled as before. 
 
 The charcoal-fires are now got ready. A tubular basket, narrow at the 
 middle and wide at both ends, is placed over the fire. A sieve is dropped 
 into this tube, and covered with leaves, which are shaken on it to about an 
 inch in thickness. After five or six minutes, during which time they arc care- 
 fully watched, they are removed from the fire and rolled a third time. As the 
 balls of leaves come from the hands of the rollers, they are placed in a heap 
 until the whole have been rolled. They are again shaken on the sieves as 
 before, and set over the fire for a little while longer. Sometimes the last 
 operation — namely, heating and rolling — is repeated a fourth time : the 
 leaves have now assumed a dark colour. 
 
 When the whole have been gone over in this manner, they are placed thickly 
 in the baskets, which are again set over the charcoal-fire. The workman now 
 makes a hole with his hand through the centre of the leaves, to allow vent to 
 any smoke or vapour which may rise from the charcoal, as well as to let up the 
 heat,, which has been greatly reduced by covering up the fires. The tea now 
 remains over the slow charconl-fire, covered with a flat basket, until it is per- 
 fi'(-tly dry,— carefully watched, however, by the manufacturer, who every now 
 and then stirs it up with his hands, so that the whole may be equally heated. 
 The black colour is now fairly brought out, but afterwards improves in 
 appearance. The after-processes, such as sifting, picking, and refining, are 
 rarried on at the convenience of the workmen. 
 
122 THE BEVEEAGKS WE INFUSE. 
 
 which different varieties of tea are more or less distin- 
 guished. 
 
 Secondly, That the treatment or mode of handling by which 
 the leaves are converted respectively into green and black 
 teas, is the cause of the different colours of these two main 
 varieties. Thus, for 
 
 Green Teas. Black Teas. 
 
 1°. The leaves are roasted almost 1°. They are allowed to be spread 
 immediately after they are gathered, out in the air for some time after 
 
 2°. They are dried ofiF quickly after they are gathered, 
 the rolling process. The whole 2°. They are then further tossed 
 
 operation is speedy and simple. about tOl they become soft and 
 
 flaccid. 
 
 3°. They are now roasted for a 
 few minutes, and rolled ; after 
 ■which they are exposed to the air 
 for a few hours in a soft and moist 
 state. 
 
 i°. Lastly, they are dried slowly 
 over charcoal-fires. 
 
 It is by lengthened exposure to the air, therefore, in the 
 process of drying, accompanied by a slight heating and fer- 
 mentation, that the dark colour and distinguishing flavour are 
 given to the black teas of commerce. The oxygen of the 
 atmosphere acts rapidly upon the juices of the leaf during this 
 exposure, and changes chemically the peculiar substances 
 they contain, so as to impart to the entire leaf the dark hue 
 it finally acquires. 
 
 This action of the air does not appear sensibly to affect the 
 weight of the tea obtained, as three pounds of the fresh leaves 
 produce on an average about one pound bf marketable tea of 
 either kind. The teas intended for home consumption are not 
 so highly dried as those which are prepared for exportation — 
 (BowEiNu) — a circumstance which must affect the quaUty of 
 the beverage they yield. 
 
 The produce of different districts varies in quality and 
 flavour with the climate, the soil, and tlie variety of plant 
 cultivated, as well as with the period at which the leaves are 
 gathered, and with the mode of drying them. The finest tea 
 of China grows between the 27th and 31st parallels of north 
 latitude, on a low range of hUls, which is an oflfshoot of 
 
VARIETIES OF TEA, 123 
 
 the great chain of I'e-ling. The principal varieties of black 
 tea are known by the names of Bohea, Congou, Campoi, 
 Souchong, Caper, and Pekoe. Of these the bohea grows in 
 the province of Fu-kian (Fokien). Pekoe, or pak-ho, means 
 " white down " in Chinese, and consists of the first downy 
 sprouts or loaf-buds of three-year-old plants. A very costly 
 tea of this kind, known as the " Tea of the Wells of the 
 Dragon," is used only by persons of the highest rank in China, 
 and is never brought to Europe. Caper is in hard grains, 
 made up of the dust of the other varieties cemented together 
 by means of gum. The ffreen teas are known as Twankay, 
 Hyson-skin, Hyson, Imperial, and (Junpowder. The hyson is 
 grown in the province of Song-ho. The true imperial, known 
 also, because of its excellence, as the flos-theae, seldom comes 
 to Europe, — that which is usually sold under this name being 
 really Chusan tea flavoured with the cowslip-coloured blossoms 
 of the sweet-scented olive [Olea fragrans). The practice of 
 scenting teas is very common, and various odniiferous plants 
 are employed for the purpose in different parts of China.^ It 
 is remarked, however, by the dealers in tea, that the planta- 
 tions wliich naturally yield a produce of a particularly esteemed 
 flavour are as limited in extent as the vineyards in Europe 
 which are celebrated for particular kinds of wine. Tlie price 
 of tea varies, of course, with the variations in natural quality, 
 being for some samples double or treble what is asked for 
 otliers. But the average price at Canton is about Sjd, a 
 pound, so tliat the grower must sell it at TkI. or 6d. — (Meyi:n.) 
 Tea-leaves, prepared as above described, have been in use 
 as a beverage in China from very remote periods. Tradition 
 speaks of it as early as the third century. The legend re- 
 lates, " that a pious hermit, wlio in his watchings and pray- 
 ers had often been overtaken by sleep, so that his eyelids 
 closed, in holy wrath against the wealcness of the fiesh, cut 
 them off and threw them on the ground. But a god caused a 
 tea-shrub to spring out of them, the leaves of which exhibit 
 
 1 Among these are mentioned the Olea fragrans, Chloranthus inconspicuus, 
 Gardenia lloriJa, Aglaia odorata, Mogorium sambac, Vitez spicata, Camellia 
 sasanqua, Camellia odorifera, IlUcium anisatum, Magnolia gracilis, Rosa indica 
 odoratiasima, Murraya exotica, turmeric, oil of Bixa orellana, and the root 
 of the Florentine Iris. With such a list before us, we cannot wonder that 
 teas should exhibit great diversity in fragrance and flavour. 
 
124 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 the form of an eyelid bordered with lashes, and possess the 
 gift of hindering sleep." A similar story is related concerning 
 the introduction of coffee into Arabia. Both legends were 
 probably invented long after the qualities of tea and coffee 
 were known. 
 
 It was after the year 600 that the use of tea became general 
 in China, and early in the ninth century (810) it was intro- 
 duced into Japan. To Europe it was not brought till about 
 the beginning of the seventeenth century. Hot infusions of 
 leaves had been already long familiar as drinks in European 
 countries. Dried sage-leaves were much in use in England,^ 
 and are even said to have been carried as an article of trade 
 to China by the Dutch, to be there exchanged for the Chinese 
 leaf, which has since almost entirely superseded them. A 
 Kussian embassy to China also brought back to Moscow some 
 carefully-packed green tea, which was received with great 
 acceptance. In ' Pepys' Diary' for 1660, we have one of the 
 earliest accounts of its use in this country; and soon after 
 (1664), the English East India Company considered it as a 
 rare gift to present the queen of Charles II. of England with 
 two pounds of tea ! In 1745 the consumption was but 
 730,000 lb. per annum ; yet it must then have come into 
 pretty general use, for in the correspondence of Duncan 
 Forbes, which dates from 1715-48, occurs the following pas- 
 sage : " The excessive use of tea, which is now become so 
 common, that the meanest families, even of labouring people, 
 particularly in boroughs, make their morning's meal of it, 
 and thereby wholly disuse the ale which heretofore was 
 their accustomed drink ; and the same drug supplies aU the 
 labouring women with their afternoon's entertainments to the 
 exclusion of the twopenny." These were the pahny days of 
 Dr Johnson's tea-triumphs — the days in which he describes 
 himself as " a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for 
 many years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this 
 fascinating plant ; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool ; 
 who with tea amuses the evenings, with tea solaces the mid- 
 nights, and with tea welcomes the morning." 
 
 The growth and consumption of tea are now really enorm- 
 
 1 Sage -was in frequent use till after the middle of last century. In the life 
 of Whitfield, it is stated that, when in his fasting humours at Oxford, " he 
 ate nothing hut sage-tea with sugar, and coarse bread." This was about 1730. 
 
CONSUMPTION OF TEA. 125 
 
 ous. Mr Ingham Travers estimated (in 1852) the total produce 
 of the dried leaf in China alone at a million of tons, or 2240 
 miUionB of pounds ! To this is to be added the tea of Japan, 
 Corea, Assam, and Java. The produce of this 'latter iii:land 
 already goes far to supply the markets of Holland ; and the 
 introduction of the tea-plant into the hiU-country of India, 
 into Pulo Penang on the Malacca coast, into Eio Janeiro, and 
 since 1868 into Ceylon, adds largely to the present growth, 
 lu 1857 there were but 121,000 lb. of tea exported from 
 British India; while the amount exceeded 17,000,000 lb. in 
 1872, and in 1877 31,000,000 lb. were imported into this 
 country. If we take the quantity of tea yielded by an acre of 
 land at 600 lb., which is probably a full estimate, the extent 
 of land devoted to this branch of mral industry in China alone 
 must be nearly 3J millions of acres 1 
 
 The consumption of tea in tlio United Kingdom in 1853 
 amounted to 58 millions of pounds (25,000 tons) — about one 
 forty-fifth part of the estimated produco of China at that time. 
 This is at the rate of 2 lb. per head of the population. If we 
 go back to 1835 we find that the amount was not quite IJ lb. 
 l)er hea«l ; while in 1877 it was close upon 4J lb., or three 
 times as much. In 1871 it amounted to 123j millions of 
 pounds, or 3 lb. 15 oz. per head. In 1876 the total import 
 of tea nearly reached 186 millions of pounds. The quantities 
 actually consumed in this coun+ry may be taken as about — 
 
 82,000,000 lb. in 1840. I 77,000,000 lb. in 1860. 
 
 51,000,000 „ in 1850. I 118,000,000 „ in 1870. 
 
 Among European nations, tea is pre-eminently a British, 
 Dutch, and Eussian drink. Among tlie other nations of Eu- 
 rope, cofiee and cocoa are more usual beverages than tea. 
 This is strikingly illustrated by the fact, that while in 1835 
 about 36,000,000 lb. of tea were consumed in the United 
 Kingdom, only 200,000 lb. were consumed in the kingdom of 
 Prussia I The population of Prussia was then upwards of 
 thirteen millions. And this difference in national tastes and 
 habits is fiirther illustrated by tlie actual present consumption 
 of tea and cofiee in England, France, and Gj^rmany. 
 
 The efieots of tea, as it is used in China, axe thus described 
 by Chinese writers : " Tea is of a cooling nature, and, if 
 drunk too freely, will produce exhaustion and lassitude 
 
126 THE BEVERAGES AVE INFUSE. 
 
 CoTintry people, before drinking it, add ginger and salt to 
 counteract this cooling property. It is an exceedingly useful 
 plant. Drink it, and the animal spirits wiU be lively and 
 clear. The chief rulers and nobility esteem it ; the lower 
 people, the poor and beggarly, wiU not be destitute of it. All 
 use it daily, and like it." Another writer says, " Drinking 
 it tends to clear away aU impurities, drives off drowsiness, 
 removes or prevents headache, and is universally in high 
 esteem." ^ 
 
 The mode of using it in China is to put the tea into a cup, 
 to pour hot water upon it, and then to drink the infusion off 
 the leaves, and without admixture. While wandering over 
 the tea districts of China, Mr Fortune only once met with 
 sugar and a teaspoon. 
 
 The mode of making and drinking the infusion of tea prob- 
 ably does not alter its general effects upon the system. In 
 China cold water is disliked, and considered as unwholesome, 
 and therefore tea is taken to quench the thirst, which it pro- 
 bably does best when drunk unmixed. The universal use, on 
 the other hand, of sugar and cream or milk among us, probably 
 arose from its being introduced here as a beverage among 
 grown-up people whose tastes were already formed, and who 
 required something to make the bitter infusion palatable. 
 The practice thus begun has ever since continued, and, 
 physiologically considered, is on the whole, I believe, an 
 improvement upon the Eastern fashion. 
 
 In Eussia, a squeeze of a lemon often takes the place of our 
 cream ; and in Germany, where the tea is made very weak, it 
 is common to flavour it with rum, cinnamon, or vaniUa. In 
 Spain, a few leaves of the lemon-verbena {Aloysia citriodora) 
 are placed in the cup, and the hot tea poured over them. 
 
 The effects of tea as obtained and thus used among us are 
 too familiarly known to require any detailed explanation. 
 It exhilarates without sensibly intoxicating. It excites the 
 brain to increased activity, and produces wakefiilness. Hence 
 its usefulness to hard students, to those who have vigils to 
 keep, and to persons who labour much with the head. It 
 soothes, on the contrary, and stills the vascular system, and 
 hence its use in inflammatory diseases, and as a cure for head- 
 ache. Green tea, when taken strong, acts very powerfidly 
 1 Fortune's Tea Countries of China, vol. ii. p. 231. 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF TEA, 127 
 
 ■upon Bome constitutions, producing nervous tremblings and 
 other distressing symptoms, acting as a narcotic, and in in- 
 ferior animals even producing paralysis.^ Its exciting eflfect 
 upon the nerves makes it useful in counteracting the effects of 
 opium and of fermented liquors, and the stupor sometimes 
 induced by fever. 
 
 In manufactured tea there are at least three active chemical 
 substances, by the conjoined influence of which these effects 
 are produced. 
 
 1°. The Volatile Oil. — When commercial tea is distUled with 
 water, there passes over a small quantity of a volatile oil, 
 which possesses the aroma and flavour of the tea in a high 
 degree. A hundred pounds of tea often yield less than half a 
 pound of this oil, and to this minute quantity of its volatile 
 ingredient the value of tea in general estimation is in a great 
 measure due. Its special action upon the system has not yet, 
 we believe, been scientifically investigated. But that it does 
 exercise a powerful, and most likely a narcotic influence, is 
 rendered probable by many known facts. Among these I 
 mention the headaches and giddinesses to which tea-tasters 
 are subject ; the attacks of paralysis to which, after a few 
 years, those who are employed in packing and unpacking 
 cliests of tea are found to be liable ; and the circumstance 
 already alluded to, that in China tea is rarely used till it 
 is a year old, because of the peculiar intoxicating property 
 wliich new tea possesses. The effect of this keeping upon 
 tea must be chiefly to allow a portion of the volatile ingredi- 
 ents of the leaf to escape. And lastly, that there is a power- 
 ful virtue in this oil is rendered probable by the fact, that 
 the similar oil of coffee has been found by experiment to 
 possess narcotic properties, as we shaU see further on. 
 
 This volatile ingredient does not exist in the natural leaf, 
 but is produced during the process of drying and roasting 
 already described. 
 
 2°. The Theine. — When dry finely-powdered tea-leaves are 
 put upon a watch-glass, covered over with a conical cap of 
 paper, and then placed upon a hot plate, a white vapour 
 gradually rises from the leaves, and condenses on the inner 
 side of the paper in the form of minute colourless crystals. 
 
 ' New tea in China is said to exhibit this narcotic quality in a high degree, 
 and hence the Chinese rarely use tea before it is a year old. 
 
128 THE BEVEEAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 If, instead of the leaves, a dried watery extract of the leaves 
 be employed, the crystals will be obtained in greater abun- 
 dance. These crystals consist of the substance known to 
 chemists by the name of Theine or Caffeine. The teas of 
 commerce contain, on an average, about two per cent of this 
 theine — (Stenhouse). In some it is a little more. Certain ' 
 green teas, according to Peligot, contain as much as six 
 pounds in every hundred pounds of the dried tea; but so 
 large a proportion as this is very rare. 
 
 Theine has no smeU, and only a slightly bitter taste. It 
 has little to do, therefore, either with the taste or flavour of 
 the tea from which it is extracted. It is remarkable, how- 
 ever, in three respects — 
 
 First, in containing a very large percentage of nitrogen, an 
 element I have already spoken of as forming four-fifths of the 
 bulk of our common atmospheric air, and as distinguishing 
 the gluten of wheat from the starch with which it is associated 
 in the grain.^ The percentage composition of theine is re- 
 presented by the following numbers — 
 
 Carton, 49.5 
 
 Hydrogen, 5.1 
 
 Nitrogen, 28.9 
 
 Oxygen, 16.5 
 
 100.0 
 It contains, therefore, nearly three-tenths of its weight of 
 nitrogen ; a proportion which exists in only a very small 
 number of other known substances. 
 
 Secondly, Theine is remarkable in being present not only 
 in Chinese tea, but also in mat6 or Paraguay tea, in coffee, 
 and in guarana — a substance prepared and used in Brazil in 
 the same way as coffee : it has also been fou3d in the kola- 
 nuts of Africa. It is a very curious fact that, in countries so 
 remote from each other, plants so very unlike as all these ate, 
 should have been, by a kind of instinct as it were, selected 
 for the same purpose of yielding a slightly exciting, exhilarat- 
 ing, and refreshing beverage ; and that these plants, when 
 now examined by chemists, should all be found to contain 
 the same remarkable compound body which we call theine or 
 caffeine. The selection must have been made by the inde- 
 pendent, discovery, in each country, and by each people, that 
 1 See " The Air we Breathe " and " The Bread we Eat." 
 
I'lIYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF THEINE. 129 
 
 tboso Boveral plants were capable of gratifying a natural cou- 
 Btitutional craving, or of supplying a want equally felt by all. 
 
 Thirdly, The observed efifects of this, substance, when in- 
 troduced into the system, justify this conclusion, and form 
 the third point which is worthy of remark in regard to it. It 
 is known that the animal body, while Hviiig, undergoes con- 
 stant decay and renovation. The' labours of life waste it — 
 the food introduced into the stomach renews it. That which 
 is wasted passes off through the lungs and the kidneys, or is 
 in other ways rejected from the body of the animaL- Tho 
 solid matters contained in tho urine are in some degree a 
 measure of this waste ; and especially the quantity of urea 
 and phosphoric acid it contains at different periods, is sup- 
 posed to measure tho comparati\o waste of certain constit- 
 uents of the blood and the tissues at these different times. 
 Now, tlio introduction into tho stomach of even "a minute 
 proportion of theino — tlireo or four grains a-day — lias tho 
 r(^narkablo effect of sensibly diminishing tho absolute quari- 
 tity of these substances voided in a day by a healthy man, 
 living on the same kind of food, and engaged in the same 
 occupation, under the same circumstances. This fact seems 
 to indicate that tho waste of the body is lessened by tho 
 introduction of theino into the stomach — that is, by the use 
 of tea. And if the waste bo lessened, the necessity for food 
 to repair it will be lessoned in an equal proportion. In other 
 words, by tho consumption of a certain quantity of tea, the 
 health and strength of the body will be maintained in an 
 equal degree upon a smaller supply of ordinary food. Tea, 
 tliereibro, saves food — stands to a certain extent in the place 
 of food — while at tho samo time it soothes tho body and 
 enlivens the mind. 
 
 In the old and infirm it serves also another purpose. In 
 the life of most persons a period anives when the stomach no 
 longer digests enough of the ordinary elements of food, to 
 make up for the natural daily waste of the bodily substance. 
 The size and weight of tho body, therefore, begin to diminish 
 more or less perceptibly. At this period tea comes in as a 
 medicine to aiTest the waste, to keep tho body from falling 
 away so fast, and thus to enable the less energetic powers of 
 digestion still to supply as much as is needed to repair tho 
 wear and tear of the tissues. 
 
130 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 No wonder, tterefore, that tea should be a faTOurite — on 
 the one hand, with the poor, whose supplies of substantial 
 food are scanty — and on the other, with the aged and infirm, 
 especially of the feebler sex, whose powers of digestion and 
 whose bodily substance have together begun to ML Nor is 
 it surprising that the aged female, who has barely enough of 
 weekly income to buy what are called the common necessaries 
 of life, should yet spend a portion of her small gains in pur- 
 chasing her ounce of tea. She can live quite as well on less 
 common food, when she takes her tea along with it ; while 
 she feels lighter at the same time, more cheerful, and fitter 
 for her work, because of the indulgence. 
 
 The quantity of three or four grains of theine, mentioned 
 above, is contained in less than half an ounce of good tea, 
 and may be taken in a day by most fall-grown persons, with- 
 out unpleasant effects. But if twice this quantity, or eight 
 grains a-day, be taken, the pulse becomes more frequent, the 
 heart beats stronger, trembling comes on, and a perpetual 
 desire to void urine. At the same time the imagination is 
 excited, and, after a while, the thoughts wander, visions begin 
 to be seen, and a peculiar state of intoxication comes on. All 
 these symptoms are followed by, and pass off in, a deep sleep. 
 The effects of strong tea, therefore — and especially of old 
 teas, and such as are peculiarly rich in theine — are to be 
 ascribed in great part to the over-dose of this substance which 
 has been introduced into the stomach. 
 
 3°. The Tannin, or Tannic Acid.— 11 tea be infused in hot 
 water in the usual manner and the infusion be poured into a 
 solution of common green copperas (sulphate of iron), the 
 mixture wUl become black. Or if it be poured into a solu- 
 tion of glue or isinglass (gelatine), it will render the solu- 
 tion turbid or muddy, and cause a greyish precipitate to fall. 
 These appearances show that the tea contains an astringent 
 substance, known to chemists by the name of tannin, or tannic 
 acid. This substance is so called, because it is the ingredient 
 which, in oak-bark, is so generally employed for the tanning 
 of leather. 
 
 To this tannic acid tea owes its astringent taste, its con- 
 stipating effect upon the bowels, and its property of giving 
 an inlcy infusion with water which contains iron. It forms 
 from 13 to 18 per cent of the whole weight of the dried tea- 
 
THE GLUTEN OF TEA. 131 
 
 leaf, and ia the more completely extracted the longer the tea 
 is infused. The tannic acids, of which many varieties are 
 kno>vn to chemists, though naturally colourless, have aU a 
 tendency to become dark-coloured when exposed to the air. 
 This is one reason why the same leaves, when dried quickly, 
 will give a green, and when dried more slowly, a black tea, as 
 has been described by Mr Fortune. 
 
 What is the full and precise action of this tannin upon tho 
 system, as we drink it in our tea, or whether it contributes in 
 any degree to the exhilarating, satisfying, or narcotic action 
 of tea, is not yet known. That it does aid even in the ex- 
 hilarating effect which tea produces, is rendered very probable 
 by the fact, that a species of tannin is the principal ingredient 
 in the' Indian betel-nut, which is so much chewed and prized 
 in the East, and which is said to produce a kind of mild and 
 agreeable intoxication. ^ 
 
 4°. The Gluten. — The three substances already described 
 may bo considered as the really active constituents of the 
 tea-leaf as it is usually employed. But it is an interesting 
 fact, that the leaf contains a large proportion of that nutritive 
 ingredient of plants to which the name of gluten ^ is given. 
 This substance forms as much as one-fourth of the weight 
 of the dry leaves, or about the same quantity as in haricot- 
 beans ; so that if we chose to eat them in mass, they would 
 prove as nutritious in that respect as pulse. 
 
 Of this large percentage of gluten, the water in which we 
 usually infuse our tea extracts very little ; and hence we 
 throw away, in the waste leaves, a large proportion of the 
 nutrients they contain. It has been recommended, therefore, 
 as an improved method of infusing tea, that a pinch of soda 
 should be put into the water along with it. The effect of 
 this would be, that a portion at least of the gluten would 
 be dissolved, and the beverage in consequence made more 
 nutritious. The method of preparing the brick tea adopted 
 among the Mongols and other Tartar tribes, is believed to 
 extract the greater part of the nutriment from the leaf. They 
 i-ub the tea to fine powder, boil it with the alkahne steppe- 
 water, to which salt and fat or butter have been added, and 
 pour off tho decoction from the sediment. When the water is 
 
 1 See "The Narcotics we Indulge in." 
 i See "The Bread we Eat." 
 
132 -THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSJS. 
 
 not naturally alkaline they add Boda, as is usual in Thibet. 
 There brick tea is much used. Of this liquid they drink from 
 20 to 40 cups a-day, mixing it first with milk, butter, and 
 a little roasted meal. But even without meal, and mixed 
 only with a little milk, they can subsist upon it for weeks 
 in succession. 
 
 The •effect of the tea in this way of using it seems to be 
 twofold. First, it directly nourishes by the gluten and milk 
 or meal it contains ; and, secondly, it makes this food go 
 farther, through the waste-retarding influence of the theine, 
 which the boiling thoroughly extracts. 
 
 But the most perfect way of using tea is that described, I 
 think, by Captain Basil Hall, as practised on the coast of 
 South America, . where tea-leaves, after being exhausted by 
 infusion, are handed round the company upon a silver salver, 
 and partaken of by each guest in succession. The exhilarat- 
 ing effects of the hot liquid are in this practice followed by 
 the nutritive effects of the solid leaf. It is possible that this 
 practice may refer to the Paraguay tea, so extensively used 
 in South America ; but in either case the merit of it is the 
 same. But tea proper is so used among the Lipchas on the 
 slopes of the Himalayas. There, after drinking up the tea- 
 liquor prepared in the ordinary way, the spent leaves them- 
 selves are shared by the family and guests, and are highly 
 relished. 
 
 The four substances above mentioned are the most import- 
 ant ingredients of the tea-leaf. It contains, besides, some 
 starch and gum, part of which will, of course, be extracted by 
 boiling water, and will give a certain nutritive value to the 
 infusion. Nor should we omit to mention the iron and 
 manganese it contains, both being important elements in the 
 composition of our bodies. The ashes of souchong tea have 
 been found to contain 3.29 of peroxide of iron in 100 parts, 
 and 0.71 of oxide of manganese. From an infusion of pekoe- 
 leaves weighing 70 grams (a gram is upwards of 15 grains), 
 0.104 gram of peroxide of iron and 0.20 gram of protoxide of 
 manganese was obtained by Fleitmann. Tea, however, varies 
 in composition with the mode of drying, with the age of the 
 plant and of the leaf, with the season in which it is gathered, 
 and even with the variety of shrub on which it has grown. 
 Hence the proportion of the whole leaf which is extracted by 
 
SPOILT AND ADULTERATED TEA. 133 
 
 boiling water varies mucli both in kind and quantity. Tho 
 genuine green teas, whicb are usually prepared from the 
 young leaves, yield more of the lighter-coloured — the black 
 teas more of the darker-coloured ingredients. And even of 
 teas of the same colour and name in the market, different 
 samples yield to boiling water very different proportions of 
 soluble matter. M. Peligot, who tried twenty varieties, found 
 that green teas yield to water from 40 to 48, and black teas 
 from 31 to 41 per cent of their whole weight : later experi- 
 ments have given similar results. 
 
 It is obvious, therefore, that tho value of tea as a beverage, 
 in so far as this depends on the proportion of soluble matter 
 it contains, differs very much. We usually judge of the 
 quality of a tea by its aroma, and by the flavour and colour of 
 the infusion it yields ; and those, in the main, are good guides : 
 but chemistry indicates that, as in the case of opium, some 
 weight ought also to be attached to the proportion of soluble 
 ingredients it contains and readily yields to boiling water. 
 K 100 grains of the crushed tea will not give up to boiling 
 wator at least as much as 26 grains of soluble extractive matter 
 (good teas often yield 36 grains), then the sample is bad. It 
 then consists of, or contains, spent tea abeady used, redried, 
 and coloured, or else it has been damaged by water. Not long 
 since a cargo of tea, amounting to between 40 and 50 tons, 
 sank in the Thames, and was afterwards recovered. To fit it 
 for sale, it ^\'as redried, after receiving various additions. 
 
 It is necessary to mention, before concluding my remarks 
 upon tea, that, in addition to the substances which it naturally 
 contains, others are sometimes added by way of adulteration 
 to the teas of commerce. This is especially the case with the 
 green teas, which are not all prepared by simply drying the 
 natural leaf as already described, but are often artificially 
 coloured by the addition of blue, white, and yellow colouring 
 substances. Mr Fortune, who saw the colouring performed 
 in China, thus describes the process : " The superintendent 
 liaving taken a portion of Prussian blue, threw it into a porce- 
 lain bowl not unlike a mortar, and crushed it into a very 
 fine powder. At the same time a quantity of gypsum was 
 burned in the charcoal-fire which was then roasting the tea. 
 This gypsum having been taken out of the fire after a short 
 time, readily crumbled down, and was reduced to powder in 
 
134 THE BEVEKAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 the mortar. The two substances thus prepared were then 
 mixed together, in the proportion of four of gypsum to three 
 of Prussian blue, and formed a light-blue powder, which was 
 then ready for use. 
 
 " This colouring matter was applied to the teas during the 
 last process of roasting. About five minutes before the tea 
 was removed from the pans, the superintendent took a small 
 porcelain spoon, and with it he scattered a portion of the 
 colouring matter over the leaves in each pan. The workmen 
 then turned the leaves rapidly round with both hands, in 
 order that the colour might be equally diffused. To 14 lb. 
 of tea about 1 oz. of colouring matter was applied. 
 
 " During this part of the operation the hands of the work- 
 men were quite blue. I could not help thinking that if any 
 green-tea drinkers had been present during the operation, 
 their taste would have been corrected and improved. 
 
 " One day an English gentleman in Shanghae, being in 
 conversation with some Chinese from the green-tea country, 
 asked them what reasons they had for dyeing the tea, and 
 whether it would not be better without undergoing this pro- 
 cess. They acknowledged that tea was much better when 
 prepared without having any such ingredients mixed with it, 
 and that they never drank dyed teas themselves ; but remarked 
 that, as foreigners seemed to prefer having a mixture of Prus- 
 sian blue and gypsum with their tea, to make it look uniform 
 and pretty, and as these ingredients were cheap enough, the 
 Chinese had no objections to supply them, especially as such 
 teas always fetched a higher price ! " ■*■ 
 
 Mr Fortune describes the blue substance employed as Prus- 
 sian blue ; and Mr Warington's experiments show that for- 
 merly this substance was very generally in use in China for 
 giving an artificial colour to teas. More recently, however, it 
 is said that indigo has been substituted, in consequence, pro- 
 bably, of the injurious effects which European writers have 
 described the Prussian blue as likely to produce on the con- 
 stitution of green-tea drinkers. The quantity of either sub- 
 stance employed, however, is so minute that, without justi- 
 fying the adulteration, I think it unlikely that any serious 
 consequences can have followed from it. The indigo is prob- 
 ably harmless ; but supposing Prussian blue to be used, the 
 1 Fortune's Tea Countries of China, vol. ii. j). 69. 
 
PAEAG0AY TEA. 135 
 
 quantity added to the green tea is about one grain to the 
 ounce ; and this is aheady diluted to a pale tint with white 
 clay, so as not to contain more than a third, or probably a 
 fourth, of a grain of pure Prussian blue. This quantity in an 
 ounce of tea is, I think, but little to be dreaded ; nevertheless 
 the practice ought to be discouraged and abandoned.^ 
 
 Less doubt exists as to the pernicious qualities of an adul- 
 terated tea largely manufactured by the Chinese under the 
 name of Lie tea. This consists of the sweepings and dust of 
 the tea- warehouses cemented together with rice-water and 
 roUed into grains. It is made either black to imitate caper, or 
 green to resemble gunpowder, and is manufactured professedly 
 for the purpose of adulterating the better kinds of tea. 
 
 Genuine tea yields only 5 or 6 per cent of ash when burned, 
 lioing the proportion of mineral matter naturally contained in 
 the leaf ; and of this ash rather more than half is soluble in 
 water. The Lie teas sometimes leave as much as 45 per cent 
 of ash, consisting chiefly of sand and other insoluble impuri- 
 ties. These adulterated teas have been imported into this 
 country to the extent of half a million pounds' weight in a, 
 single year. In this, as in similar cases, the poorest classes, 
 who can least afford it, are the greatest sufferers from the 
 fraudulent introduction of the spurious mixture into the teas 
 they buy. Among the low dealers the Lie tea is known by 
 the name of dust and gum. Mr Midhurst found no less than 
 63,000 lb. willow-leaves manipulated for tea adulteration at 
 one port alone. 
 
 II. Mat^, or Paraguay Tea, though not used over so large 
 nn area as the Chinese tea, is as much the passion of tlie 
 Brazilians and their neighbours, in Southern America, as the 
 latter is of the nations of north-eastern Asia. It is prepared 
 from the dried leaves of the Brazilian holly {Ilex paraguay- 
 ensis) — (fig. 23) — is said to have been in use among the In- 
 
 1 It is easy to detennine whether indigo or Prussian Wue is the colouring 
 matter of these adulterated teas. If a portion of the tea be shaken with cold 
 water and thrown upon a bit of thin muslin, the fine colouring matter will pass 
 through the muslin and settle to the bottom of the water. When the water 
 is poured off, the blue matter may be treated with chlorine or a solution of 
 chloride of lime. If it is bleached, the colouring matter is indigo. If potash 
 makes it brown, and afterwards a few drops of sulphuric acid make it blue 
 again, it is Prussian blue. 
 
136 
 
 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 dians from time immemorial, has been drunk by all classes 
 in Paraguay since the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
 
 and is now consumed by " almost 
 the vrhole population of South 
 America." The leaf of this tree 
 is 4 or 5 inches long, and after 
 being dried it is, in Brazil at least, 
 rubbed to powder before it is in- 
 fused. The dried leaf has much 
 of the aroma of some varieties of 
 Chinese tea, and the infusion has 
 a pleasant odour, and an agree- 
 able bitter taste. In the state in 
 which it is commonly used in 
 South America, it is more excit- 
 ing than China tea, producing a 
 kind of intoxication, and by ex- 
 cessive use leading even to deli- 
 rium tremens. 
 
 The tree which yields the 
 Yerba (the herb or plant par ex- 
 cellence), as this tea is called, does 
 not appear to be an object of cul- 
 ture. It grows spontaneously, in 
 extensive natural plantations, amid the forests of Paraguay. 
 The principal Yerbals, or woods of this tree, are situated in the 
 neighbourhood of a small town called Villa-Eeal, about 1500 
 miles above Assumption, on the Paraguay river. They are 
 scattered about, however, in various other localities upon the 
 rich tract of country which extends between the rivers Parana 
 and Uruguay. Permission to gather the leaves is granted by 
 the government to certain merchants, in return for a consider- 
 able money payment. These merchants fit out parties of 
 men, chiefly Indians, for the purpose of collecting the Yerba, 
 and at the proper season proceed to the forests. When in 
 the course of their journey they come to a Yerbal, or growth 
 of mate-trees, sufficiently extensive to make it worth their 
 while to halt and collect the leaves, they begin by construct- 
 ing a long line of wigwams, which they cover with the broad 
 leaves of the banana and palm. Under these they expect to 
 pass nearly six months. An open space is then prepared, of 
 
 IlcxparoQuayenais—VaiB^^a&y Holly. 
 
 (Paraguay Tea-plant.) 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 10 feet. 
 
 Scale for leaf, 1 inch to 4 inches. 
 
CONSUMPTION OF PARAGUAY TEA. 137 
 
 which tho soil is beaten with heavy mallets until it becomes 
 hard and smooth. Over this is erected a kind of arch, made 
 of hurdles, called a Barbagua, upon which the Ycrba branches 
 are placed. Beneath these a large fire is kept up till the 
 foliage is thoroughly dried and roasted, without being scorched 
 or suflFered to ignite. The hard floor is then swept clean, tho 
 dried branches are laid upon it, and tho now brittle leaves 
 beaten off with sticks, which partly reduce them to powder. 
 They are then crammed and beaten into sacks made of damp 
 hides, which, when sewed up and left to dry, become in a few 
 days as hard as stone. In these sacks, weighing about 200 
 lb., the mate is well preserved. The labour of collecting tho 
 Yerba, in the midst of these tropical forests, is exceedingly 
 severe, and is said to have been very fatal to Indian hfe. 
 ]\Iany of the Creoles and Mestizos even assert that the Para^ 
 guayans have exterminated the poor Indians by compelling 
 them to the labour of collecting this plant. 
 
 From the smallest shrubs the finest tea is obtained ; but 
 from the same kind of loaves different qualities are procured, 
 according to the mode of preparation, and the kind of weather 
 which prevails. Three principal kinds, however, are prejiared 
 and sold in South America under the names of caa-ciiys, caa- 
 miri, and caa-guaza — the prefix caa signifying tho leaf itself. 
 ThQ first is prepared from the half-expanded buds : it will not 
 keep, and its consumption is entirely confined to Paraguay. 
 Tho second, from the leaf carefully picked and stripped from 
 tlic nerves before roasting, as was done by the Jesuits. And 
 the third, from the entire foliage, roasted as above described, 
 without any preparation. Tho two latter varieties are not 
 only used largely in the country of Paraguay, but are exported 
 as far as Lima and Quito. — (Hooker.) It loses in virtue and 
 flavour, and its aromatic bitterness diminishes, by exporta- 
 tion and keeping, so that the infusion is drunk in perfection 
 only on the spot where the loaves are gathered and newly dried. 
 The total amount of mate consumed annually in the whole 
 of South America was estimated by Von Bibra in 1855 as 
 15,000,000 lb. : this figure now probably represents but a 
 third or a fourth of the actual consumption. Though the 
 annual consumption of mate in the Argentine EepubUc is not 
 less than 13 lb. per head (27,000,000 lb. in all), yet each in- 
 habitant consumes 2 lb. of cofiee and \ lb. of tea as well. 
 
138 
 
 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 In Brazil, a variety of mate called Gongonlia is in use. It 
 is prepared from the leaves of two other species of hoUy, the 
 Ilex^ Gongonha and the Ilex iheezans; hut I do not know to 
 what extent. In Chili also, a tea called Paraguay tea, but 
 
 
 90 y 
 
 60 
 
 
 NORTH AMER 
 
 ICA 
 
 
 
 i '\ New Orleans, 
 
 -Y 
 
 
 
 '" \jjlgr 
 
 ■7 °kSs» west 
 
 
 sa 
 
 CENTRAL 
 AMEf 
 
 -j^ INDIES 
 
 
 - 
 
 'Equator 
 
 ) ...#s» 
 
 GUIANA^ 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 tM. ® ° " 
 
 ^^"«^A M 
 
 1 ^ VKRK 
 
 E R I^C A i 
 
 21 
 
 
 1 MAP 
 
 / 
 
 
 of the Districts of 
 
 y^ 
 
 — 
 
 PARAGUAY TEA, COCA f 
 
 y 
 
 
 & VANILLA. ( J- 
 
 
 40 
 
 FaraguayTea mHHm S ( 
 Coca iSS'SW J / 
 
 
 
 r<i»«(o iiiiiniiiiiii L J 
 
 
 
 1/^ 
 
 (iO 
 
 1 
 
 different from the mate, is prepared from the leaves of the 
 Psoralea glandulosa ; and in Central America, another variety 
 from those of the Capraria hifolia. 
 
 The use of the mate is very frequent, as well as very uni- 
 versal, in South America. At every meal, and at every hour 
 of the day, it is drunk. It has acquired the name of MaU, 
 which is the hot decoction, from that of the vessel or cup in 
 
 ' Not far from Eio Grande, in Brazil, and near the ocean, the Hex growth 
 begins. 
 
EFFECTS OF PAEAGUAY TEA. 
 
 139 
 
 Fig. 24. 
 
 ■which it is infused, and from which it is drunk. Hot water 
 
 is poured upon the powdered leaf, then a lump of burned 
 
 Bugai-, and sometimes a few drops of lemon-juice are added. 
 
 The infusion is sucked through a tube, lomhiUa, often made 
 
 of silver, which is open at one end, and has a perforated 
 
 bulb or strainer at the other (fig. 
 
 24]. The cup is passed from hand 
 
 to hand, the same cup, and often 
 
 the same tube, serving a whole 
 
 party. The leaves will bear to be 
 
 steeped or watered three times, and 
 
 the infusion is drunk off quickly, 
 
 as it soon becomes black if allowed 
 
 to stand. 100 grains of mate yield 
 
 about 25 grains of soluble matter 
 
 to boiling water. 
 
 " Persons who are fond of mate 
 consume abcxut an ounce a-day. In 
 the mining districts it is most uni- 
 versally taken, experience having 
 shown that fermented liquors are 
 there prejudicial to health.^ The 
 Creoles in South America are pas- 
 sionately fond of the beverage, and 
 never travel without a supply of 
 the leaf, which they infuse before 
 every meal, and sometimes much oftener, never tasting food 
 unless they have first drunk their mate." ^ 
 
 Numerous virtues are ascribed to this favourite beverage. 
 It possesses many of the good qualities of our Chinese tea, 
 while, like opium, it is said to calm the restless, and to 
 arouse the torpid. As is the case with opium also, the habit 
 of using it becomes a kind of second nature, so that to give it 
 up, or even to diminish the customary quantity, is almost 
 impossible. 'On the other hand, long indulgence, or an im- 
 moderate consumption of it, is apt to induce diseases similar 
 to those which follow the excessive use of ardent spirits. It 
 differs both from Chinese tea and from opium in acting upon 
 
 * A maxim of the Jesuits was, — "En pais caliente, aguardiente ; en pais 
 frio, aguafrio," — in the warm country, brandy ; in the cold country, water. 
 ' Hooker'.s London Journal of Botany, vol. i. p. 39. 
 
 Mat6 or cup, and Bombilia 
 or tube. 
 
no THK BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 the kidneys and moving the bowels. The chief constituents 
 of the mate-leaf are four : — 
 
 Mrst, Like Chinese tea, it contains a volatile oU, which is 
 produced during the roasting of the leaf, gives it a peculiar, 
 agreeable aroma, gradually escapes from it by keeping, and 
 upon which a portion of its narcotic virtue depends. This is 
 shown by the facts abeady stated, that the tea becomes less 
 valuable when long kept or carried to great distances, and 
 that it is only drunk in perfection near the Yerbal where it is 
 collected and prepared. 
 
 Secondly, Dr Stenhouse has shown that this leaf also con- 
 tains theine, the vegetable principle which we have described 
 as existing in Chinese tea, and as producing remarkable 
 effects upon the system when introduced into the stomach. 
 The proportion is nearly 2 per cent. 
 
 Thirdly, Paraguay tea contains about 16 per cent of a 
 pecuUar, astringent acid, analogous to tannin or the tannic 
 acid. For this reason the fresh leaves are U8ed*in Brazil by 
 the dyers, while the presence of this substance in the in- 
 fusion causes it to blacken rapidly when exposed to the air, 
 and makes it necessary to drink it off as soon as it is made. 
 Were it poured out into cups, as is done with Chinese tea, 
 the liquid would become black and repulsive before the eyes 
 of the drinker. Hence the reason for the peculiar mode of 
 sucking it through a tube which is practised in South 
 America, and which at first seems so peculiar to Europeans. 
 And, 
 
 Lastly, Like the Chinese leaf, it contains also nutritious 
 gluten. Of this substance about 10 per cent is present in 
 the dried mate, of which only a small proportion dissolves 
 when the tea is infused. The benefit of this ingredient, 
 therefore, is experienced only where the infused leaf is 
 subsequently eaten, as is the case, it is said, in some parts 
 of South America. 
 
 It is both interesting and remarkable to find, so far, a great 
 similarity between the Chinese and the South American leaf. 
 Both contain the same active ingredients, and both, though 
 belonging to very different tribes of plants, have been selected 
 to serve the same remarkable physiological purposes. How 
 came tribes so remote, and so little civilised, to stumble upon 
 this happy selection ? 
 
COFFEK-TEA. 141 
 
 HL Coffee-Tea. — Attention has been drawn to the use of 
 the leaf of the coffee-tree as a substitute for that of the tea- 
 tree. In 1845 Professor Blume of Leyden, who had travelled 
 mucli in Java, made known in Holland that this leaf was so 
 used in the Eastern Archipelago, and recommended it for 
 trial in Europe. Subsequently it was made known in this 
 country by Professor Brande ; and at the Great Exhibition 
 in 1851, Dr Gardiner showed specimens of prepared coffee- 
 leavos, announcing at the same time that they contained 
 theine, and suggesting that they should be substituted for our 
 ordinaiy tea. 
 
 These, along with other circumstances, have drawn the 
 attention of Eastern merchants to the subject ; and it appears 
 from various communications which have bi'cn made public, 
 that the use of coffee-leaves in this way is an old practice in 
 the Eastern Archipelago. In the Dutch Island of Sumatra 
 especially, prepared coffee-leaves form " the only beverage of 
 the whole population, and, from their nutritive qualities, have 
 become an important necessary of life." 
 
 The leaves are roasted over a clear, smcikoloss bamboo-fire, 
 till they become of a brownish-buff colour. They are then 
 separated from the twigs, the bark of which, after a second 
 roasting, is rubbed off and used along with the leaves. In 
 this state they have an extremely fragrant odour, resembling 
 that of a mixture of tea and coffee. AVhen immersed in boil- 
 ing water, they give a clear brown infusion, which, with 
 sugar and cream, forms an agreeable beverage. Mr Ward, 
 many years settled at Pedang, in Sumatra, thus narrates 
 his experience in regard to the use of the coffee-leaf in that 
 island : — 
 
 " The natives have a prejudice against the use of water aa 
 a beverage, asserting that it does not quench thirst, or afford 
 the strength and support the coffee-leaf does. With a little 
 boiled rice and infusion of the coffee-leaf, a man will support 
 the labours of the field in rice-planting for days and ^^■eeks 
 successively, up to the knees in mud, under a burning sun or 
 drenching rain, which he could not do by the use of simple 
 water, or by the aid of spirituous or fermented liquors. I 
 have had the opportunity of observing for twenty years the 
 comparative use of the coffee-leaf in one class of natives, and 
 of spirituous liquors in another — the native Sumatrans using 
 
142 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 tlie former, and the natives of British India, settled here, the 
 latter ; and I find that, while the former expose themselves 
 with impunity to every degree of heat, cold, and wet, the 
 latter can endure neither wet nor cold for even a short period, 
 without danger to their health. 
 
 " Engaged myself in agriculture, and being in consequence 
 much exposed to the weather, I Was induced several years 
 ago, from an occasional use of the coffee-leaf, to adopt it as a 
 daily beverage, and my constant practice has been to take 
 two cups of a strong infusion, with mUk, in the evening, 
 as a restorative after the business of the day. I find from 
 it immediate relief from hunger and fatigue. The bodily 
 strength is increased, and the mind left for the evening clear 
 and in fuU possession of its facidties. On its first use, and 
 when the leaf has not been sufiSciently roasted, it is said to 
 produce vigilance; but I am inclined to think that, where 
 this is the case, it is rather by adding strength and activity 
 to the mental faculties, than by inducing nervous excitement. 
 I do not recollect this effect on myself except once, and that 
 was when the leaf was insufficiently roasted. 
 
 " As a beverage the natives universally prefer the leaf to 
 the berry, giving as a reason that it contains more of the 
 bitter principle, and is more nutritious. In the lowlands, 
 coffee is not planted for the berry, not being sufficiently pro- 
 ductive ; but, for the leaf, the people plant it round their 
 houses for their own use. It is an undoubted fact that every- 
 where they prefer the leaf to the berry." ^ 
 
 He adds further, that while the culture of the coffee-plant, 
 for its fruit, is limited to particular soils and more elevated 
 climates, it may he grown for the leaf wherever, within the 
 tropics, the soil is sufficiently fertile. This is a very iinportant 
 fact, and, should the leaf come into general use, will no doubt 
 lead to the introduction of new forms of husbandry in many 
 tropical regions, from which the coffee-tree, as a profitable 
 article of culture, has been hitherto excluded. At present 
 the price of the prepared leaves in Sumatra is about Ijd. 
 a-pound ; and they may be packed of good quality, for the 
 European market, for 2d. a-pound. 
 
 . In regard to the constituents of the dried coffee-leaf, the 
 agreeable aroma emitted shows that, like Chinese tea, it con- 
 1 Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. xiii. p. 208. 
 
KOLA-NUTS. 143 
 
 tains a volatile oil, which will probably act upon the system 
 like the similar oils of tea and coffee. It has been proved 
 also to contain theine to the extent of about 1 J per cent — 
 (Stenhouse) — and an astringent acid closely resembling that 
 which is found in Paraguay tea. Both of these are present 
 in it in larger proportion than in the coffee-bean ; and hence, 
 probably, the reason why the leaf is preferred to the bean by 
 the natives of Sumatra. These, with about 13 per cent of 
 gluton and some gum, are all the important ingredients yet 
 found in the leaf. But the presence of these substances proves 
 it to be so similar to the tea-leaf in composition, as to lead to 
 the belief that it may be successfully substituted in common 
 use for the Chinese tea. And this conclusion is supported by 
 the wakefulness which is said to be produced by the infusion 
 of coffee-leaves, by the bodily refreshment it is found to yield, 
 by the directly nutritive power which the leaves possess, and 
 by the general favour they have found in the estimation of the 
 people of Sumatra. 
 
 To boiUng water the dried coffee-leaves yield about 39 per 
 cent of their weight — as much as is taken up by water from 
 the most soluble varieties of the coffee-bean, and more than is 
 yielded by average Chinese tea. In this property, therefore, 
 the leaf of the coffee-tree is also equal to the bean. 
 
 rV. Kola is the name used in Angola for the fi-uit of a tree 
 closely allied to the Baobab. In Congo it is called Makasso ; 
 and Guru in Soudan. It is introduced here because the seeds 
 are not only used in West and Central Africa for preparing a 
 beverage, but because they have recently been found to con- 
 tain theine. The kola-tree is Sterculia acuminata, and perhaps 
 S. kola also. Five seeds or so, hke peeled chestnuts, are found 
 in each pod. They have an acrid and bitter flavour. A bit 
 of kola is often eaten with green ginger in the morning by 
 natives at Loanda. — (Monteiro.) 
 
 V. Labrador Tea is the name given in North America to 
 the dried leaves of the Ledum palustre and the Ledum latifolium 
 (fig. 25). These plants grow on the borders of the swamps, 
 and along the heathy shores of the mountain lakes in the 
 colder regions of that continent. The leaves are gathered 
 and used in the stead of Chinese tea — the narrower-leaved 
 8 
 
144 
 
 THE EEVEEAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 plant {L. palustre), according to Dr Eichardson, giving tea 
 of the better quality. Both varieties are very astringent, 
 and possess a narcotic, soothing, 
 and exhilarating quality. This nar- 
 cotic quality is so strong, that in the 
 north of Europe (Sweden and Ger- 
 many) these plants are secretly em- 
 ployed by fraudulent brewers to give 
 headiness to beer. They have not 
 as yet been examined chemically. 
 From the above facts, however, we 
 may infer that, besides a variety of 
 tannin, to which they owe their as- 
 tringency, they contain an active 
 narcotic principle, more powerfiil, 
 probably, than the theine of the tea- 
 leaf, to which their peculiar, exhila- 
 rating, and stupefying effects are 
 due. It is possible also that, in the 
 cold northern climates of Sweden 
 and Labrador, the effects of such a 
 narcotic substance may be less sensi- 
 bly felt than under our milder skies. 
 
 Ledum jwZwstre— The Marsh 
 
 Ledum, or Labrador Tea. 
 
 The undermost flower and leaf 
 
 represent those of 
 
 Ledum latifolivm — The Labrador 
 
 Tea, or broad-leaved Ledum. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 2 feet. 
 
 Leaves and flowers nearly 
 
 natural size. 
 
 VI. Abyssinian Tea, called in its 
 native country KS,t or Kaat, is very 
 extensively cultivated in Shoa and 
 the adjoining regions, and is in general use among the inhabit- 
 ants, just as tea is in China. It consists of the dried leaves of 
 the Catha edulis, a species of small tree which is allied to the 
 Sageretia theezans, from which the poorer classes of Chinese 
 prepare an inferior kind of tea. In a light gravelly soil the 
 plant attains a height of 12 feet. The leaves aie plucked in 
 the dry season, and well dried in the sun. In Abyssinia they 
 sell at Id. or 2d. a-pound. ^ They are either chewed, boiled 
 in milk, or infused in boiling water, and, by the addition of 
 honey, yield a pleasant beverage. They have much resem- 
 blance to Chinese tea, both in their qualities and their effects. 
 They are bitter to the taste, possess exhilarating properties, 
 and dispel sleep if used to excess. 
 
 1 Hams— Highlands of Ethiopia, vol. ii. p. 423. 
 
TASMAKIAN AND OTHER TEAS. 145 
 
 The leaves of this plant are also used green. Forskall 
 states that the Arabs eat tliem green because of their pro- 
 perty of preventing sleep. To such a degree do they exhibit 
 this influence, that a man who chews them may stand sentry 
 all night without feeling drowsiness. They are also regarded 
 as an antidote to the plague ; and the Arabs believe that the 
 plague cannot appear in places where the tree is cultivated. 
 Botta adds to these qualities that, when fresh, the leaves are 
 very intoxicating.'' 
 
 This North A&ican tea appears to be very extensively culti- 
 vated and used, though less so now than in ancient times ; 
 but we have no means of estimating the absolute quantity 
 which is grown and consumed. We are entirely ignorant also, 
 I believe, of its exact chemical history, and do not yet know 
 whether it belongs to the class of plants in which theine 
 exists. Its relation to the Sageretia theezans of China renders 
 this not unlikely. 
 
 VII. Other Teas. — Many other plants, of which the chem- 
 istry has been but imperfectly studied or remains unknown, 
 are used in various countries as more or less perfect substi- 
 tutes for Chinese tea. Thus, the name 
 
 Tasmanian Tea is given to the dried leaves of various 
 species of Melaleuca and Leptospermum, belonging to the 
 order of the Myrtaceae, which are collected in Australia, and 
 used by the colonists instead of Chinese tea. These trees 
 are commonly called tea-trees, and the large tracts of country 
 which are covered with them, tea-tree flats. The leaves of 
 various species of Correa also, which belong to the Rutacefp, 
 and especially of the Correa alba, are collected and used for 
 the same purpose. The leaves of Accena sanguisorba, a plant 
 allied to the Bosaceae, and which abounds everywhere in 
 Tasmania, are said to be an excellent substitute for tea. Even 
 the bark of the Australian sassafras (Atherosperma mosckata) 
 has obtained some celebrity as a tea-substitute. In the same 
 pastern region the leaves of the Olaphyria nilida, another of 
 the MjTtaceae — called by the Malays the Tree of Long Life — 
 affords at Bencoolen, in Sumatra, a substitute for tea. 
 
 Faham Tea, again, is the name given in Mauritius to the 
 dried leaves of the Angrcecum fragrans — a fragrant orchid. 
 1 Undley— Vegetable Kingdom, p. 687. 
 
146 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 The plant is a parasite, like the misletoe, and is allied to 
 the well-known vanilla, of the odour of which it reminds us. 
 It grows on trees in the Isle of Bourbon. The Africans have 
 long employed its leaves as medicine, and the infusion of its 
 leaves as a drink. The infusion of these leaves is exceedingly- 
 pleasant to the smell, and in taste holds the medium between 
 vanilla and bitter almonds. Its fragrance is owing to the 
 presence of coumarin, the odoriferous principle of the Tonka- 
 bean, and of melhlot, described in a subsequent chapter.^ 
 This leaf does not contain theine, and is not therefore to be 
 classed in its virtues and uses with the Chinese and Paraguay 
 teas. 
 
 Besides all these we have North American substitutes for 
 the China leaf, distinguished by the names of Appalachian tea, 
 Oswego tea. Mountain tea, and New Jersey tea. We have a 
 Mexican tea, a Brazilian tea, — the aromatic CapitaS da matto, 
 — a Santa F6 tea, an Indian (Toolsie) tea, and many others. 
 Of the chemistry of most of these substitutes we know little. 
 I have, however, embodied in the following table some few 
 facts regarding them : — 
 
 1 See "The Odonra we Enjoy." 
 
 [Table. 
 
TEA SUBSTITUTES. 
 SUBSTITUTES FOR CHINESE TEA AND MAT& 
 
 147 
 
 Kame of Plant 
 
 Natural orto. ™«« collated and ^^^^ 
 
 Cat ha edullB, 
 C. spinosa, 
 Sagcretia theezans, 
 Cuanothus americanus, 
 Psoralea glandulosa, . 
 Cyclopia vogelli, , , 
 PruDus spinosa i, 
 ('nignuia colUsa, or 
 
 F. vesco, }, 
 GlaphyTlamtlda(flow(ir8) 
 LeptoBpermum scopa- ^ 
 
 nam, and L. tlica, i 
 Helaloaca genlstifolia t 
 
 and M. scoparia, f 
 
 Myrtusugnl 
 
 Helichrysum serpylli- ) 
 
 (tolittm, i 
 
 Gaoltheria procumbons, 
 Ledum palustre, { 
 
 L. latlfollura, / 
 
 Ocymum album, , . 
 Uonarda didyma, 
 M. purpurea, 
 Micromoria thcosinen- 
 
 sis. 
 Salvia ofQcInalis, . . 
 
 Hydrangea tliunborgll, 
 
 Arwna sangulsorba, . 
 Styiax alstonio, . . 
 Oapraila bifolia, . . 
 Corroa alba, .... 
 Lantona pseudotbea, . 
 Stacbytaipheta Jamai- 
 
 censla, 
 Chenopodlum ambro- 
 
 sjoldcs. 
 Viburnum cosslnoldea, 
 Prinos glaber, . . . 
 
 Angnccum ft-agrans, , 
 
 Celaatracem. 
 
 Bbamnaccte. 
 
 Do. 
 LeguminosEB, 
 
 Do. 
 Drupaceo!. 
 
 Rosacete. 
 Myri^acesB, 
 
 Do. 
 
 Do. 
 
 Do. 
 
 Composita). 
 
 Ericacero. 
 
 Do. 
 
 Labiatas. 
 
 Do. 
 
 Do. 
 
 Do. 
 
 Lythracca?. 
 
 Sangnlsorblaiseie. 
 
 Styraoaceo). 
 
 Scrophuloriaoiue, 
 
 BntoceiB. 
 
 Terbenacen, 
 
 Do. 
 
 Chenopodlaccffi, 
 
 CaprifoIlaoeiB. 
 Aquifoliaccie. 
 
 Orchidacoa). 
 
 Arabia. 
 Abyssinia. 
 
 China. 
 
 K, America, 
 
 Chill. 
 
 Cape. 
 
 !• N. Europe. 
 
 Bencoolen.. 
 New Holland. 
 
 Do. 
 Chill. 
 Cape. 
 N. America. 
 Do. 
 India. 
 N. America. 
 
 France. 
 
 N. Europe. 
 
 Japan. 
 
 New Holland. 
 
 New Granada. 
 
 Central America. 
 
 Now Holland. 
 
 Brazil. 
 
 Austria. 
 
 f Mexico and 1 
 
 I Columbia, j 
 
 N. America. 
 
 Do. 
 
 Mauritius. 
 
 Arabian tea. 
 
 Kaat or k&t. 
 
 f 
 
 New Jersey tea. 
 
 1 
 
 Boer tea. 
 
 Sloe and strawberry 
 tea. 
 
 Long-life tea. 
 
 'Tea-plants. 
 [ Ta&inuniau tea. 
 
 Colony tea. 
 
 Mountain tea. 
 f Labrador tea. 
 X James's tea. 
 Toolsie tea. 
 
 Oswego tea. 
 
 ! 
 
 Sago tea. 
 
 f Ama t^a : tea of 
 
 1 heaven. 
 
 '* Burr " of colonists. 
 
 tianta F^ tea. 
 
 « 
 
 Cape Barran tea. 
 
 Capitad da matto. 
 
 Brazilian tea. 
 Mexican tea. 
 
 Appalachian tea. 
 Bourbon or Faharo 
 
 I pass over numerous other plants which in Europe have 
 been tiied as substitutes for tea, without, however, coming 
 into any general use, except here and there as adulterations. 
 It is possible that some of those above mentioned may here- 
 after be discovered to contain the theine and other valuable 
 constituents of the trye tea-leaf, and may be both cultivated 
 and advantageously used in its stead. As an adulteration, 
 the leaves of Epilohium angustifoUum — Eosebay wiUow-herb 
 — are sometimes mixed with tea to the amount of 25 per cent. 
 From South America the leaves of Stachytarpheta mutaMlia 
 liave been imported for the same purpose. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 THE COFFEES. 
 
 Coffee used in Abyssinia from time immemorial. — Its introduction into 
 Europe. — Consumption in the United Kingdom, in Europe, and iu the 
 whole world. — Varieties of coffee : Liherian coffee. — ^Effects of the infusion 
 of coffee. — It exalts the nervous life, and lessens the waste of the system. — 
 Constituents of coffee. — The volatile oil ; its production, mercantile value, 
 and effects on the system. — The tannic acid, the theiue or caffeine, and the 
 gluten. — Composition of tea and coffee compared. — Loss of weight in 
 roasting coffee. — ^Proportion of the roasted bean taken up by water very 
 variable. — Substitutes for coffee.- — Seeds of the water-iris, of the Tm'kish 
 kenguel, of the roasted acorn, of roasted com and pulse, of roasted roots, 
 and especially of chicory. — The chicory plant and root. — How the root is 
 prepared for use. — Gives a fictitious appearance of strength to coffee. — 
 Active ingredients in chicory. The empyreumatic oil, and the bitter prin- 
 ciple. — Its effects on the system. — Mode of detecting chicory in coffee. — 
 Adulterations of chicory. 
 
 In antique days a poor dervish, wlio lived in a valley of 
 Arabia Felix, observed a strange hilarity in his goats on their 
 return home every evening. To find out the cause of this he 
 watched them during the day, and observed that they eagerly 
 devoured the blossoms and fruit of a tree which hitherto he 
 had disregarded. He tried the effect of this food upon him- 
 self, and was thrown into such a state of exaltation that his 
 neighbours accused him of having drunk of the forbidden 
 wine. But he revealed to them his discovery, and they at 
 once agreed that Allah had sent the coffee-plant to the faithfdl 
 as a substitute for the vine. 
 
CONSUMPTION OF COFFEE. U9 
 
 The name of Coffee is given to a beverage prepared from 
 the seeds of plants roasted, ground, and infused in boiling 
 water. The seeds of the Arabian coffee-tree are the most 
 largely used for this purpose, but various other seeds are more 
 or less extensively employed in a similar way. 
 
 L Arabian Coffee. — The tree which produces this seed is 
 said to bo indigenous to the countries of Enarea and Caffa, in 
 fiouthom Abyssinia. In these districts the coffee-tree grows 
 like a wild weed over the rocky surface of the country. It 
 is grown and used in Angola. The roasted seed or bean has 
 also been in use as a beverage in Abyssinia generally from 
 time immemorial, and is at the present day extensively culti- 
 vated in that country. In Persia it is known to have been in 
 use as early as the year 875. From Abyssinia it was intro- 
 duced into Arabia at least as early as the beginning of the 
 fifteenth century, when it partly superseded the older kaat or 
 Abyssinian tea. About the middle of the sixteenth century 
 it began to bo used in Constantinople, and, in spite of the 
 violent opposition of the priests, became an article of gen- 
 eral consumption. In the middle of the seventeenth century 
 (1652), the first coffee-house was opened in George Yard, 
 Lombard Street, London, by a Greek named Pasqua; and 
 twenty years after, the first was established in Marseilles. 
 Since that time both the culture and consumption of coffee 
 have continually extended. It has become the staple produce 
 of important colonies, and the daily and most cherished drink 
 of probably more than a hundred millions of men. 
 
 The consumption in the United Kingdom in 1852 amounted 
 to 35 millions of pounds, of which upwards of 20 miUions 
 were brought from Ceylon, 4 millions from Jamaica, and 
 8 millions from Costa Rica and BraziL In 1857 the total 
 imports were 58,912,629 lb., while the amount entered for home 
 consumption was 34,518,555 lb. In 1867 the total imports 
 were 137,729,716 lb. ; in 1876 they had risen to 152,501,664 
 lb. On the continent of Europe it is much more generally used 
 than among ourselves. The total European consumption was 
 estimated a few years ago at 75,000 tons, or 168 millions of 
 pounds, valued at 4 J millions sterling. It probably now exceeds 
 360 millions of pounds. The entire weight of coffee now raised 
 over the whole world is believed to exceed half a miUion of tons. 
 
150 
 
 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 The quality of raw coffee does not appear to depend so 
 much on the mode of collecting and drying it as that of tea 
 does. Soil and climate are the circumstances which chiefly 
 affect its commercial value. The flavour and quality of the 
 beverage prepared from it depend veiy much, however^ upon 
 the manner of roasting the hean, and of subsequently prepar- 
 ing the infusion. This infusion, as commonly made in this 
 country, is such utter rubbish, that there is no difficulty in 
 accounting for the disfavour with which coffee is now often 
 regarded here. In fact the consumption per head of the 
 population of the United Kingdom has actually decreased. 
 Taking the average consumption of three years, in each period 
 we find the following figures : — 
 
 Mean of the 3 years . . 1857, '58, '59. 1865, '66, '67. 1875, '76, '77. 
 
 Lb. consumed per head, . IJ 1 f 
 
 The consumption of coffee per head in 12 European states is ahout : — 
 lb. 
 
 Holland, . 
 Denmark, 
 Belgium, 
 Norway, . 
 Switzerland, 
 Sweden, . 
 
 21 
 14 
 134 
 
 9i 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 France, 
 
 Austro-Hungary, 
 
 Greece, 
 
 Italy, 
 
 United Kingdom, 
 
 European Bussia, 
 
 2 
 
 14 
 
 1 
 
 Of 
 
 The consumption in the United States is believed to amount to 8 lb. per 
 head. 
 
 The Arabian or Mocha coffee is small, and of a dark-yellow 
 colour. The Javan and East Indian are larger, and of a paler 
 yellow. Very little true Mocha or Yemen coffee reaches those 
 parts of Europe which are west of Constantinople. The 
 Ceylon, West Indian, and Brazilian have a bluish or greenish- 
 grey tint.^ The Liberian coffee is the produce of Goffea 
 liberica, and is a fine, large, well-flavoured seed. This African 
 species of coffee has been successfully inti'oduced into several 
 of our colonies and dependencies, and appears to be more 
 robust and prolific than the common sort, which it is likely 
 in part to supplant. 
 
 The coffee-tree (fig. 26), when in good health and full 
 grown, attains a height in some countries not exceeding 8 or 
 10, but in others averaging from 15 to 20 feet. Von Bibra 
 says it sometimes reaches a height of 40 feet ; but in the 
 
 1 For a map of the countries which produce coffee and sugar, see Chapter X. 
 — " The Sweets we Extract "—p. 200. 
 
THE COFFEE-TKEE. 
 
 151 
 
 Brazils he foiind the average height to be &om 12 to 15 feet. 
 It is covered with a dark, smooth, shining, and evergreen foli- 
 age. It is sown in nurseries 
 — transplanted when about '°' 
 
 six months old — begins to 
 flower at two years, and in 
 three years comes into full 
 bearing, and in favourable cir- 
 cumstances will continue to 
 boar for twenty years. And 
 it does this in all seasons, so 
 that throughout the year its 
 white blossoms delight the 
 eye, and its red fruit enriches 
 the owner. It flourishes in a 
 dry soil and a warm situation, 
 but not too warm : and hence 
 in hot climates it grows best 
 at an elevation of 1000 or 
 1500 feet above the level of 
 the sea. Coffee grows from 
 the equator to 36° north lati- 
 tude, in damp and shady situ- 
 ations, in free soils, and in a 
 mean temperature of 20° C. 
 Its range is nearly the same 
 as the cotton-plant. It gives 
 three crops a-year. Its flow- 
 ers are pale white, fragrant, 
 and rapidly fading; its fruit is 
 like that of the cherry-tree, but 
 it grows in clusters. Within 
 the fruit are the seeds or 
 " berries." On dry and ele- 
 vated spots the berries are 
 smaller, and have a better flavour; but berries of aU. sizes im- 
 prove in flavour or ripen by keeping. The small berries of 
 Arabia will ripen in three years, but the worst coffee produced 
 in America will, in from ten to fourteen years, become " as 
 good, and acquire as high a flavour, as the best we now have 
 from Turkey."— (Ellis.) 
 
 Cogta aruMoi— Arabian Coflec-tree. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 10 feet 
 
 Scale for leaf, 1 inch to 2 inches. 
 
152 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 The sensible properties and effects of coffee, like ttose of 
 tea, are too well known to require to be stated in detail. It 
 exhilarates, arouses, and keeps awake ; it counteracts the 
 stupor occasioned by fatigue, by disease, or by opium; it 
 allays hunger to a certain extent, gives to the weaiy in- 
 creased strength and vigour, and imparts a feeling of comfort 
 and repose. Its physiological effects upon the system, so far 
 as they have been investigated, appear to be that, while it 
 makes the brain more active, it soothes the body generally, 
 makes the change and waste of matter slower, and the de- 
 mand for food in consequence less. All these effects it owes 
 to the conjoined action of three ingredients, very similar to 
 those contained in tea. These are, a volatile oil produced 
 during the roasting— a variety of tannic acid, which is altered 
 during the roasting — and the substance called theine or 
 caffeine, which is common to both tea and coffee. 
 
 1st, The Volatile Oil. — When the coffee-bean is gathered 
 and dried in the air it has little smell, and only a slightly 
 bitter and astringent taste. As with the tea-leaf, it is during 
 the roasting of coffee that the much-prized aroma and the 
 greater part of the taste and flavour are brought out or pro- 
 duced. In tea, as we have seen, the proportion of volatile 
 oil amounts to about half a pound in a hundred of the dried 
 leaf, but in roasted coffee it rarely amounts to more than one 
 in fifty thousand ! And yet on the different proportions of 
 this oil which they severally contain, the aroma and the con- 
 sequent estimation in the market of the different varieties of 
 coffee in a great measure depend. A higher aroma would 
 make the inferior Ceylon, Jamaica, and East Indian coffees 
 nearly equal in value to the finest Mocha ; and if the oil 
 could be bought for the purpose of imparting this flavour, it 
 would be worth in the market as much as £100 sterling an 
 ounce ! — (Payen.) How it comes — by what slow chemical 
 change within the bean, that is — that coffee of the most in- 
 ferior quality so ripens by keeping as at length to yield, on 
 roasting, a coffee equal to the finest Mocha, we do not as yet 
 know. The oil is formed during the roasting by the action 
 of the heat on some substance present in the natural bean, 
 probably in small quantity only. It is possible that by pro- 
 longed keeping this substance is itself produced in the in- 
 ferior qualities of coffee ; so that, when roasted after the 
 
EFFECTS OF COFFEE. 153 
 
 keeping, a larger quantity of tlie valuable aromatic oil is 
 formed in the bean. 
 
 The effect of this volatile oil of coffee upon the Bjstem has 
 been made the subject of direct experiment. When roasted 
 coffee is distilled with water this oil passes over, and by 
 drinking the distilled water and oil together its effects may 
 be ascertained. Julius Lehmann found in this way that it 
 has an effect in retarding the waste of the tissues quite equal 
 to that of caffeine itself. It produces also an agreeable ex- 
 citement and a gentle perspiration, dispels the sensation of 
 hunger, and moves the bowels. In its exhilarating action 
 upon the brain it is said by Moleschott to affect the imagina- 
 tion less than the reasoning powers. 
 
 These effects followed when the quantity of oil yielded by 
 two ounces of coffee was taken in a day. If this dose was 
 doubled, violent perspiration came on, with sleeplessness and 
 symptoms of congestion. 
 
 It appears, therefore, that the volatile empyreumatio oily 
 constituents of roasted coffee, though present only in mi- 
 nute quantity, exorcise a powerful influence upon the ani- 
 mal economy, exciting to greater activity both the vascular 
 and nervous systems, and yet retarding the waste of the 
 tissues in as great a degree as the caffeine itself, which the 
 infusion of coffee usually contaifis. This activity of the 
 volatile oil of coffee jiistifics us in concluding, as I have 
 already said, that the similar oil produced in tea by the 
 roasting, takes a similar share in the effects which the in- 
 fusion of tea as a beverage prodiices. 
 
 2dly, The Astringent Acid. — The raw coffee contains about 
 45 per cent of an astringent acid — the caffeio or caffeo- 
 tannic — which does not blacken a solution of iron, as the 
 infusion of tea does, but renders it green,* and does not 
 precipitate solutions of gelatine. This acid is changed to 
 -some extent during the roasting, but still retains a portion of 
 its astringent properties, and contributes in some degree to the 
 effects which the infusion of coffee produces upon the system. 
 
 1 Many varieties of the astringent, so-called tannic acids are found in 
 plants ; that which exists in tea has much resemblance to the tannin of the 
 oak— while those of coffee, of Paraguay tea, and of the heaths (Ericaceae), 
 form a class of acids which have much resemblance to one another, hut differ 
 in their properties from the tannic acid of the oak. 
 
154 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 It will be observed that the proportion of this astringent 
 principle contained in coffee is much less than is contained in 
 tea. Hence it is not sufficient to retard the action of the 
 bowels as tea does, especially when associated with the 
 empyreumatio volatile oil, which, as we have seen, has a 
 positive tendency to move them. To the same result the 
 large percentage of fat contained in coffee may also con- 
 tribute. 
 
 3dly, The Theine, or Caffeine as it is also called, exists 
 in different proportions in different varieties of coffee. It 
 varies in the coffee usually employed in this country from 
 three quarters of a pound to one pound in the hundred — 
 (Stenhouse) ; though, according to some experimenters, three 
 or four pounds in the hundred occur in certain varieties of 
 coffee. By rubbing common roasted coffee in a mortar with 
 a fifth of its weight of slaked lime, and then boUing the 
 mixture in alcohol, about half a per- cent of theine may be 
 readily extracted. Weight for weight, therefore, tea yields 
 about twice as much theine as roasted coffee does to the 
 water in which it is infused. But as we generally use a 
 greater weight of coffee than we do of tea in preparing our 
 beverages, a cup of coffee of ordinary strength will probably 
 contain as much theine as a cup of ordinary EngHsh tea. 
 A cup of strong- French coffee will contain twice as much 
 caffeine as a cup of weak French tea. 
 
 The influence which this ingredient of the several beverages 
 has in producing the effects we experience from the use of 
 them, has already been explained when treating of the effects 
 of tea. 
 
 But the coffee-bean contains also about thirteen per cent 
 of nutritious gluten, which, as in the case of tea, is very 
 sparingly dissolved by boiling water, and is usually thrown 
 away in the insoluble dregs of the coffee. Among some of the 
 Eastern nations, the custom prevails of drinking the grounds 
 along with the infnsion of the coffee : in these cases the full 
 benefit is obtained from all the positively putritive matter 
 which the roasted coffee contains. What that nutritive 
 matter is will be seen in the following estimate, made by 
 Payen. (The litre is about a pint and three quarters of our 
 measure.) 
 
COFFEE AND TEA COMPAEED. 
 
 155 
 
 Total solid 
 flabstances. 
 
 Nitrogenous 
 snbstance. 
 
 " i litre of infused coffee, . 
 i litre of milk, 
 Average amount of sugar, 
 
 Total, 
 
 9.5 grams. 4.53 grams. 
 70 „ 45 
 75 „ 
 
 Fats, sugar, 
 and salts. 
 
 4.97 grams. 
 25 
 75 
 
 154.5 
 
 49.53 
 
 + 104-97 
 
 This liquid thus represents six times as much solid sub- 
 stance, and three times as much nitrogenous substance, as 
 the same quantity of bouillon. We must therefore admit 
 that coffee possesses nutritive properties, but its principal 
 value is its aroma and taste." 
 
 The composition of roasted coffee, compared with the aver- 
 age composition of the tea-leaf as it comes to Europe, is nearly 
 as foUowB : — 
 
 Tea- 
 Water 8 
 
 Theine 2} 
 
 Tannin 14 
 
 Essential oil, ) 
 
 Minor extractives 15 
 
 Insoluble organic matter, . . . 64} 
 
 Ash, 6i 
 
 100 
 
 Coffee. 
 
 4 
 
 trace 
 38 
 50 
 
 100 
 
 The proportion of theine in both tea and coffee, it will 
 be recollected, is somewhat variable. Another important 
 difference between tea and coffee is the absence of iron 
 and manganese from the latter. If the ashes of the two 
 be examined, that of tea will be foimd to contain both iron 
 and manganese ; while that of coffee contains only a trace 
 of iron, and not even a trace of manganese. 
 
 Coffee swells by roasting, but loses in weight, and assumes 
 a brovm colour more or less dark. These changes vary, how- 
 ever, with the degree of roasting. Thus — 
 
 Roasted to a 
 
 It loses in weight 
 
 And gains in bulk 
 
 Beddish brown, . 
 Chestnut brown, . 
 Dark brown, . . 
 
 15 per cent. 
 20 per cent. 
 25 per cent 
 
 30 per cent. 
 SO per cent. 
 60 per cent. 
 
156 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 The aroma is most agreeable when the heat is not greater 
 than is sufficient to impart a light-brown colour to the bean. 
 When the roasting is carried too far, a disagreeable smell 
 gradually mingles with the esteemed aroma, and lessens the 
 value of the product. 
 
 The quantity of the coffee-bean which is taken up by water 
 is nearly the same before and after roasting. It is nearly 
 the same also in some samples, whether they be much or 
 little roasted- It varies, however, very much in different 
 samples. 
 
 Some infusions of coffee, even when roasted to the same 
 extent, contain three times as much of the solid substance of 
 the coffee as others do. But we have no experiments upon 
 the comparative effects which infusions so differing have 
 upon the constitution of the drinkers. On an average, it is 
 reckoned, in Paris, that boiling water will dissolve 25 per 
 cent of reddish-brown, and 19 of chestnut-brown coffee. It 
 is observed, however, that some natural waters give a stronger 
 and better-flavoured coffee than others ; and this has been 
 traced, as in the waters of Prague, to the presence of alkaline 
 matter in those which give the most agreeable infusion. 
 Hence, to obtain a more uniformly strong and well-flavoured 
 coffee, it is recommended to add a little soda to the water 
 in which the infusion is made. About forty grains of dry 
 carbonate of soda, or twice as much of crystallised, are suffi- 
 cient for a pound of coffee. 
 
 The chemical changes caused by the roasting, are the pro- 
 duction of the active empyreumatic oil, and of a brown bitter 
 substance, the chemical properties of which, and its action 
 upon the system, still remain to be investigated. They are 
 produced from the soluble part of the raw bean, but by what 
 chemical changes is not yet known. 
 
 In conclusion, it is proper to state that coffee is reputed to 
 possess important medicinal virtues. The great use of coffee 
 in Prance is supposed to have abated the prevalence of gravel 
 in that country. In the French colonies, where coffee is 
 more \ised than in the English, as well as in Turkey, where 
 it is the principal beverage, not only gravel, but gout, is 
 scarcely Imown. Among others, also, a case is mentioned 
 of a gentleman who was attacked with gout at twenty-five 
 years of age, and had it severely till he was upwards of fifty, 
 
SUBSTITUTES FOR COFFEE. 157 
 
 with chalk-stones in the joints of his hands and feet ; but the 
 use of coffee then recommended to him completely removed 
 the complaint.^ 
 
 It has not been determined to which of the constituents of 
 coffee this curative action is due, or whether it is the same in 
 all constitutions. These points are worthy of careful experi- 
 mental investigation. The Arabs, Von Bibra tells us, even 
 to this day roast the fruit, and not simply the bean ; this they 
 call sakka or salabi — cafi d la suUane. They seldom use the 
 bean. The inhabitants of Yemen and Hcdjaz use the inner 
 shell pf the fruit, which they prefer to the seeds ; but they 
 make a cordial of the decoction, adding cloves, cinnamon, and 
 aromatic spices and gums. In Brazil, raw sugar and un- 
 roasted coffee-berries are stirred together and roasted in a 
 covered pan into a mass. A bit of this is taken, pounded in a 
 mortar, and put into a linen bag.. Boiling water is poured 
 tlirough it, and the cups to be filled placed beneath. 
 
 IL Other Coffeks. — Several varieties of the Cqffea arabica, 
 or coffee-plant, are grown in various coimtries, and yield a 
 useful marketable bean. Distinct names have been assigned 
 to the coffee-plants of Silhot and Nopaul, of the coast of 
 Mozambique, of the coast of Zanzibar, and of the Mauritius. 
 The seed of the last of these tastes disagreeably sharp and 
 bitter, and sometimes causes vomiting, yet it is in some 
 places cultivated instead of the Coffea arabica. It is probable 
 that these plants are differently modified forms of the same 
 original species. The Liberian coffee is said to be distinct. 
 
 But, besides the fruit of the different true coffee-plants, 
 numerous other vegetables have, in different countries, been 
 proposed or used as substitutes for Arabian coffee. A suc- 
 cessful substitute must contain, like coffee, a fragrant aroma- 
 tic principle, a bitter principle, and an astringent principle. 
 These properties are found more or less satisfactorily — 
 
 a. In the roasted seeds of Iris pseudaconcs (yellow water- 
 iris), which are said to approach very near to coffee in quaUty. 
 
 b. In the seeds of a Goumelia, called in Turkey Kenguel, 
 which were shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 as exten- 
 sively cultivated in the Kair-ar-eh and Komah, where they are 
 roasted, ground, and used as coffee. 
 
 1 Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. xiii. p. 330. 
 
158 THE BBVEEAGES WE INPITSE. 
 
 c. In the roasted acorn, which is much used on the Conti- 
 nent under the name of acorn coffee, and is now imported 
 into and prepared in England for the use of the adulterator. 
 
 d. In the roasted cioer or chick-pea ; in beans, rye, and 
 other grains ; in nuts, almonds, and even in wheaten bread, 
 when roasted carefully ; and in date-stones. 
 
 e. In the seeds of Broom (Spartium scoparium), and in the 
 dried and roasted berries of Triosteum perfoliatum (Caprifoh- 
 acoEe). In the West Indies, the seeds of several species of 
 Psychotria (Cinchonaceae) ; in Soudan, those of Dura and 
 Nitta {Inga highhosa) ; among the African negroes, those of 
 Parkia africana ; and among the Tonguses, those of a species 
 of Hyoscyamus, — are aU employed as substitutes for coffee. 
 In South Africa, the seeds of Brdbejum stellatum, the wUd 
 Amandel, belonging to the Myristicaceffi, are roasted and used 
 as coffee. 
 
 / In the dried and roasted roots also of many plants. The 
 carrot and turnip are used for this purpose in Germany, and 
 the roots of the common goose-grass {Galium Aparine) in Ire- 
 land ; whUe those of the dandelion [Leontodon Taraxacum) and 
 of chicory are extensively employed both in this country and 
 on the Continent. In none of these roots, however, has the 
 characteristic principle, theine, been discovered, and none of 
 them, therefore, can serve the same physiological purposes as 
 the seeds of our common coffee. 
 
 Yet one of these roots (chicory) has already crept into ex- 
 tensive use in other countries, and among ourselves is held in 
 some estimation. At first it was only mixed with pure coffee 
 as an adulteration by fraudulent dealers. But this practice 
 extended itself so widely, that, for the defence both of the 
 honest dealer and of the public, the sale has been legalised, 
 and much chicory in the unmixed state is now bought and 
 used instead of or along with genuine coffee. As one of the 
 recognised beverages we now infiise, therefore, the plant de- 
 serves a brief notice in this place. 
 
 III. Succory, chicory, or wild endive (Cichormm IntyJms) 
 iig. 27, is one of our native weeds, which, with its large pale- 
 blue flowers, is seen scattered about in numerous places. It 
 has a large white parsnip- hke tap-root, which increases in 
 size when the plant is subjected to cultivation. This root 
 
CHICORY. 
 
 159 
 
 Fig. 27. 
 
 abounds in a bitter juice, whicli has led to its use as a substi- 
 tute for coffee. The plant is now exterisively cultivated for 
 the sake of its root. In England the 
 culture is chiefly confined to the coun- 
 ties of Surrey, Bedford, and York. 
 On the Continent it is largely grown 
 in Germany, Belgium, in the province 
 of Hainault, Brabant, the two Flan- 
 ders, and Antwerp, and in France. 
 In Holland it is grown in Friesland, 
 and used in that province and in 
 Groningen. Much is grown in Mag- 
 deburg, where several thousand acres 
 are devoted to its culture ; hence 20 
 to 30 millions of pounds of roasted 
 chicory - roots are yearly exported. 
 The foreign is considered greatly 
 superior to that of English growth, 
 and is extensively imported into this 
 country, chiefly through Hamburg and 
 Antwerp, 
 
 The root is taken up before the hoi?'""*" 
 
 plant shoots into flower, is washed, 
 sliced, and dried ; it is then roasted till it is of a chocolate 
 colour. Two pounds of lard are roasted with each hundred- 
 weight, and the dried root loses in roasting from 25 to 30 
 per cent. When ground and exposed to the air, it be- 
 comes moist and clammy, increases in weight, and acquires a 
 distinct smell of liquorice, and a sensibly sweet first taste. 
 It possesses in no degree the pleasant aroma which recom- 
 mends the genuine roasted cofiee. When infused, even in 
 oold water, it imparts to it a dark colour, and a sweetish- 
 bitter taste. To many the addition of a little of this bitter 
 liquid to the infusion of genuine coffee appears an improve- 
 ment — a remarkable illustration of the creation of a corrupt 
 taste by an adulteration, which taste demands afterwawis the 
 continuance of the adulteration to satisfy its own craving. 
 The bitter substance itself, however, is not considered un- 
 wholesome. Very many bitter substances of this kind possess 
 a tonic property, and it is not unlikely that the bitter principle 
 of chicory may be among the number. 
 
 Cichmium Inly}ms—T\i& Chicoty. 
 
 plant. 
 
 Scale, bali-lncb to a foot. 
 
160 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 But the use of chicory appears to have originated from 
 other causes than the discovery, or even the supposed pres- 
 ence, of a tonic property in its bitter ingredient. A Uttle of 
 the roasted chicory gives as dark a colour to water, and as 
 bitter a taste, as a great deal of coffee, and hence it was ori- 
 ginally introduced into the coffee-houses for a purpose akin to 
 that which takes chiretta-root and quassia-chips into the prem- 
 ises of the brewer. It gave colour and taste to the beverage 
 of the drinker, and at the same time saved the expensive cof- 
 fee of the seller. . The pubUc taste gradually accommodated 
 itself to the fraudulent mixture ; it became by-and-by even 
 grateful to the accustomed palate, and finally a kind of favour- 
 ite necessity to the lovers of dark-coloured bitter coffee. It has 
 even injured the beverage we now obtain from genuine coffee, 
 by introducing the practice of roasting it darker, and thus 
 lessening both its nutritive quahty and its aroma. How far 
 circumstances are gradually giving to the infusion of chicory, 
 in some countries, the character of a national beverage, may 
 be judged of from the facts, that in 1845 the quantity of 
 chicory imported into this country was estimated at 2000 tons, 
 or 4J milUons of pounds, and it had increased to 5800 tons in 
 1876 ; that the quantity of the roasted root consumed in France 
 amounts already to 30 millions of pounds a-year; and in 
 Belgium, with its small population of 4|- millions, to 20 mill-- 
 ions of pounds ; while in some parts of Germany the women 
 are becoming regular chicory-topers,^ and are making of it 
 an important part of their ordinary sustenance. But there 
 is some excuse for the deluded people that like chicory, and 
 esteem it as equal to coffee. Coffee must be roasted fresh, 
 ground fresh, and brewed quickly into an aromatic, perfectly 
 clear liquor, or it is unworthy of its true repute and name. 
 The drink that passes for coffee, and is genuine enough, it 
 may be, is often not worth drinking. 
 
 The active ingredients in roasted chicory are, first, the 
 empyreumatic volatile oil : this is produced during the roast- 
 ing ; B,nd though not so fragrant, this oil probably exercises 
 upon the system some of the gently-exciting, nerve-soothing, 
 and hunger-staying, influence of the similar ingredients con- 
 tained in tea and coffee : and, secondly, the bitter principle. 
 
 1 "Ciohorien-Kaffee-Scliwelgerinneii." — Stnimpf, Die Fortschrifte der 
 Angewandten Cliemie. 
 
ADULTERATION OF CHICOEY. 161 
 
 When taken unmixed, this substance is to many, while they 
 are unaccustomed to it, not only disagreeable, but nauseous 
 in a high degree. It may, however, like many other bitter 
 principles, possess, as I have said, a tonic or strengthening 
 property. Taken in moderate quantities, these ingredients 
 of chicory are probably not injurious to health ; but by pro- 
 longed and frequent use they produce heartburn, cramp in 
 the stomach, loss of appetite, acidity in the mouth, consti- 
 pation with intermittent diarrhoea, weakness of the limbs, 
 trembling, sleeplessness, a drunken cloudiness of the senses, 
 &c. &c. At the best, therefore, chicory is a substitute for 
 coffee to which only those to whom the price is an object 
 ought to have recourse. 
 
 The simplest way of detecting an admixture of chicory in 
 coffee, is to put the powder in cold water. Chicory gives a 
 coloured infusion in the cold while coffee does not, and by the 
 depth of the colour the proportion of chicory may be guessed 
 at. But by more minute chemical and microscopical analysis 
 it is possible to ascertain the amount of the adulteration. 
 
 The infusion or decoction of a suspected mixture may be 
 tested also by salts of peroxide of iron. The infusion of 
 chicory is brownish yellow, and becomes only a little darker 
 when such a salt of iron is added, giving no precipitate. 
 The infusion of coffee is of a brown colour, becomes green 
 when the iron solution is added, and gives a brownish-green 
 precipitate. 
 
 Another reason why the use of chicory should be avoided 
 by those who can afford to buy pure coffee, is found in the fact, 
 that pure chicory is as difficult to be met with in the market 
 as unadulterated coffee. The common ground chicory of Ber- 
 lin has been found to contain half its weight of roasted tur- 
 nips. On the Khine, the carrot is used along with other roots 
 instead of the turnip. Venetian rod, also, is very commonly 
 employed to impart to the chicory a true coffee colour ; and 
 it is curious to observe how the practice of adulteration ex- 
 tends itself from trade to trade. The coffee-dealer adulterates 
 his coffee with chicory to increase his profits ; the chicory- 
 maker adulterates his chicory with Venetian red, to please 
 the eye of the coffee -dealers ; and, lastly, the Venetian-red 
 roanu£tcturer grinds up his colour with brick-dust, that by 
 his greater cheapness, and the variety of shades he offers, he 
 
162 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 may secure the patronage of the traders in chicory 1 In 
 Holland, a species of coffee-syrup is mixed with the coffee to 
 darken the colour. It is prepared by boiling down molasses, 
 with apples, pears, and other fimits, in an iron pot. The cold 
 " toffy " is broken into bits, and kept enclosed in tin canis- 
 ters : about one ounce is used with half a pound of coffee. 
 The chicory of France is largely adulterated. Seventy-five 
 samples bought in Parisian shops showed sixty-four adulter- 
 ated, mainly with earthy matters, as sand, earth, refuse bone- 
 black, and sifted ashes, but also with roasted bread, acorns, 
 and other vegetable products. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 THE COCOAS. 
 
 Cocoa, ancient use of, in Mexico.— Brought to Europe by the Spaniards. — 
 The tree and its fruit. — Varieties in the marltet.— Quantity imported into 
 this country. — Manufacture of the bean. — Cocoa-nibs. — Cocoa of commerce. 
 — Chocolate. — Constituents of cocoa. — The volatile oil. — ^Tho peculiar bitter 
 principle, theobromine.— The largo proportion of fat which characterises 
 cocoa. — The starch and gluten. — Its general composition compared with 
 that of milk.— It forms a most nutritious beverage. — Substitutes for cocoa. 
 The earth-nut and the guarana of Brazil. — Decoction of cocoa-nibs not so 
 nutritious. — The cocoa-husk or "miserable;" importation of, and bover- 
 ogo made from.— Goneral view of the chemistry of the infused beverages. 
 — Summary of their physiological action.— Concluding reflections.— Prison 
 dietaries. 
 
 The Cocoas, as I have said, are more properly soups or gruels 
 than simple infusions. They are prepared from certain oily 
 seeds, which are first ground to a pulp by passing them be- 
 tween hot rollers, and are then diffused through boiling water 
 for immediate use. 
 
 I. The Mexican Cocoa is the seed of the Theohroma cacao 
 (fig. 28), a small but beautiful tree with bright dark-green 
 leaves, which occurs both wild and cultivated in the northern 
 parts of South America, and also in Central America as far 
 north as Mexico. If left to itself, it attains a height of 40 
 feet, but Von Bibra says that cultivators never let it grow be- 
 yond 15 or 20 — partly to facilitate the gathering of the finiit, 
 and partly to shield it from the influence of high winds. It 
 
164 
 
 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 is grown chiefly in Brazil, Guiana, Trinidad, and on the coaBt 
 of Caracas, and forms whole forests in Demerara. It is cul- 
 tivated also in the Mauritius, and in the French island ot 
 
 Theobroma cacao — The Cacao, " Cocoa," or Chocolate tree. 
 Scale, 1 inch to 10 feet. 
 
 1, Leaf and flower ; 2, Fruit or pod. 
 Scale, 1 inch to 2 inches. 
 
 Bourbon. When the Spaniards first established themselves 
 in Mexico, they found a beverage prepared from this seed in 
 common use among the native inhabitants. It was known 
 by the Mexican name of ChocoUatl, and was said to have 
 been in use from time immemorial. It was brought thence to 
 
MEXICAN COCOA. 165 
 
 Europe by the Spaniards in 1520, and has since been intro- 
 duced more or less extensively as a beverage into every civi- 
 lised country. Linnaeus was so fond of it that he gave to the 
 tree the generic name of Theobroma — Food of the Gods. 
 
 The fruit of the tree, which, like the fig, grows directly 
 fiom the stem and principal branches, is of the form and size 
 of a small oblong melon or thick cucumber (2, fig. 28). It 
 contains 50 or more beans or seeds, imbedded in rows in a 
 spongy substance, like that of the water-melon. When ripe, 
 the fruit is plucked, opened, and allowed to ferment slightly. 
 The seeds are cleaned from the marrowy substance, and dried 
 in the sun. In the West Indies they are often immediately 
 picked for market ; but in the Caracas they are gathered into 
 heaps every evening and covereji over, or sometimes buried 
 in the earth till they undergo a slight fermentation, before 
 they are finally dried and picked for market. By this treat- 
 ment they lose a portion of their natural bitterness and acri- 
 mony of taste, which is greater in the beans of the mainland 
 than in those of the American islands. The cocoa of Central 
 America is, however, of superior quality, or at least is more 
 generally esteemed in the European market than that which 
 is grown in the West Indies. It etiU retains a greater degree 
 of bitterness, and this may be one reason for the preference 
 g^ven to it. 
 
 In the low country of Tabusco the cocoa-tree bears flowers 
 and fruit all the year round, but seldom more than ten fruits 
 on a single tree at one time. The principal harvests are in 
 March, April, and October, and the total yield of the province 
 is 200 tons. 
 
 In 1867 nearly 12 millions of pounds of cocoa were im- 
 ported into Great Britain : it had risen to 20 J millions in 
 1876. Since June 1853 the duty on cocoa-seeds has been 
 Id. per lb. 
 
 The total production of cocoa has been estimated at 100 
 to 110 millions of pounds, 28 millions of which are raised in 
 Ecuador, 11 in Triaidad, and 7 in Brazil. 
 
 The consumption of cocoa in the United Kingdom has 
 nearly tripled during the last decade ; it approaches 5 ounces 
 per head annually. Just 10 millions of pounds were retained 
 for home consumption in 1876. 
 
 The cocoa-bean of commerce is brittle, of a dark-brown 
 
166 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 colour internally, eats Hke a rich nut, and has a elightly 
 astringent but distinctly bitter taste. This bitterness is 
 more decided in the South American or mainland varieties. 
 In preparing it for use, it is gently roasted in an iron cylinder, 
 in the same way as coffee is roasted, till the aroma appears 
 to be fully developed, when it is allowed to cooL The bean 
 is now more brittle, lighter brown in colour, and both the 
 natural astringenoy and the bitterness are less perceptible 
 than before. It is manufactured for the market in one or 
 other of three principal ways. First, The whole bean after 
 roasting is beaten iilto a past& in a hot mortar, or is ground 
 between hot rollers adjusted for the purpose. This paste, 
 mixed with starch, sugar, and other similar ingredients in 
 various proportions, forms the granulated, flake, rock, and 
 soluble cocoas of the shops. These are often gritty from the 
 admixture of earthy and other matters which adhere to the 
 husk of the beans. Secondly, The bean is deprived of its 
 husk, which forms about 11 per cent of its weight, and is 
 then crushed into fragments. These form the cocoa-nibs of 
 the shops, and are the purest state in which cocoa can usually 
 be obtained from the retail dealer. Thirdly, The bean, when 
 shelled, is ground at once into a paste by means of hot rollers, 
 and is then mixed with sugar, and seasoned with vanilla and 
 bitter almonds, sometimes with cinnamon and cloves. This 
 paste forms the long-known chocolate. 
 
 When prepared, it is also used in three different ways. 
 First, The chocolate is made up into sweet cakes and bon- 
 bons, and is eaten in the solid state as a nutritious article of 
 diet, containing in a small compass much strength-sustain- 
 ing capability. Secondly, The chocolate or cocoa is scraped 
 into powder, and mixed with boiling water or boiling milk, 
 when it makes a beverage, somewhat thick, but agreeable to 
 the palate, refreshing to the spirits, and highly nutritious. 
 Thirdly, The nibs are boiled in water, with which they form 
 a reddish-brown decoction, which, after the fat has been 
 skimmed off, is poured from the insoluble part of the bean. 
 With sugar and milk this forms an agreeable drink, better 
 adapted for persons of weak digestion than the consumption 
 of the entire bean. Another variety of the cocoa beverages, 
 one which may be called cocoa-tea, is prepared by boiling the 
 husks of the bean in water, with which they form a brown 
 
CONSTITUENTS OF COCOA. 167 
 
 decoction. This husk is usually ground up with the ordinary 
 cocoas, but it is always separated in the manufacture of the 
 purer chocolates. Hence in the chocolate manufactories it 
 accumulates in large quantities, which are imported into this 
 country from Trieste and other Italian ports, under the name 
 of " miserahle." This has been used for cattle-feeding. Here 
 the husk is partly ground up in the inferior cocoas, so that 
 the orduiary " flake cocoas " are really of three qualities : — 
 
 a. Bean and husk ground and flaked together : this qual- 
 ity is worth 1208. per cwt. 
 
 b. The contents of the second vessel from the winnowing- 
 fan, consisting of the smaller pieces of the nib, and a good 
 deal of the husk : this sells at 84s. per cwt. 
 
 c The contents of the third vessel from the winnowing- 
 fan, consisting of Uttle else but the husk, and selling at 56s. 
 per cwt. Unfortunately b is often sold as a, and c as b. 
 
 Besides the exhilarating and sustaining properties which_ 
 it possesses in common with tea and cofiee, cocoa, in its more 
 common forms, is eminently nutritious. Its active or useful 
 ingredients are the following : — 
 
 First, The volatile oil, to which its aroma is due, and 
 which is produced during the roasting. The proportion of 
 this oil in the roasted bean has not been determined, but it is 
 no doubt very small. Its action on the system is probably 
 similar to that of the odoriferous oils produced by the same 
 process in tea and coffee. 
 
 Secondly, A peculiar principle, resembling the theine of tea 
 and coffee, though not identical with it. Like theine, it is a 
 white crystalline substance, which has a slightly bitter taste, 
 and contains a large percentage of nitrogen. It is called by 
 chemists theobromine, from the generic name of the cocoa-tree ; 
 and its composition, compared with that of theine, is as foUowB : 
 
 Tlielne. Theobromine, 
 Carbon, .... 49.5 46.7 
 
 Hydrogen, .... 5.1 4.4 
 
 Nitrogen, .... 28.9 SJ.l 
 
 Oxygen, .... 16.5 17-8 
 
 100.0 100.0 
 
 It is richer in nitrogen, therefore, even than theine ; and 
 as nearly all vegetable principles, rich in nitrogen, of which 
 the influence upon the system has been examined, are found 
 9 
 
168 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 to be very active, the same is inferred in regard to theobro- 
 mine. And further, Strecker has shown that caffeine may be 
 made from theobromine by a process called " methylation," 
 in which one atom of carbon and two of hydrogen are 
 added to the original substance. Its analogy in chemical 
 properties to theine leads to the belief that it exercises a 
 similar exhilarating and soothing, himger-stiUing and waste- 
 retarding effect to the latter substance. The benefits ex- 
 perienced from the use of cocoa are due, in part at least, 
 therefore, to the theobromine it contains. The proportion of 
 this substance in the cocoa-bean has been estimated at from 
 1 J to 2 percent — the same proportion in which theine exists 
 ia the tea-leaf. It exists, also, in sensible quantity in the 
 husk of the bean. The decoction obtained by boiling the 
 husk in water, cannot, therefore, be whoUy devoid of useful 
 ingredients, or of good effect. 
 
 Thirdly, The predominating ingredient in cocoa, and the 
 one by which it is most remarkably distinguished from tea 
 and coffee, however, is the large proportion of fatty matter, 
 known as cocoa-butter, which it contains. This sometimes 
 amounts to upwards of one-half the weight of the shelled or 
 husked bean. Consumed in either of its more usual forms, 
 therefore, cocoa is a very rich article of food, and for this 
 reason it not unfrequently disagrees with delicate stomachs. 
 It is in some measure to lessen the sense of this richness 
 or heaviness, that sugar, starch, and fragrant seasonings are 
 so generally ground up with the roasted bean in the manu- 
 facture of cocoa and chocolate. 
 
 Fourthly, It contains also a large proportion both of starch 
 and gluten, — substances which, as we have elsewhere seen, 
 form the staple constituents of aU our more valuable varieties 
 of vegetable food. 
 
 The average composition of the entire bean, when deprived of 
 its husk, and gently roasted ready for use, is nearly as follows : 
 
 Water, 5 
 
 starch, gum, tannin, colouring matter, ... 28 
 
 Gluten, &c., 11 
 
 Oil (cocoa-lmtter), 48 
 
 Theobromine, 2 
 
 Fibre 3 
 
 Ash or mineral matter 5 
 
 100 
 
NUTRIENTS IN COCOA. 169 
 
 This composition reminds us of the richest and most nutri- 
 tive forms of vegetable food ; and especially of the oily seeds 
 and nuts with which cattle are fed and fattened. 
 
 It is rich in aU the important nutritious principles which 
 are found- to coexist in our most valued forms of ordinary food, 
 but is somewhat poor in gluten or nitrogenous flesh-formers, 
 though excessively rich in heat -givers, especially in fat. 
 When mixed with water, however, as it is usually drunk, it 
 is more properly compared with mUk than with infusions of 
 little direct nutritive value, like those of tea and coffee. And, 
 on the other hand, it has an advantage for some purposes over 
 milk, over beef-tea, and other similar beverages, in that it 
 contains the substance theobromine and the volatile empy- 
 reumatic oil. Thus it unites in itself the exhilarating pro- 
 perties of tea with the strengthening and ordinary body-sup- 
 porting qualities of milk. 
 
 As cocoa is rich in fat, and milk in casein, the practice of 
 making milk-cocoa, in which the constituents of the one in- 
 gredient dovetail into and assuage the influence of those of 
 the other, is a judicious one. The large proportion of oil it 
 contains justifies also, as fitting it better for most stomachs, 
 the practice of mixing or grinding up the cocoa with sugar, 
 flour, or starch, in the preparation of cocoa-paste, or chocolate. 
 Both practices are indeed skilful adjustments, made without 
 chemical knowledge, as the results of long and wide expe- 
 rience. But excellent powder - cocoas are now prepared in 
 which the cheaper starch has not been introduced, but merely 
 some of the excess of butter pressed out. For it must not be 
 forgotten that no cocoas are really soluble, though often so 
 called. Such cocoas mixed with boiling water form starch- 
 paste in which the particles of cocoa remain suspended. 
 And, lastly, the general composition of the beans shows that, 
 in chocolate cakes and comfits, when faithfuUy prepared, 
 there should reside, as experience has also shown to be the 
 case, much nutritive virtue, and the means, reduced into com- 
 paratively small compass, both of supporting the bodily 
 strength and of sustaining the nervous energy. 
 
 II. Brazilian Cocoa, or Guarana. — In Brazil the seeds of 
 the Paullinia sorbilis are collected, dried in the sun, or gently 
 roasted, and used in the same way as those of the Theobroma 
 
170 THE BBVEEAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 cacao. The most usual native preparation of guarana is of 
 ground seeds made into a paste with water and roUed into a 
 sausage-like shape. These roUs are heavy and very hard, 
 and are known as Guarana bread. When used, these cakes 
 are mixed with water, in the same way as we employ the 
 cakes of cocoa or chocolate, and the mixture is sweetened and 
 drunk. This article is prepared and consumed very largely 
 by the lower classes in Brazil, especially in the provinces of 
 Para and Amazonas. It is a fact of great interest in regard 
 to this substance, and one which shows it to have a true 
 place among the beverages of which we are now treating, that, 
 like tea and coffee, it has been found to contain theine, and 
 that to the extent of 5 per cent, and it is therefore capable 
 of exercising upon the system an influence similar to that 
 which is experienced by those who use these two favourite 
 beverages. It has been introduced into Europe as a remedy 
 in sick-headache. But it occasionally purges violently, 
 owing in all probability to the presence of an irritant sub- 
 stance called saponin. 
 
 III. Other Cocoas. — The substances, as yet known, which 
 can be employed in the place of, or as substitutes for Mexican 
 cocoa, are comparatively few in number. To fit them for this 
 purpose they must contain an odoriferous principle of some 
 degree of fragrance, abundance of fat, and a considerable 
 amount of ordinary nutriment. Oily seeds and nuts are 
 almost the only vegetable productions from which beverages 
 resembling cocoa have anywhere been manufactured. Among 
 these the ground-nut {Arachis hypogcea), a kind of oily pea, 
 the pod of which forces itself into the groimd and there ripens, 
 is roasted in South Carolina, Angola, and elsewhere, and then 
 prepared and used in the same way as chocolate. In Spain 
 the root of the Cyperus esculentus, or earth-chestnut, is roasted 
 and used as a substitute for both coffee and chocolate, but 
 especially for the latter, which is much consumed in Spain. 
 
 These are all the professed substitutes for the cocoa-bean 
 with which I am acquainted. Neither of the two last men- 
 tioned, however, contains a bitter principle, rich in nitrogen, 
 of the nature of the theobromine of the true cocoa, or of the 
 theine contained in guarana. They can never, therefore, be 
 employed effectively to replace the Mexican cocoa. 
 
TUEIR INGREDIENTS. 171 
 
 As adulterating materials, the substances chiefly employed 
 by fraudulent manufacturers of cocoa and chocolate are the 
 husks of the cocoa-bean, starch, sugar, fat, ground roots, and 
 red ochre. The admixture of starch and sugar which our 
 prepared cocoas and chocolates contain is at least not an 
 unsalutary adulteration, although it is profitable to the man- 
 ufacturer. The same cannot be said, however, of the red 
 ochre with which cocoa-beans have been found to be artifi- 
 cially coloured. The presence of the ochre is detected by 
 burning the cocoa in the air. If the ash is grey, the cocoa is 
 pure ; if red, it is adulterated with ochre. But it would seem 
 that this colouring with a red ochreous earth is done in some 
 cocoa coimtries merely to improve the colour, even the best 
 beans being subjected to this treatment. 
 
 Before I leave this subject, it may interest the reader if I 
 briefly sum up what' appears to be the actual state of our 
 knowledge regarding the chemistry and physiology of the 
 beverages we infuse. 
 
 First, As to the chemistry of the various leaves and seeds 
 we have mentioned, it appears that, when roasted and ready 
 for use, they all contain — 
 
 a. A volatile, odoriferous, aromatic oil, which does not 
 exist in the fresh leaf or seed, but is produced or developed 
 during the roasting. In coffee this oil is most abundant, in 
 tea probably next, and in cocoa least in quantity. In the 
 teas (Chinese and Paraguay), and in roasted coffee, the 
 quantity and activity of this oil appear to diminish by keep- 
 ing. In raw coffee, on the other hand, the power of develop- 
 ing this oil by roasting becomes greater when tlie raw bean 
 is kept or allowed to ripen. 
 
 b. A pecuhar, bitter, crystallisable principle, containing 
 much nitrogen, and exerting a specific action on the system. 
 In the teas, in coffee, and in guarana, this principle is theine, 
 which contains 29 per cent of nitrogen ; in cocoa, it is theo- 
 bromine, which contains 31 per cent of nitrogen. Weight 
 for weight, the average qualities of tea contain about twice 
 as much theine as the average qualities of coffee — 2 per cent 
 in the former to 1 per cent in the latter — but in both it varies 
 between 1 and 4 per cent as extremes. In cocoa the pro- 
 portion of theobromine is about IJ to 2 per cent. In well- 
 roasted coffee, and in chicory, another bitter principle, which 
 
172 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 is soluble, unorystallisable, and free from nitrogen, is produced 
 during the roasting. 
 
 c. A variety of tannin or tannic acid, whicli gives their 
 astringency to the infusions prepared from all these sub- 
 stances. Of this ingredient the teas contain most, coffee 
 next, and cocoa the least. The tannin of Chinese tea gives 
 a black, that of mat6 and of coffee a green colour, with solu- 
 tions containing iron. 
 
 d. A nutritious substance resembling the gluten of wheat 
 or the fibrin of beef. In the tea-leaf this ingredient is most 
 abundant, in coffee next, while cocoa contains the least. It 
 dissolves but sparingly in water, and is therefore generally 
 lost to the consumer when only the infusion is drunk. The 
 fall benefit of this ingredient is obtained only when the tea- 
 leaves are eaten, when the coffee-grounds are taken along 
 with the infusion, or when the whole material is made into a 
 beverage, as in the usual modes of preparing cocoa and choco- 
 late. But in the case of coffee and tea, especially the latter, 
 this nutritive nitrogenous matter does not exist in a very 
 available or digestible condition. 
 
 e. A quantity of fat, which in cocoa forms half the whole 
 weight of the bean, in coffee one-eighth or less, and in tea 
 only 1 or 2 per cent. The presence of so large a proportion 
 of fat gives a peculiar character to cocoa, rendering it most 
 nutritious, especially when made with milk, to those whose 
 stomachs will bear it, but making it less suitable at the same 
 time to persons of weak digestive powers. 
 
 Of the infusions themselves which are yielded by the dif- 
 ferent varieties of tea, mate, and coffee, it is to be observed 
 that they vary in strength with the sample employed. Of 
 some teas and coffees, boiling water will extract and dissolve 
 as much as one-third of the whole substance ; of others, not 
 more than one-sixth. The proportions of the several ingre- 
 dients above mentioned, which the infusions we prepare are 
 likely to contain, must therefore be variable. 
 
 Secondly, As to the physiology of these beverages, or their 
 action on the system, it appears — 
 
 a. Generally, that they all exert a remarkable influence on 
 the activity of the brain — exalting, so to speak, the nervous 
 life ; and yet they do so in a way different from opium or 
 ardent spirits, since they act as antidotes to the narcotic in- 
 
THEIR ACTION ON THE SYSTEM. 173 
 
 fluence of the one, and relieve the intoxication produced by 
 the other. 
 
 b. They all soothe the vascular or corporeal system, allay 
 hunger, retard the change of matter, and diminish the amount 
 of bodily waste in a given time ; and if this waste must, in the 
 healthy body, be constantly restored in the form of ordinary ' 
 food, this diminution of the waste is equivalent to a lessening 
 of the amount of food which is necessary to sustain the body — 
 hence their value to the poor. They are indirectly nutritious. 
 
 c. Specially, they diminish the quantity of carbonic acid 
 given off from the lungs in a given time — (Pkout) ; and that 
 also of urea and phosphoric acid in the mine — (Julius Leh- 
 mann). These are the chemical forms in which the lessening 
 of the change of matter manifests itself. In the case of coffee, 
 it has been ascertained by experiment that this lessening of 
 the waste is due more to the empyroumatic oil than to the 
 caffeine. The same is probably true also of tea. 
 
 d. The increased action of the heart, the trembhng, the 
 headache, and the peculiar intoxication and delirium which 
 extreme indulgence in coffee sometimes produces, are mostly 
 caused by the caffeine. On the other hand, the increased 
 action of the kidneys, of the bowels, and of the perspiring 
 vessels, and generally the increased activity of the whole 
 system, are ascribed to the action of the oil. That Chinese 
 tea has an astringent or costive effect upon the bowels, may 
 arise from the larger proportion of the astringent tannic acid 
 which tea contains being able to counteract the effect of the 
 oiL That^ere is eT specific difference in the action of the 
 empyreumatic oils of tea and mate, compared with that of 
 coffee, is further probable from the remarkably intoxicating 
 effect which both the Chinese and the Paraguay leaves pos- 
 sess when newly gathered and roasted for use. 
 
 Of course the general effect of these beverages upon the 
 system is the combined result of the simultaneous action of 
 all their constituent ingredients. But possessing the two 
 characteristic influences of retarding the change of matter and 
 of increasing at the same time the activity of the nervous life, 
 they cannot, according to our present knowledge, be replaced 
 by the strongest soups or flesh-teas, or by any other infusions 
 or decoctions which merely supply the ordinary kinds of 
 nourishment in more or less diluted and digestible forms. 
 
174 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 In some countries it is the custom to heighten the natural 
 flavour of roasted coffee by the addition of spices. Thus M. 
 de Saulcy, in his tour round the Dead Sea, found the Bedouins 
 in the country of ancient Moab drinking coffee, of which he 
 says that it was " an absolute decoction of cloves." ^ On the 
 continent of Europe, and in North and South America, vanilla 
 is said to be employed largely for flavouring coffee as well as 
 chocolate. In Germany it is used also, as well as rum, to 
 give taste and flavour to weak infusions of tea. To the other 
 more natural influences of coffee and tea these spices add a 
 stimulating effect, which appears to expend itself chiefly upon 
 the animal propensities. 
 
 A perusal of the history of these beverages leaves lingering 
 in our minds some interesting general facts, which are sug- 
 gestive of many thoughts. 
 
 The first is, the vast extent to which the materials for these 
 beverages are cultivated and used, and the important place 
 they occupy among what may be called the artificial necessi- 
 ties of life. Our data for forming correct calculations as to 
 the quantity of each beverage which is grown and consumed 
 are very defective, but we may guess them at about — 
 
 Chinese tea, . 
 
 2350 millions of pounds. 
 
 Mat^, . 
 
 . . 60 „ 
 
 Coflfee, . 
 
 • • "50 „ 
 
 Chicory, . 
 
 • ■ 120 „ 
 
 Cocoa, 
 
 • • 110 „ 
 
 — forming an aggregate of upwards of 3700 millions of pounds 
 of the raw materials consumed annually in the preparation of 
 the beverages we infuse. 
 
 Nor is the number of people to whom these warm beverages 
 have become necessaries of life less surprising. Thus — 
 
 Is consumed in By about 
 
 {China, Russia, Tartary, Eng-"J 
 land, Holland, North Amer- J. 500 millions of men. 
 ica, and Australia, j 
 
 Coffee-tea, . Sumatra, &c., 2 „ 
 
 C Arabia, Ceylon, Jamaica, ) 
 Coffee-bean, . < Germany, Ei-ance, North V 110 „ 
 
 f .ATTlPTiPA I 
 
 Chicory. .. {%™-y.,W«n., France, I ,, ^_ 
 
 Cocoa, . i SP™ Italy, France, Central 5 „„ 
 
 ' I America, Mexico, ) " 
 
 1 Journey Round the Dead Sea, vol. i. p. 313. 
 
THEIR APPRECIATION BY THE POOR. 175 
 
 So that upon these five plants about half of the whole human 
 race are dependent for one of their most useful and most 
 harmless forms of indulgence. 
 
 A second point which strikes us in the history of these 
 beverages — at least of the teas and coffees — is, that they have 
 come moro and more into use in Europe and America as the 
 intellectual activity which distinguishes the leading nations 
 of modem times has developed itself. The kind of ordinary 
 food upon which the consumers of these beverages usually 
 live no doubt modifies the influence they exercise upon the 
 system. It is even probable that the nature of this food is 
 one of the causes which determine the preference given to 
 tea or to coffee by the different European nations. And, 
 reasoning from this probability, we might say that there is 
 too much of mere vulgar nutrition in cocoa to allow it to in- 
 fluence the nervous or intellectual life to an equal degree 
 with tea and coffee ; and in tliis we possibly might find a 
 reason for the less prominent intellectual position which has 
 been occupied by Spain and Italy since cocoa has become an 
 article of such universal consumption in these countries. 
 
 A third striking fact is, that the poorest and humblest 
 amongst us, who has his own little earnings to spend, devotes 
 a small part of them to the purchase of tea or coffee. He can 
 barely buy bread and milk, or potatoes and salt, yet the cup 
 of tea or coffee is preferred to the extra potato or the some- 
 what larger loaf. And if thereby his stomach is less filled, 
 his hunger is equally stayed, and his comfort, both bodily and 
 mental, wonderfully increased. He will probably live as long 
 under -the one regimen as the other; and while he does live, 
 he wUl both be less miserable in mind, and wiU show more 
 blood and spirit in the face of difiSculties, than if he had 
 denied himself his trifling indulgence. Besides the mere 
 brickwork and marble, so to speak, by which the human body 
 is built up and sustained, tliere are rarer forms of matter, as 
 these chapters have shown, upon which the Hfe of the body 
 and the comfort of animal existence most essentially depend. 
 This truth is not unworthy the consideration of those to whom 
 the arrangement of the dietaries of our prisons and other 
 public institutions has been intrusted. So many ounces of 
 gluten, and so many of starch and fat, are assigned by these 
 food-providers as an ample allowance for everyday use. From 
 these dietaries, except for the infirm and the invalid, tea and 
 
176 THE BEVERAGES WE INFUSE. 
 
 cofifee are for the most part excluded.^ And in this they 
 follow the counsel of those who have hitherto been regarded 
 as chief authorities on the chemistry of nutrition. But it is 
 worthy of trial whether the lessening of the general bodily 
 waste which would foUow the consumption of a daily allow- 
 ance of coffee would not cause a saving of gluten and starch 
 equal to the cost of the coffee ; — and should this not prove 
 the case, whether the increased comfort and happiness of the 
 inmates, and the greater consequent facility of management, 
 would not make up for the difference, if any. The inquiry 
 is an interesting one in physiological economics, and it is not 
 undeserving of the serious attention of those benevolent 
 minds which, in so many parts of our Islands, have found in 
 the prisons and houses of correction their most favourite fields 
 of exertion. 
 
 I might add, as a stimulus to such experiments, the evident 
 craving for some such indulgence as a kind of natural neces- 
 sity, which is manifested in the almost xmiversal practice 
 among every people not absolutely savage, of preparing and 
 drinking beverages of this sort. If there be in the human 
 constitution this innocent craving, it cannot be misplaced 
 humanity to minister to it, even in the case of the depraved 
 and convicted. Where reformation is aimed at, the moral 
 sense will be found most accessible where the mind is main- 
 tained in most healthy activity, and where the general com- 
 fort of the whole system is most effectually promoted. 
 
 1 gee the Author's Elements of Agricultural Chemistry and Geology, sixth 
 edition, p. 394. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 THE GRAPE AND CANE SUGARS. 
 
 Mineral sweets.— Vegetable sweets.— Number of these known to modern 
 nations. — The grape-sugars; their sensible and chemical characters.— 
 Honey-sugars. — Trebizond honey. — Poisoning of Xenophon's soldiers. — 
 Fruit-sugars. — Starch or potato sugar, manufacture of. — Sugar from rags, 
 fi-om sawdust, and from Carraigeen, Ceylon, and Iceland mosses. — The cane- 
 sugars. — Spread of the sugar-cane from Asia through Europe to America. 
 — Vaiieties of the sugar-cane.— Nutritive qualities of the raw cane-juice. — 
 Extensive consumption of it. — Composition of the sugar-cane.— Manufac- 
 ture of cane-sugar. — Difficulties In the manufacture. — Great loss of sugar 
 in consequence. — Improvements in the manufacture, and their effects on 
 West Indian prosperity. — Total produce of cane-sugar in the world. — Con- 
 sumption of sugar in the United Kingdom. — Sensible and chemical char- 
 acters of cane-sugar. — Beet or European sugar. — Its importance on the 
 continent of Europe . — Number and produce of the manufactories of Franca 
 and Russia. — Composition of the sugar-beet. — Difficulties in extract- 
 ing the sugar .^Progress of the manufacture. — Its chemico - agricultural 
 relations.— Palm or date sugars.— Quantity produced yearly.— Maple or 
 North American sugar. — Quantity produced in Canada, New England, and 
 Now York. — Mode of extraction.— Chemical changes in the maple-sap. — 
 Maize or Mexican sugar; manufacture of. In the United States, and in 
 Prance. — Sorghum-sugar, the cane of the north. — Total quantity of sugar 
 extracted for use. — Chemistry in its economical and social relations. 
 
 In common life, the sweets we extract are a constant accom- 
 paniment of the beverages we infuse. At least, as we use 
 them in Europe and America, sugar is a usual addition to the 
 infiisions of tea, coffee, and cocoa. 
 
 Of substances which are sweet to the taste, the chemist is 
 familiar with many which have no relation to the wants or 
 
178 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 
 usages of common life. Sugar of lead is a well-known poiBon, 
 which derives its name from the sweetness of its taste. Silver 
 in certain of its compounds (as the hyposulphite) is equally 
 sweet. A mineral earth called glucina (from yXv/cvs, sweet) 
 produces many compounds which have a sugary taste when 
 first put into the mouth ; and numerous other instances might 
 be named. It is only those sweet substances, however, which 
 exist in or are extracted from plants, that are directly con- 
 nected with our modem comforts. These sweets not only 
 accompany, on our tables, the beverages we infuse, but are 
 the ingredients from which our brewers and distillers manu- 
 facture the liquors we ferment. They fall naturally to be 
 considered, therefore, in this place. 
 
 Of these vegetable sweets, modem nations use many varie- 
 ties. In such substances, as luxuries of life, we are, indeed, far 
 richer than any of the ancient nations. It is with sugar as 
 with alcohol and common salt. Men knew fermented liquors, 
 and the condiment of sea-water, long before they knew how 
 to separate alcohol from the former, and salt from the latter ; 
 in like manner they knew honey and sweet juices of plants 
 before they knew how to separate sugar from the cane. Not 
 until the fifteenth century was the process of sugar-making 
 suspected, and not tiU long afterwards was it perfected. 
 Thus, to the honey, grape, manna, and fruit sugars, which 
 were the principal sweets of the ancient world, we now add 
 the cane, maple, beet, maize, and palm sugars. We manu- 
 facture sugar also from potatoes, rice, and other substances 
 rich in starch ; from Uchens gathered from the rocks, from 
 sea-weeds thrown upon the shore ; even from sawdust, from 
 waste-paper and old rope ; and we extract it from the milk 
 of our domestic cattle. It has become to us, in consequence, 
 almost a necessary of life. We consume it in millions of 
 hundredweights ; we employ thousands of ships in transport- 
 ing it. Millions of men spend their lives in cultivating the 
 plants from which it is extracted, and the fiscal duties im- 
 posed upon it add largely to the revenue of nearly every 
 established government. It may be said, therefore, to ex- 
 ercise a more direct and extended influence, not only over 
 the social comfort, but over the social condition of mankind, 
 than any other production of the vegetable kingdom, with the 
 exception, perhaps, of cotton alone. 
 
HONET-SUGAES. 179 
 
 The numerous varieties of useful sugars with which we are 
 acquainted, may be arranged under four maiu kinds or heads. 
 These are the grape-sugars, found chiefly in fruits ; the cane- 
 sugars, chiefly found in stems ; the manna-sugars, chiefly 
 found in leaves ; and milk or animal sugar. I shall treat of 
 each in its order. 
 
 I. The Grape-Sugaes include two varieties, of which in 
 various proportions, the sugar of the grape, the sugars of 
 honey, the sugar of innta, and potato, starch, and paper sugars, 
 are made up. 
 
 1°. Orape-Sugar. — When the ripe grape is dried in the air, 
 it forms the well-known raisin of commerce. When this 
 raisin is opened, numerous whitish crystalline brittle granules 
 are seen within it, which are sweet to the taste. These con- 
 sist of what is called grape-sugar, and they are the main 
 source of the sweetness both of the grape, and the raisin, 
 and the currant. This grape-sugar dissolves readily in water, 
 and if yiiast bo added to the solution, soon enters into fermen- 
 tation. The results of this fermentation are, first, a spirituous 
 liquor resembling weak wine ; and afterwards, as the fermen- 
 tation proceeds, an acid liquor, like sour wine or vinegar. 
 
 In Syria, a sweet preparation is made from the juice of the 
 grape. It consists ohieflly of grape- sugar, and is exported to 
 Egypt under the name of dips or dibs?- 
 
 2°. Honey-Sugars, — The bee has been long known and ad- 
 mired for its industry, and the honey it collects indulged in 
 as a luxury. This honey is formed, or naturally deposited, 
 in the nectaries of flowers, and is extracted from them by the 
 working bees. They deposit it in their crop or honey-bag, 
 which is an expansion of the gullet (oesophagus), and from this 
 receptacle they disgorge it again when they return to the hive. 
 In the intei-val, it is altered by admixture with the liquids 
 which are secreted in the mouth and crop of the insect — so that 
 the honey we extract from the hive is not exactly in the same 
 chemical condition as when it was sucked up from the flowers 
 by the laborious bee. It no longer contains cane-sugar. 
 
 1 In Qenesis xlili. 11, this word is translated honey, though the sweet of 
 the grape is probably meant. Diha is also the word used for Samson's honey 
 (Judges 117. 8), though Aasal is the word now employed in Syria and Egypt 
 to denote the honey of the bee. 
 
180 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 
 When liquid honey is allowed to stand for a length of time, 
 it gradually thickens and consolidates. By stirring it up 
 with spirits of wine it may then be separated into a white 
 solid sugar, consisting of minute crystals, which remain un- 
 dissolved, and a thick uncrystaLisable syrup, or even glassy 
 mass, which may be got out of the spirituous solution by 
 evaporating it at a gentle heat. Both the crystaUine and the 
 vitreous sugars have the same general properties. They are 
 equally sweet ; both have the same chemical composition, . 
 and both begin to ferment when water and a little yeast 
 are added to them. The crystalline sugar of honey is iden- 
 tical with that of the grape. It is called dextrose by chem- 
 ists, for it deflects a ray of polarised light passed through its 
 solution to the right. The vitreous sugar is called Imvuhse, 
 because it is "left-handed." On analysis a good sample of 
 honey yields in 100 parts : — 
 
 Water, 22.0 
 
 Ciystalline glucose (dextrose), . . . . 38.0 
 
 Vitreous glucose (lievulose), 36.0 
 
 Mineral matters, 0.2 
 
 Wax, pollen, gluten, essential oil, colouring matters, 3.8 
 
 100 
 To the two last-named substances honey owes the varied 
 colours, flavours, and fragrances, which in different countries 
 and districts it is known to possess, and for which it is 
 often highly prized. Hence the estimation in which the 
 honey of Mount Ida, in Crete, has been always held. Hence 
 also the perfume of the Narbonne honey, of the honey of 
 Chamouny, and of our own high moorland honey when the 
 heather is in bloom. Sometimes these foreign substances 
 possess narcotic or other dangerous qualities, as is the case 
 with the Trebizond honey, which causes headache, vomiting,; 
 and even a kind of intoxication in those who eat it. This 
 quaUty it derives from the flowers of a species of rhododen- 
 dron (Azalea pontica), from which the honey is partly ex- 
 tracted.^ It was prolsably this kind of honey which poisoned 
 
 1 In the valleys of Eastern Nepanl, at a height of 5000 or 6000 feet, Dr 
 Hooker found huge pendulous nests formed by wild bees, the honey of which 
 is much sought for, except in spring, when it is said to be poisoned by rhodo- 
 dendron-flowers, exactly like the honey eaten by Xenophon's soldiers.* 
 
 ■ Himalaya Journals, vol. i. p. 201. 
 
ARTIFICIAL SUGAB. 181 
 
 the soldiers of Xenophon, as described by him in the retreat 
 of the Ten Thousand.'- 
 
 Meat may be preserved in honey or syrup : while sugar in 
 some form is frequently added to the salt used in pickling 
 bacon, pork, and other meats. A very curious use of honey 
 was noticed by Hooker. The Khasias, a Himalayan tribe, 
 preserve the bodies of those who die during the rains, when 
 cremation is difficult, in honey, and so await a drier and hotter 
 . season. 
 
 3°. Fruit-Sugars. — Many of our fhiits pass, in the course of 
 ripening, from a sour to a sweet state. The apple, the pear, 
 the plum, the peach, the gooseberry, the currant, the cherry, 
 &o., are of this kind. Most of them, even when fully ripe, 
 are still a little acid ; the mixture of sweet and sour in their 
 juices adding to their agreeable and refreshing quahties. 
 All such fruits, as a general rule, contain, and owe their 
 sweetness to, grape-sugar. From many of them this sugar 
 can be readily extracted for use.; but, in general, it is more 
 economical and agreeable to employ it in the form of dried 
 and preserved fruits, or to make wine of it, as we do of that 
 which exists in the grape, the gooseberry, the apple, and the 
 pear. 
 
 4°. Potato, Starch, and Paper Sugars. — It is a property of 
 starch of all kinds to be insoluble in cold water, but to dis- 
 solve readily in boiling water, and to thicken into a jelly or 
 paste as it cools. Even a lengthened boiling in water, how- 
 ever, produces little further change upon it. But if a small 
 quantity of sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) be added to the water 
 in which it is boiled, the solution gradually acquires a sweet 
 
 ' ITie effects of this honey upon his soldiers are thus described by Xenophon : 
 "And there was there (in a village near Trebizond) a number of beehives; 
 and as many of the soldiers as ate of the honeycomba became senseless, and 
 were seized with vomiting and diarrhoea ; and not one of them could stand 
 orect. Those who had swallowed but little, looked very like drunk men ; 
 those who ate much were like madmen ; and some lay as if they were dying. 
 And thus they lay in such numbers, as on a field of battle after a defeat. 
 And the consternation was great. Yet no one was found to have died ; all re- 
 covered their senses about the same hour on the following day. And on the 
 third or fourth day thereafter, they rose up as if they had suffered from the 
 drinking of poison. — Xenophon, Anabasis, book iv. chap. 8, Ta St irfiijio), &c. 
 
 Auguste St Hilaire, while travelling in the Brazils, experienced symptoms of 
 poisoning after having eaten of honey extracted by a native bee from a plant 
 belonging to the poisonous family of Apocynacete, or dogbanes. 
 
182 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 taste, and ultimately the whole of the starch is converted into 
 grape or honey sugar. A pound of acid diluted with a hun- 
 dred pounds of water, and employed in this way, will convert 
 into sugar a great many pounds of potato, wheat, rice, or sago 
 starch. If the acid be then separated by Ume, and the liquor 
 boUed down, either a rich syrup or a solid sugar may be ob- 
 tained. Or, instead of sulphuric acid, we may mix with the 
 water 12 or 15 lb. of malt for every 100 lb. of starch ; heat 
 for three hours to 160° or 170° Fahr., and then filter and . 
 evaporate the syraip. Sugar thus prepared from starch has 
 been called maltose. It much resembles in sweetness, chem- 
 ical composition, and general properties, that of the grape. 
 It does not always crystalhse readily, however, and in this 
 respect resembles the mixed sugars of honey. It is used 
 for ordinary sweetening purposes, and for brewing and the 
 manufacture of spirituous liquors. On the continent of 
 Europe it is largely prepared for aU these uses, but it is also 
 now being made on a large scale in London. The syinip 
 is extensively employed by the French confectioners, and 
 brandy distilled from it is very generally drunk in northern 
 Europe. The imports into the United Kingdom of this arti- 
 ficial sugar have risen rapidly of late. They were : — 
 
 In 1867, 8508 cwt ; in 1870, 39,509 cwt ; in 1876, 221,495 cwt. 
 
 Instead of starch, woody fibre may be employed for the 
 manufacture of this kind of sugar. Paper, raw cotton and 
 flax, cotton and Hnen rags, and even sawdust, may be trans- 
 formed into sugar by solution in strong sulphuric acid, dilution 
 with water, and subsequent boiling. The operation is more 
 complex and tedious, for the acid first changes the fibre into 
 a kind of gum called dextrine, and then this dextrine further 
 into sugar. 
 
 It is known that many sea-weeds, when boiled in water, 
 yield a jelly which is wholesome, nutritious, and more or less 
 agreeable to the palate. Among these are the well-known 
 Carraigeen moss [Chondrus crispus and Gigartina mamilhsd), 
 which is collected in large quantities on the west coast of 
 Irelarid ; and the Ceylon moss [Plocaria Candida), which is 
 exported from the islands of the Indian Archipelago to the 
 markets of China. The jeUy yielded by these plants, which 
 are really sea-weeds, as well as by the Iceland moss and other 
 
SUGAR OF THE SUGAB-CANE. 
 
 183 
 
 land lichens, is in like manner converted into grape-sugar 
 when digested with sulphuric acid 
 
 The number of vegetable substances, therefore, which by 
 means of this acid can be transformed into the sugar of honey 
 and fruits, is very great. The way in which these singular 
 transformations of matters are brought about, will be illus- 
 trated at tlie close of the succeeding chapter. 
 
 Fig. 29. 
 
 II. The Cane-Suoaks. — The plants or fruits which possess 
 distinctly acid or sour juices, yield grape-sugar, though often 
 accompanied by cane-sugar. Those 
 which have little acid in their saps, 
 contain for the most part cane-sugar. 
 The chemical reason for this is, that, 
 by the action of acid substances, cane- 
 sugar is generally transformed into 
 grape-sugar, even in the interior of 
 the growing plant. The principal 
 varieties of cane-sugar known in 
 commerce are, cane-sugar properly 
 so called, beet -sugar, palm or date 
 sugar, maple-sugar, and maize-sugar. 
 
 1°. Sugar-Cane or Chinese Sugar. — 
 The sugar-cane (fig. 29) is stiU the 
 chief source of the sugar of com- 
 merce, although an increasing quan- 
 tity is obtained from beet. Theo- 
 phrastus, Dioscorides, and Phny, 
 called cane - sugar the " honey of 
 reeds ; " Paul Egineta named it " In- 
 dian salt." But the sugar-cane was 
 almost unknown to the Greeks and 
 Romans. Now cultivated most ex- 
 tensively in America, it is a native 
 of the Old World. It was iamiliar 
 in the East in most remote times, 
 and appears to have been cultivated in China and the South 
 Sea Islands long before the period of authentic history. 
 Through Sicily and Spain it reached the Canary Islands, 
 thence was transplanted to St Domingo by the Spaniards in 
 1520, and from this island it has gradually spread over the 
 
 Saccharun q^cinorum— 
 
 The Sugar-Cane. 
 Scale, 1 inch to 4 foot. 
 
184 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 
 West Indies and the tropical regions of the American conti- 
 nent. It flourishes best where the mean temperature is irom 
 75° to 77° Fahr. ; but it thrives, and can be economically cul- 
 tivated, where the mean temperature does not exceed 66° to 
 68° Fahr. Hence it is grown feir beyond the tropics. And 
 although the countries most productive in sugar, and which 
 yield it at the least cost, lie for the most part within the 
 torrid zone, and at low elevations, — ^yet the sugar-cane is pro- 
 fitably grown in some parts of the south of Europe ; on the 
 table-land of Nepaul, in India, at a height of 4500 feet ; and 
 on the plains of Mexico, as high as 4000 to 6000 feet above 
 the level of the sea. It rarely ripens its seed, however, even 
 in the most propitious localities. Young plants are raised, 
 therefore, from portions of the stem planted for the purpose ; 
 and when cultivated for sugar, they are rarely allowed to 
 come to flower, as is represented in fig. 29. 
 
 There are many varieties of the sugar-cane^ as there are of 
 nearly all long-cultivated plants. In general, the varieties 
 most common in each country and district are best adapted to 
 the local chmate and to the soils in which they grow. Those 
 which yield the sweetest juice, and in the greatest abundance, 
 if otherwise suited to the climate, are the most esteemed. In 
 Louisiana, five different varieties are cultivated, one of the 
 most elegant of which is represented in the annexed drawing 
 (fig. 30). In each locality that variety is selected by the 
 planter which he finds to give, on the whole, the most sure 
 and profitable crop.^ And so in our West India colonies the 
 Tahiti cane was introduced as a new variety, because in the 
 same time, and from the same extent of land, it yielded one- 
 fourth more juice than the common varieties, while it pro- 
 duced also a larger and more solid growth of wood to be used 
 as fael.^ The Batavian cane and the violet varieties from 
 Java are also highly esteemed. 
 
 In Europe and most northern countries, cane-sugar is only 
 an article of luxury, though one with which many would 
 now find it difiicult to dispense. In many tropical regions, 
 however, the sugar-cane forms a staple part of the ordinary 
 food. The ripe stalk of the plant is chewed and sucked 
 after being made soft by boring it, and almost incredible 
 
 1 American Patent Office Report, 1848, p. 281. 
 » Meyen— Geog. of Plants, p. 382. 
 
THE SUGAK-CANE. 
 
 185 
 
 Fig. 30. 
 
 quantities are consumed in this way. Large ship-loads of 
 raw sugar-cane are daily brought to the markets of Manilla 
 and Eio Janeiro ; and 
 it is plentifiil in the 
 markets of Barbadoes 
 and Now Orleans. In 
 the Sandwich and 
 many other islands of 
 the Pacific, every child 
 has a piece of sugar- 
 cane in its hand ; while 
 in our own sugar col- 
 onies, the negroes be- 
 come fat in crop-time 
 on the abundant juice 
 of the ripening cane. 
 This mode of using the 
 cane is, no doubt, the 
 most ancient of all, 
 and was well known 
 to the Roman writers. 
 Lucan (book iii. 237) 
 speaks of the eaters of 
 the cane as — 
 
 "Quiquo bibunt tonerd dul- 
 ces ab arundine succos " 
 
 — " And those who 
 drinksweet juices from 
 the tender reed." Tra- 
 vellers in the Hima- 
 layas find a piece of peeled sugar-cane a most refreshing 
 bon-bon. 
 
 This nutritive property of the raw juice of the sugar-cane 
 arises from the cLrcumstance, that it contains, besides the sugar 
 to which its sweetness is owing, a sm§,ll but distinct propor- 
 tion of gluten, as well as of those necessary mineral suj|p 
 stances which are present in all our staple forms of vegetable 
 food. It is thus itself a true food,^ capable of sustaining 
 animal life and strength without the addition of other forms 
 of nourishment. This is not the case with the sugar of com- 
 1 See " The Bread we Eat." 
 
 Stiiyed Cane of Louisiana. 
 
186 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 
 meroe, which, though it in a certain sense helps to nourish 
 
 UB, is unable of itself to sustain animal life. 
 
 The sugar-cane varies in composition and richness with the 
 
 variety of cane, the nature of the soil, the mode of cultivation, 
 
 the character of the climate, and the dryness of the season. 
 
 Its average composition in sugar plantations, when the canes 
 
 are fully ripe, is about — 
 
 Sugar, 18 
 
 Water, 71 
 
 Woody fibre and carbohydrates, .... 9J 
 
 Saline matter, . ' J 
 
 Gluten and nitrogenous matter, J 
 
 Colouring matters, § 
 
 100 
 
 The richness in sugar varies with many circumstances, 
 and especially with what is called the ripeness of the cane. 
 For it is a curious circumstance in the chemical history of 
 this plant, that the sap sweetens only to a certain distance up 
 the stem ; the upper somewhat green part, which is still 
 growing, yielding abundance of sap, but comparatively little 
 sugar. One reason of this probably is, that the sugar in the 
 upper part of the stem is rapidly transformed into woody 
 matter, which is buUt into the substance of the growing stem 
 and leaves. In consequence of this want of sweetness, the 
 upper part-of the cane is cut off, and only the under ripe part 
 employed in the manufacture of sugar. In Louisiana, where 
 the canes rarely ripen so completely as in the West Indies, 
 the proportion of sugar contained in the juice is set down as 
 low as 12 to 14 per cent. 
 
 For the extraction of the sugar, the canes are cut with a 
 large knife, the labourer proceeding between the rows (fig. 
 31). The leaves and tops are then chopped off and left in 
 the field, or used for fodder, while the under ripe part is car- 
 ried to the milL The yield of trimmed canes from an acre 
 varies from 1 to 3 tons in fifteen months. These ripe canes 
 tRb passed between heavy iron crushing-rollers, which squeeze 
 out the juice. This juice is run into large vessels, where it 
 is clarified by the addition of lime and other applications. 
 The action of this lime is twofold. It removes or neutrahses 
 the acid which rapidly forms in the fresh juice, and at the 
 pame time combines with the gluten of the juice, and carries 
 
EXTRACTION OF SUGAS. 
 
 187 
 
 it to the bottom. This gluten would act as a natural fennent, 
 causing the sugar to run to acid. Its speedy removal, there- 
 fore, is essential to the 
 extraction of the sugar. ^'^' ^'' 
 
 After being clarified in 
 this way, and some- 
 times filtered, the juice 
 is boiled rapidly down, 
 is then run into wooden 
 vessels to cool and crys- 
 tallise, and finally, when 
 crystallised, is put in- 
 to perforated casks to 
 drain. What remains 
 in these casks is Mus- 
 covado or raw sugar ; 
 the drainings are well 
 known by the name of 
 molasses. 
 
 Simple as this process 
 is in description, it is 
 attended with many dif- 
 ficulties in practice. It 
 is difficult to squeeze 
 the whole of the juice 
 out of the cane — it is 
 difficult to clarify the 
 juice with sufficient ra- 
 pidity to prevent it from fermenting, and so completely as to 
 render skimming unnecessary during the boiling — it is diffi- 
 cult to boil it down rapidly without burning or blackening, 
 and thus producing much uncrystaUisable molasses — and, it 
 is difficult afterwards to coUect and profitably employ the. 
 whole of tlie molasses thus produced. These difficulties have 
 been in great measure, by various improvements in the, 
 machinery and methods employed, overcome. More powerfiir 
 presses are used, and the rollers revolve more slowly, and are 
 often heated. Thus, of the 90 per cent of sweet juice which 
 the cane contains, from 70 to 75 parts are expressed. Thus 
 one-fifth of the sugar is left in the megass, or squeezed cane, 
 which is used for fuel. 
 
 Cane Flautation in Louisiana. 
 
188 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 
 The molasses and skimmings are fermented and distilled 
 for rum. But even of the molasses much is lost. The 
 drainage from the raw sugar of the West Indies, ■while at 
 sea, is stated at 15 per cent, and afterwards, in the docks, at 
 2 per cent — and further, the leakage of the molasses itself, 
 which is shipped as cuoh, is 20 per cent ; so that of the un- 
 crystallisable part of the sugar, also, there is a large waste. 
 In the interior of Java, where iuel is scarce, the molasses is 
 worthless, and is sent down the rivers in large quantities ; 
 but in the West Indies it has everywhere a market value, and 
 may be distilled with a profit. 
 
 Further losses of sugar firom the juice itself take place. 
 Some is lost in the sediment formed, some in the scum and 
 skimmings removed during the boiling. And when the juice 
 has been boiled down to the crystallising point and is allowed 
 to cool, much of the original sugar will have been converted 
 into an unorystallisable and syrupy form. This excessive pro- 
 duction of " molasses " may be avoided by the use of vacuum 
 pans in which the clarified juice is evaporated under a reduced 
 pressure and consequently at a lower degree of heat. 
 
 By the use of better modes of clarifying, which chemical 
 research has recently discovered — of charcoal filters before 
 boiling, which render skimming unnecessary — of steam and 
 vacuum boilers, by which burning is prevented, and rapid 
 concentration effected — of centrifugal drainers to dry the 
 sugar speedily and save the molasses — and of coal or wood 
 as fuel where the crushed cane is insufficient for the purpose, 
 — more and more planters in Java, in Cuba, and in our own 
 colonies, are now extracting and sending to market 10 to 12 
 per cent of raw sugar from the 100 lb. of canes. 
 
 The total quantity of sugar annually extracted from the 
 sugar-cane over the whole globe has been estimated at 5000 
 millions of pounds. Of this the largest proportion is yielded 
 by the British possessions in the East and West Indies. The 
 consumption in the United Kingdom amounted annually per 
 head of the population, as an average deduced from three 
 years at different periods to — 
 
 32 lb. in 1857, '58, '59 : 41J lb. in 1865, '66, '67 : 62i lb. in 1875, '76, '77. 
 
 In 1849 the total produce of cane-sugar was 849,000 tons : 
 it had risen to 1,880,000 tons in 1875. Our home consump- 
 
BEET-SUGAB. ]89 
 
 tion approached 1,000,000 tons in 1877, but in this figure we 
 do not distinguish between cane and beet sugar, which are 
 identical in nature. The total imports of sugar were — 
 
 ( Refined and candy, .... 834,452 cwts. 
 
 In 1867 < Raw 10,545,315 ,, 
 
 V Molasses 358,316 „ 
 
 f Refined and candy, .... 2,796,414 „ 
 
 In 1876 < Raw, 15,612,214 „ 
 
 I Molasses 498,441 ,, 
 
 The cane-sugars are popularly distinguished from the graper 
 sugars by greater sweetness or sweetening power. This is 
 said to be greater in the proportion of five to three.* They 
 also dissolve more readily in water. One pound of cold water 
 dissolves 3 lb. of cane, but only 1 lb. of grape sugar. The 
 solution is also thicker and more syrupy, less liable to change 
 or run to acid, crystallises more readily, and gives a harder 
 candy. These superior economical properties sufficiently 
 account for the preference so universally given to this species 
 of vegetable sweet. 
 
 Chemically, the cane differs fix)m the grape sugars in con- 
 taining loss of the elements of water, in being charred or 
 blackened by strong sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol), and in not 
 readily throwing down the red oxide of copper from solutions 
 of bhio vitriol (sulphate of copper). By the action of diluted 
 acids cane-sugar is converted into grape-sugar, and lience the 
 reason why, as I have already said, cane-sugar is less abun- 
 dant in plants which have acid juices, and why the souring of 
 the cane-juice changes a portion of its crystallisable sugar 
 into uncrystallisable syrup or molasses. 
 
 2°. Beet-root or European Sugar. — The root of the beet, 
 and especially of the variety caUed the sugar-beet (fig. 32), 
 contains often as much as an eighth part of its weight of 
 sugar. By squeezing out the juice, as in tlie case of the 
 Bugar-cano, oi> by 'dissolving out the sugar from the sliced 
 root and boiling down the solution, the raw sugar is obtained. 
 In this state, the sugar possesses a peculiar unpleasant flavour, 
 derived from the beet-root ; but when thoroughly refined, it 
 
 I The sense by which we appreciate the sweetness of bodies is liable to 
 singolar modifications. Thus the leaves of the Oymnema sylvestre—a plant 
 of Northern India — when chewed, take away the power of tasting sngar for 
 twenty-four hours, without otherwise injuring the general sense of taste. 
 
190 
 
 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 
 is indistinguishable in any respect from that of the sugar- 
 
 Fig. 3-2 
 
 The manufacture of this sugar is one of great and growiQg 
 importance, especially in France, Belgium, 
 Germany, and Kussia. Its history also 
 illustrates in a very striking way how 
 chemical skill may overcome, as it were, 
 the perversities of climate, and establish, 
 upon an artificial basis, an important 
 national interest, which shall successfully 
 compete in the markets of the world with 
 the most favoiired natural productions of 
 the choicest regions of the globe. 
 
 As early as 1747, Margraaf, in Berlin, 
 drew attention to the large quantity of 
 sugar contained in the beet, and recom- 
 mended its cultivation for the manufac- 
 ture of sugar. Fifty years later the attempt 
 was made in Silesia, under royal patron- 
 age.; but as only 2 or 3 per cent of 
 crystallised sugar could be extracted, the 
 work failed and was abandoned. Later, 
 again, the Continental system of Napo- 
 leon I., which raised the price of sugar 
 to five shiUings (six francs) a pound, and 
 especially the oiier of a prize of a million 
 of francs for the successful manufacture 
 of sugar from plants of home growth, 
 stimulated to new trials both in Germany and France. 
 New methods, new skiU, new machinery, and the results 
 of later chemical research, were all applied, and, with 
 the aid of high duties on foreign sugar, the manufacture 
 struggled on through a period of very sickly infancy. In 
 Germany fewer improvements were introduced at this time, 
 so that the new manufactories erected in that country, during 
 the reign of Napoleon, were one after another given up ; but 
 in France they became so firmly established, that even after 
 the cessation of the Continental system few of them were 
 abandoned. A more complete extraction of the sap, a quicker 
 and easier method of clarifying and filtering it, and the use 
 of steam to boil it down, enq^bled the French maker to extract 
 
 Sugar-Beet. 
 
 Scale, half an inch to 
 
 a foot. 
 
SUGAR IN BEET-ROOTS. 191 
 
 4 to 6 per cent of refined sugar from the 100 lb. of beet, and 
 thus to conduct his operations with a profit. In this im- 
 proved condition the manufacture, after a struggle of twenty 
 years, returned again towards the north, and spread not only 
 over Belgium and the different states of Germany, but over 
 Poland, and through the very heart of Eussia, as far as 
 Odessa on the Black Sea. And quite recently the' sugar- 
 beet has been made the subject of experiment in Siberia, roots 
 containing over 15 per cent of sugar having been grown 
 there. At the present time, an immense quantity of beet- 
 sugar is made in Europe. Not less than 1663 factories were 
 at work in 1870, France and Eussia having nearly 500 apiece. 
 The amount of beet-sugar produced in 1876 in five of the 
 chief European beet-growing countries may be given, as — 
 
 France, 462,300 tons. 
 
 German Empire, 346,700 
 
 European Russia, 245,000 „ 
 
 Auitro-Hungary „ 164,000 „ 
 
 Belgium 79,000 
 
 The Bugar-beet has been successfully grown in Ireland and 
 in several parts of England. Sugar has been made from it 
 at Lavenham in Sufiblk, and spirit of wine at Buscot near 
 Faringdon. 
 
 The average composition of the root of the sugar-beet of 
 France, Belgium, and the Ehenish provinces, is nearly as 
 follows : — 
 
 Sugar, lOJ 
 
 Gluten, ^ 
 
 Fibre &c ' . . 6 
 
 Soluble organic compounds, 1| 
 
 Ash or mineral matter, 1 
 
 Water, 81J 
 
 100 
 
 But this proportion of sugar varies very much. Thus it is 
 greater, — 
 
 a. In small beets weighing' about IJ lb. than in large, — 
 the larger beets being also more watery. 
 
 b. In some varieties, produced by careful selection and 
 cultivation. 
 
 c. In dry climates, and especially where the climate or 
 season is dry after the roots have begun to swell. 
 
 10 
 
192 THE SWEETS WE EXTEACT. , 
 
 d. In light potato or barley than in heavy soils. 
 
 e. In the part under than in that above ground. 
 
 f. When manure has not been directly applied to the crop. 
 These facts show how much practical agriculture has to do 
 
 with the success of this important manufacture. The differ- 
 ence of climate, soil, and mode of culture, have so much effect, 
 that, while the beets of Lille, a southern centre of the manu- 
 facture, do not average more than 10 to 12 per cent of sugar, 
 those of Magdeburg, a more northern centre, contain from 12 
 to 14 per cent. Under certain very favourable conditions, as 
 much as 18 per cent of sugar has been found, in the beet of 
 North Germany. The proportion of sugar is so much less in 
 the part that grows above ground, that it is always cut off to 
 feed cattle. This reminds us of the want of sweetness in the 
 upper part of the sugar-cane (p. 186), and the reason is prob- 
 ably the same in both cases, that the sugar is in these parts 
 transformed into woody matter. 
 
 The average proportion of sugar extracted in Belgium and 
 France is 7 lb. from every 100 of fresh root. In Ger- 
 many, the average yield varies between 8 and 9 lb. from 
 100 lb. of roots. 
 
 Several modes of extraction are in use. The root is 
 pulped, or sliced, and the juice in it extracted either by pres- 
 sure or by centrifugal force, or it is washed out by water. 
 An excellent method consists in allowing the sugar to diffiise 
 out into water. The clear juice obtained by any of these 
 processes is treated with lime, heated, filtered, carbonic acid 
 gas passed through to separate lime, boiled, allowed to 
 settle, filtered through animal charcoal, boiled down by steam 
 to the crystallising point, and then, as in the case of cane- 
 sugar, cooled and drained from the molasses. From the beet, 
 the molasses thus obtained is colourless, but it has a disagree- 
 able taste, and cannot, therefore, like cane-molasses, be directly 
 employed for any sweetening purpose. The raw sugar has 
 also an unpleasant taste, and is in consequence refined, for 
 the most part, before it is brought to market. 
 
 It is interesting to remark how new improvements in this 
 manufacture constantly make known new chemical diflBculties, 
 and present new chemical and agricultural problems to be 
 solved. The first great difficulty was, to prevent the fermen- 
 tation of the juice, tlie production of acid, and the simultane- 
 
MANURES FOR SUGAR-BEET. 193 
 
 OU8 waste of sugar and conversion of a part of it into nncrys- 
 tallisable syrup. The second was, to looil it down so as to 
 prevent burning, and the production of uncrystallisablo mo- 
 lasses. The former has been overcome by various chemical 
 moans, as the use of sulphurous acid or its compounds,^ and 
 the latter by the use of steam. But as the yield of sugar 
 approached to 7 per cent, it was found that certain syrups 
 remained behind, which, though they certainly contained cane- 
 sugar, refused stubbornly to crystallise ; and the reason of 
 this was traced to the presence of saline matter, cliiefly copi- 
 mon salt, in the sap. This salt forms a compound with the 
 sugar, and prevents it from crystallising. And so powerful 
 is this influence, that 1 per cent of salt in the sap will render 
 3 per cent of the sugar uncrystaUisable. To overcome this 
 difficulty, new chemical inquiries were necessary. As results 
 of these inquiries, it was ascertained — 
 
 First, That the proportion of sugar was larger, and of salts 
 less, in beets not weighing more than 5 lb. The first prac- 
 tical step, therefore, was, that the sugar-manufacturers an- 
 nounced to the cultivators who raised the beet, that in fiiture 
 they would give a less price for roots weighing more than 
 5 1b. 
 
 Next, That a crop raised by means of the direct application 
 of manure contained more salt, and gave more uncrystaUisable 
 syrup, than when raised without direct manuring. A larger 
 price, therefore, was offered for roots grown upon land which 
 had been manured during the previous winter ; a higher still 
 for such as were raised after a manured crop of com ; and a 
 still higher when, after the manuring, two crops of com were 
 taken before the beet was sown. Recent experiments have, 
 however, shown that although some manures, as nitrate of 
 soda and guano, do increase the salts of beet injuriously, 
 moderate doses of superphosphate are not prejudicial. 
 
 Thus the diflSculty was lessened by chemico-agricultural 
 means ; and though the crop was less in weight to the farmer, the 
 higher price he obtained in some degree made up the difference. 
 
 1 Sulphurous acid is the name given by chemists to the strong-smelling 
 funiea given off by burning sulphur. In one proportion, it forms with lime 
 sulphite of lime ; in twice this proportion, it forms 6i-sulphite (6w twice). 
 This bisulphite is soluble in water, and a little of the solution added to the 
 weak sugary liquors prevents them from fermenting. 
 
194 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 
 In France and Belgium, the crops gathered average 14 or 
 15 tons an acre, while about Magdeburg they do not exceed 10- 
 or 12 tons. But the latter are richer in sugar, and poorer in 
 salts, in proportion. It should be stated that these salts are 
 now extracted and purified in special chemical works. Beets 
 yield, in fact, four distinct products — 
 
 1. Crystallised sugar. 
 
 2. Exhausted pulp, very useful for cattle-food. 
 
 3. Alcohol obtained by fenneutation from the Tmcrystallisahle sugar. 
 
 4. Potash-salts. 
 
 One other point in this history is very interesting, as illus- 
 trative of the way in which a tax upon manufacturing industry 
 may be made actually to promote, instead of retarding its 
 advancement I The tax on beet-sugar within the bounds of 
 the former German Customs Union (ZoUverein), was levied, 
 hot on the sugar actually produced, but upon the weight of 
 raw beets employed by the manufacturer. It was assumed 
 that the roots would yield 5 per cent, or one-twentieth of their 
 weight of sugar ; and then upon every 20 cwt. of roots a tax 
 of two dollars was imposed. According to the assumed yield 
 of sugar, this was equal to a tax of two dollars on every hun- 
 dredweight of sugar. But in reality it was much less. By 
 the improved methods, one of sugar was soon extracted from 
 about twelve of the root ; and the more he could extract, the 
 less duty in proportion the manufacturer paid. Thus he was 
 continually stimulated to improve his methods. The absolute 
 gain which he derived from an increased produce per cent, 
 was enhanced by the peculiar satisfaction which arose from the 
 consciousness that every additional pound he extracted was 
 to him duty free. 
 
 And the profit he thus makes is at the same time a source 
 of gain to others. It is the character of all scientific progress, 
 that an advanced step taken in one country is at once a signal 
 for similar steps in other countries, and an assurance that they 
 will by-and-by be taken. Thus the improvements which arose 
 out of the fiscal regulations of the German ZoUverein were 
 gradually introduced into the boiling-houses of Cuba, and 
 they, with other improvements, are making more perfect and 
 profitable the planting operations of our own West India 
 colonies. 
 
 3°. Falvi or Date Sugar, or Jaggery. — Most trees of the 
 
PALM-SUGAB. 
 
 195 
 
 palm tribe, when their top-shoot, or spadix as it is called, is 
 wounded, yield a copious supply of sweet juice. When boiled 
 down, this juice gives a brownish raw sugar, known in India 
 by the name of jaggery. The following are the chief sugar- 
 producing palms : — 
 
 Palmyra palm, Borassus floMliformis ; Ceylon, India, Central Africa. 
 Talipot palm, Corypha umbracuU/era ; Ceylon. 
 Date palm, Pluxnix dactylifera; N. Africa, W. Asia. 
 Toddy palm, / ^'^"'^ iylvt>tria; ) j,,^;^ 
 I Caryota urens ; ) 
 
 The gommuti palm {Saguerus saccharifer), fig. 33, is still more 
 productive, and, in the Moluccas 
 and Philippines, yields much ^'S- 33. 
 
 sugar. The sap of the cocoa-nut 
 tree is boiled down in the South 
 Sea Islands tiU it has the consist- 
 ence of a brown syrup, resembling 
 very much the molasses which 
 drains from raw cane-sugar ; but 
 the wild date-palm, or toddy or 
 wine [Plicenix sylvestris), is the 
 largest known sugar - producer. 
 From this tree it is said that 
 60,000 tons,^ or 130,000,000 lb. 
 are yearly extracted. Of this 
 quantity, 5000 tons, or 11,000,000 
 lb., are extracted in Bengal alone. 
 Indeed the chief production as 
 well as consumption of this date- 
 sugar is in India. A good deal 
 of it is imported into this country, 
 sometimes under its true name of 
 jaggery, or East India date-sugar, 
 but often, also, under that of cane-sugar. These sugars are 
 worth in the London markets about 13s. to 15s. per cwt. 
 
 This palm-sugar, indeed, from whichever of the trees it is 
 extracted, is exactly the same species of sugar a.s is yielded 
 by the sugar-cane. It differs chiefly in the flavour of the 
 molasses which drains from and colours the raw sugar. MTien 
 refined, it cannot be distinguished from refined West India 
 ' ArcIier'g'Popular Economic Botany, p. 140. 
 
 Sa0ttrva aaechari/er—Th& 
 
 Gommuti Palm. 
 Scale, 1 inch to 20 feet. 
 
196 
 
 THE SWEETS WE EXTKACT. 
 
 sugar. The flavour of the molasses is not unpleasant, so that 
 
 it is readily eaten by the natives of the various tropical 
 
 regions in which the palm-trees grow. 
 
 The total known produce of palm-sugar is estimated at 
 
 150,000 tons. This is about one-twenty-fourth part of all 
 
 the cane-sugar extracted for useful purposes. 
 
 Other non-acid fruits, like the melon, the chestnut, and the 
 
 cocoa-nut, contain cane-sugar, but it is not extracted from 
 
 them as an article of commerce. 
 
 4°. Maple or North American Sugar. — The sugar-maple 
 
 [Acer saccharinum), fig. 34, grows abundantly in the northern 
 
 parts of New England, along 
 '^' ■ the lakes and in the British 
 
 provinces of North America. 
 Three other American species 
 of maple also yield sugar. 
 The four States of New Hamp- 
 shire, Vermont, New York, 
 and Michigan produce to- 
 gether upwards of 20,000,000 
 lb., and the Canadas together 
 about 7,000,000 lb. of maple- 
 sugar. In 1870, 1,500,000 lb. 
 were produced in Pennsylva- 
 nia. The settlers generally, 
 when they clear their virgin 
 farms, reserve a few trees to 
 make sugar for the use of their 
 families ; but, in many places, 
 extensive natural forests of 
 maple-trees still cover fertile 
 tracts of uncultivated country, 
 and there the sugar is manu- 
 factured in large quantities. 
 The average yield of each tree 
 is estimated in Lower Canada 
 at 1 lb ; and the right of 
 making the sugar is there 
 
 rented out by the proprietor at one-fifth of the supposed 
 
 produce, or 1 lb. of sugar for every five trees. When the 
 
 month of March arrives, the sugar-makers start for the 
 
 Acer saccharinum— Ih^ Sugar-Maple. 
 Scale, 1 inch to 30 feet. 
 Leaf, 1 inch to 5 inches. 
 
MAPLE-SUGAR. 197 
 
 forest, carrying with them a large pot, a few buckets and 
 other utensils, their axes, and a supply of food. They erect 
 a shanty where the maple-trees are most numerous, make 
 incisions into as many as they can visit twice a-day for the 
 purpose of collecting the sap, boil down this sap to the crystal- 
 lising pouit, and pour it into oblong brick-shaped moulds, 
 in which it solidifies. In this way, in the valley of the 
 Ghaudiere, from 3000 to 5000 lb. of sugar are sometimes made 
 during the season of two months by a single party of two or 
 three men. 
 
 It is a singular circumstance in the chemical liistory of the 
 sap of this tree, that the first which flows for some time after 
 the incision is made, is clear, colourless, and without taste. 
 After standing a day or two, this sap becomes sweet ; and a 
 few days after the sap has begun to run, it flows sweet from 
 the ti-ee. The average percentage of sugar in the sap does 
 not exceed 2. The last sap which the tree yields is thick, 
 and makes an inferior sugar. When boiled carefully in earth- 
 enware or glazed pots, the clear sap gives at once a beauti- 
 fully white sugar, and especially if it be drained in moulds 
 and clayed, as is done with common loaf-sugar. In this pure 
 white condition it is not to be distinguished fi:om refined 
 cane-sugar. It is identical with pure cane-sugar in all its 
 properties. 
 
 For domestic use it is generally preferred of a brown, and 
 by many of a dark-brown colour, because of the rich maple 
 flavour it possesses. This flavour, though peculiar, and 
 therefore new to a stranger in North America, soon becomes 
 very much relished. The brown sugar is an article of regular 
 diet among the Lower Canadians. On fast-days, bread and 
 maple-sugar, or maple-honey, as the molasses of this sugar is 
 called, are eaten in preference to fish. In spring, when plen- 
 tiful, it sells as low as 3d. a-pound : in winter it rises some- 
 times as high as 6d.^ 
 
 It is an interesting character of the maple-juice, when boiled 
 to the crystallising point, that the molasses which drains firom 
 it is agreeable to the taste, and is relished as a domestic 
 luxury. In this respect it is superior even to the molasses of 
 the sugar-cane. Were beet-root molasses eatable in a similar 
 way, the manufacture of beet-sugar would have had fewer 
 1 See the Author's Notes on North America, vol. i. p. 303. 
 
198 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 
 difficulties to overcome ; and it would have been now both 
 easier to conduct and more profitable in its results. 
 
 The total production of maple-sugar in 1850 was estimated 
 at 45,000,000 lb., or the one hundred and twenty-fifth part 
 (tJt) of the whole quantity of cane-sugar then extracted for 
 the use of man. The manufacture of maple-sugar diminishes 
 yearly in proportion as the native American forests are cut 
 down. 
 
 5°. Maize or Mexican Sugar. — The green stallcs of maize or 
 Indian com contain a sweet juice, which, when boiled down, 
 yields an agreeable variety of cane-sugar. This sugar was 
 known and extracted by the ancient Mexicans, and was in 
 use among them prior to the Spanish invasion. For this 
 reason I have distinguished it as Mexican sugar. 
 
 The manufacture of this sugar has been attempted of late 
 years in the United States, and many persons have success- 
 fully extracted a sufficiency for their domestic consumption. 
 It has not hitherto, however, been prepared in such quantity, 
 or at such a price, as publicly to compete in the market with 
 sugar from the cane ; but there seems no reason why this 
 branch of industry should not be successfully prosecuted, 
 especially in those States of the North American Union 
 which are known to be more eminently favourable to the 
 growth of maize. 
 
 The extraction of sugar from this plant has also been 
 attempted in southern Europe. A manufactory of it in the 
 south of France, in the neighbourhood of Toulouse, produced 
 about 20,000 lb. of sugar a-year. 
 
 6°. Sorghum-Sugar. — In China, under the name of " sugar- 
 cane of the north," a species of sorghum is cultivated for the 
 extraction of sugar. This plant is aUied to the Sorghum vul- 
 gare, or dhurra plant (fig. 13), of which a description has 
 already been given.^ This plant was introduced into France, 
 and experiments made upon it by M. Vilmorin. He states 
 that it is capable of yielding, on an average, from an acre of 
 land, 26,000 lb. of juice, containing from 10 to 13 per cent of 
 sugar ; and that this is more than the average yield of the 
 sugar-beet. It is alleged, however, that the plant is adapted 
 to only a few parts of the south of France. Gynerium saccha- 
 roides, a Brazilian grass, is another sugar-yielding plant. 
 1 See " The Bread we Eat," p. 77. 
 
CONSUMPTION OF SUGAK. 
 
 199 
 
 The estimated yearly production of sugar from its four 
 chief sources may be set down as probably near the following 
 figures : — 
 
 Percentage of 
 Tons. tbe whole 
 
 prodnctioiL 
 
 Cane-augar, . . 2,140,000 69;2 
 
 Beet-sugar, . . . 1,318,000 36.5 
 
 Palm-sugar, . . . 150,000 i.l 
 
 Maple-sugar, . , . 6,000 .2 
 
 Total, . 3,613,000 100.0 
 
 The annual consumption of sugar per head in 16 European 
 states is represented by these figures : — 
 
 
 lb. 
 
 
 
 
 lb. 
 
 United Kingdom, . 
 
 63 
 
 Austro-Hvingary, , , 15 
 
 Denmark, 
 
 83^ 
 
 Norway, 
 
 
 12i 
 
 HoUand, 
 
 25 
 
 Portugal, 
 
 
 
 84 
 
 Belgium, 
 
 23i 
 
 Greece, . 
 
 
 
 64 
 
 Sweden, 
 
 17 
 
 Bussia, . 
 
 
 
 64 
 
 German Empire, 
 
 16J 
 
 Turkey, 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 Switzerland, . 
 
 16 
 
 Italy, . 
 
 
 
 84 
 
 Prance, . 
 
 IH 
 
 Spain, . 
 
 
 
 04 
 
 In the United States the consumption per head is 37f lb. ; 
 in British America, 51^ ; and in Australia, 86. 
 
 The accompanying map represents to the eye the several 
 parts of the world in which cane, maple, and beet sugar are 
 chiefly extracted. (See p. 200.) 
 
 Wide difierences exist among the quantities constuued per 
 head in different countries — that of Kussia being very low, 
 and that of Venezuela being stated as 180 lb. annually I In 
 1835 the yearly consumption of sugar per head in Great 
 Britain was but 17f lb. ; in 1876 it had risen to 63 lb. With 
 tlie peculiar circumstances which occasion so large a con- 
 Buibption in Venezuela I am unacquainted. Eefiued sugar is 
 shipped to that country largely from Europe. 
 
 Of course much of the sugar produced is ultimately fer- 
 mented and changed into spirit, and so can no longer be 
 reckoned as food. But that which is directly consumed as a 
 food does serve to maintain the heat and activity of the body. 
 One physiological effect of cane-sugar appears to be the less- 
 ening of the waste of phosphates, and the increase of their 
 absorption. In the young the production of bone, and in the 
 old its conservation, maybe thus beneficially influenced. But 
 
200 
 
 THE SWEETS WE EXTKACT. 
 
 its great use is as a giver of heat and energy, and one more 
 easily digested than fat or even starch. 
 
CHEMISTRY AND SUGAR-MAKING. 201 
 
 Before leaving this part of my subject, I may be permitted, 
 in the interest of chemical science, to ask my reader to re- 
 flect— 
 
 ^ 1°. How important an interest, economical and social, the 
 history of sugar-extraction exhibits to us as depending di- 
 rectly upon chemical research and progress, and upon the 
 difiusion and application of chemical knowledge. 
 
 2^ How largely successive applications of this branch of 
 knowledge have already benefited the manufacture of sugar, 
 and aided in bringing this luxury within the reach of the 
 poorer classes. 
 
 3°. And especially, how chemistry has earned the deserved 
 gratitude of the European continent, by giving it an entirely 
 new industry, and by making it independent of foreign coun- 
 tries for one of the most esteemed and now almost necessary 
 luxuries of life. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 
 THE MANNA AND MILK SUGARS. 
 
 Manna-sngars; their sensilile and chemical characters. — Manna of the ash; 
 its composition and uses. — Occurrence of manna-sugar in sea-weeds. — 
 Gum-tree manna. — Other mannas. — Oak, larch, and cedar mannas. — 
 Persian manna.— The alhagi and tamarisk mannas.— The manna of the 
 Scriptures ; trees supposed to produce it. — The real manna not known. — • 
 Liquorice-sugar. ^ — Milk-sugar. — Analogies in the composition of cane, 
 grape, and milk sugar. — How the two former are produced from each 
 other, from starch, and from cellulose, &e. — What chemists understand by 
 chemical reactions. — How a knowledge of these improves old and gives 
 rise to new chemical arts. — Illustration in the manufacture of sugar, glass, 
 and dyes. 
 
 III. The Manna-Sugars form a third class of sugars which 
 are 'distinguished from the grape and cane sugars by three 
 principal characters. First, by their chemical composition ; 
 secondly, by their inferior sweetness ; and thirdly, by their not 
 fermenting when mingled with yeast. Of this class, also, 
 there are several varieties. 
 
 1°. Manna of the Ash. — Two species of ash, the Fraxinus 
 ornus, and the F. rotundifolia, yield this kind of sugar. The 
 European supply is chiefly derived from Sicily and Cal- 
 abria. The F. ornus, a small tree of 20 to 25 feet high, 
 is there cultivated in plantations for the purpose. In the 
 months of July and August, when the production of leaves 
 has ceased, the sap is drawn from the tree. For this purpose, 
 cross cuts, about 2 inches long (fig. 35), are made in the 
 
COMPOSITION OF MANNA. 
 
 203 
 
 Btem, beginning at the lower part near the soil. These are 
 repeated every day in wann weather, extending them perpen- 
 dicularly upwards along 
 the one side of the tree, '^' ' 
 
 leaving the other to be 
 cut in the following 
 year. The sap flows 
 from these incisions, 
 and is sometimes col- 
 lected in vessels, and 
 sometimes allowed to 
 harden on the outside 
 of the tree. It is very 
 rich in sugar, and speed- 
 ily concretes in fine 
 weather into the manna 
 of commerce. The qual- 
 ity of the manna varies 
 " with the age of the tree, 
 and with the part of the 
 stem (lower or higher) 
 from which it flows, and 
 with the period of the 
 season in which it is 
 extracted. From the 
 upper incisions, from trees of middle age, and in the height of 
 the season when the sap flows most freely, the flake manna, 
 most esteemed in England, is obtained in largest quantity. 
 
 Manna — besides a variable proportion of gum, which in 
 some varieties amounts to a third of its weight — contains two 
 kinds of sugar. The larger proportion consists of a peculiar, 
 colourless, beautifully crystalline sugar, to which the name of 
 mannite is given. This forms from 30 to 60 per cent of the 
 whole manna, and is properly the maima-sugar. Mixed with 
 this there is from 5 to 10 per cent of a sugar resembhng that 
 of the grape, and which ferments with yeast. 
 
 When newly extracted, manna is found to be nutritious, as 
 well as agreeable to the taste ; and a considerable quantity of 
 it is used as food, especially in Calabria. As it becomes old, 
 however, it acquires a mild laxative quality, when taken in 
 doses of an ounce or two, which unfits it for use as a part 
 
 Frtucinus omits — The Manna Ash, and the 
 mode of collecting the manna. 
 
204 THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. 
 
 of the ordinary diet. This latter quality recommends it for 
 use as a medicinal agent, for which purpose it is exported to 
 various parts of Europe. The quantity yearly imported into 
 Great Britain amounts to about 11,000 lb., nearly all of which 
 comes from Sicily. 
 
 This medicinal quality does not reside in the mannite or 
 true sugar of manna, but in the other matters with which it is 
 contaminated. By itself, in the pure or refined state, this 
 sugar has no appreciable medicinal action, and, were it abun- 
 dant and cheap, might be employed for ordinary sweetening 
 purposes. It is less sweet than cane-sugar, and may be 
 crystallised from hot spirit. It dissolves in about five parts of 
 cold water. 
 
 It is a singular fact that this peculiar manna-sugar exists 
 in many familiar sea-weeds. It gives their sweet taste to 
 those which are collected for eating along various parts of our 
 coasts, and is found in smaller quantity in many which are 
 not perceptibly sweet to the taste. The Laminaria saccharina, 
 when quite dry, contains above 12 per cent, or one-eighth ' 
 part of its weight, of mannite. When the plant is dried in 
 the air, the sugar exudes, and forms a white incrustation on 
 its leaves. The Halidrys siltquosa contains from 5 to 6 per 
 cent, and even the common Fucus vesiculosits 1 or 2 per cent 
 — (Stenhouse). No use is made of this sugar of sea-weeds, 
 except in so far as it assists, in some cases, in making them 
 eatable. 
 
 Mannite in small quantity may also be extracted from many 
 kinds of fungi, from common celery, and from the root of the 
 dandelion ; and it can be formed artificially from cane and 
 fruit sugar. 
 
 2.° Eucalyptus Sugar, or Gum-tree Manna. — The genus 
 Eucalyptus, or gum-tree of the colonists (fig. 36), forms a dis- 
 tinguishing feature in the landscape and forest scenery of 
 Australia and Van Diemen's Land. At certain seasons of the 
 year, a sweet substance exudes from the leaves of these trees, 
 and dries in the sun. When the wind blows so as to shake 
 trees, this Australian manna is sometimes seen to fall like a 
 shower of snow. Like the true manna, this sweet substance 
 contains a peculiar crystaUisable sugar (melitose) — different, 
 however, in composition and in some of its properties, from the 
 mannite already described. 
 
VARIETIES OF MANNA. 
 
 205 
 
 3°. Other Mannas. — Other sweet substances also are ob- 
 tained from plants, to which the name of manna has been 
 given ; but these products con- 
 tain a variety of different sugars, 
 some closely related to true 
 manna-sugar, and some to grape- 
 sugar. Thus a peculiar sugar, 
 called quercite, has been extract- 
 ed from acorns, and from a palm, 
 the Chamaerops humilis: another 
 kind, known as pinite, from the 
 leaves of Pinus Lambertiana. A 
 kind of oak-manna exudes from 
 the leaves of a species of oak 
 common in Kurdistan, and 
 known to botanists as the Quer- 
 cuf mannifera, or manna-bearing 
 oak. Larch-manna is a sweet 
 substance which, in some coun- 
 tries, is found upon the Euro- 
 pean larch [Larix europma) 
 about the month of June. Cedar- 
 manna occurs in small globules 
 on the branches of the Cedrus 
 UbanL It is brought from 
 Mount Lebanon, where it sells 
 as high as 20s. or 30s. an ounce. 
 It is much esteemed in Syria 
 as a remedy for affections of the 
 chest. Persian manna, or Oen, 
 called also Alhagi manna, and 
 by the Arabs Tereng jahim, is obtained from the camel's thorn 
 {Hedysarum alkago), a plant which is indigenous over a large 
 portion of the East. It yields manna, however, only in 
 Persia, Bokhara, Arabia, and Palestine. Extensive plains are 
 in these countries covered with alhagi, and it is of great 
 importance as food for the camels, as well as for sheep and 
 goats. From the wounds produced by the browsing of these 
 animals the manna chiefly exudes. It is collected by the 
 Arabs and caravans which cross the Desert, and is used as 
 food. It is gathered by merely shaking the branches. 
 
 Kucalyptus retinifem — The Iron Bark 
 
 Gum-tree. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 60 feet. 
 
 Leaves, 1 inch to 6 inches. 
 
206 
 
 THE SWEETS "WE EXTRACT. 
 
 Fig. 37. 
 
 Tamarisk-manna is obtained from the Tamarix mannifera, 
 a tree which grows abundantly in the neighbourhood of Mount 
 Sinai. The manna of the Old Testament is supposed by some 
 to have been that of the camel's thorn, and by others that of 
 the tamarisk. Both trees grow in the wilderness of Sin, along 
 certain parts of the route of the ancient Israelites, and both 
 yield limited supplies of a sweet manna. If the produce of 
 either of these trees was the true manna of the Israelites, the 
 miracle by which they were so long fed with it consisted — 
 first, in a wonderful multiplication of the produce, so as to 
 sustain millions where probably not a score of persons could 
 be sustained on the quantity naturally produced ; and, secondly, 
 in causing it to follow and fall daily around them in parts of 
 the wilderness where none of the trees grow, and in equal 
 abundance all the year round. That 
 is to say, the sustenance of the wan- 
 dering people was the result of a 
 constant miracle, whether the man- 
 na was of a kind which might or 
 might not have been derived from 
 either of these natural sources. 
 
 In the Wady Feiran — the vaUey 
 which leads from the Gulf of Suez 
 towards Mount Sinai — the traveller 
 passes through thick avenues of 
 Tarfa trees {Tamarix mannifera, 
 iig. 37), bending over his head like 
 the alleys of a garden. This tree 
 " resembles the weeping birch, but 
 is still more delicate in appearance, 
 and the so-caUed manna flows in 
 drops from the extremities of its 
 slender pensile boughs. - A small 
 quantity is collected and carried to 
 the convent of Sinai, where it is 
 prepared by- boiling and put into 
 small tin cases, which are disposed of to pilgrims and other, 
 visitors. In this state it resembles melted gum with small 
 rounded grains in it, and has a somewhat similar taste, only 
 sweeter and rather aromatic." ^ The manna is supposed to 
 ' Bartlett's Forty Days in the Desert, p. 68. The figure I have given does 
 
 taituirix gallica «Kmn(/era— The 
 
 Manna-bearing Tamarisk. 
 
 Scale, 1 incli to 12 feet. 
 
 Flowering brancli, 1 to 5 inclies. 
 
MANNA OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 207 
 
 flow in consequence of the puncture of the Coccxis manniparus, 
 an insect which infests "the tamarisk-trees. It exudes as a 
 tliick syrup, which, during the heat of the day, falls in drops, 
 but during the night congeals, and is gathered in the cool of 
 the morning. Its solution in water readily ferments. It is 
 eaten in Palestine and about Sinai as a delicacy, and, hke 
 the cedar-manna, is esteemed as a remedy in diseases of the 
 chest. The total quantity of this manna now collected in the 
 desert of Sinai appears to be comparatively trifling. 
 
 Dr Milman and Dr Lepsius both regard this sweet sub- 
 stance as the manna of Scripture, and consider its properties 
 to be generally the same as those ascribed by Moses to that 
 collected by the children of Israel. Dr Robinson, on the other 
 hand, denies that their properties at all correspond. I agree 
 with Dr Bobinson. In doing so, however, I do not lay so 
 much stress on alleged differences in taste, in general appear- 
 ance, &c,, as on the very remarkable property mentioned in 
 the following passage : — 
 
 " And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning. 
 Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses ; but some of 
 them left of it till the morning, and it bred worms, and stank: 
 and Moses was wroth with them." — (Exodus xvi. 19, 20.) 
 
 This rapid putrefaction, the smell, and the breeding of 
 worms, are properties which belong to no known variety of 
 sweet vegetable exudation. It implies something of an 
 animal nature, or the presence in considerable quantity of a 
 substance analogous to the gluten of plants or the fibrin of 
 animals.^ And the presence of such a substance, again, 
 accounts for the very nutritious quality ascribed to this manna, 
 and which is so superior to that of any other vegetable sweet 
 with which wo are acquainted. The manna of Scripture, 
 therefore, I believe to be still unknown, as well as the im- 
 mediate or natural source from which it might have been 
 derived. 
 
 Orcin Manna. — Orcin is a sweet substance which exists 
 ready formed in some lichens, and may also be obtained by 
 
 not represent the graceful tree descrited ty Bartlett. It varies in appearance 
 in different localities, and I cannot find that any representation of the entire 
 tree has anywhere been published. In a book so beautiful as Mr Bartlett's 
 one might have oipected to find this tree, which he describes so graphically. 
 ' See "The Beef we Cook." 
 
208 
 
 THE SWEETS WE EXTKACT. 
 
 the chemical treatment of allied substances present in these 
 plants. In chemical composition and properties' it is very 
 different from any of our common sweets, and it has a dis- 
 agreeable after-taste, which would alone prevent it from find- 
 ing a place .among the luxuries of life. 
 
 Fig. 38. 
 
 IV. LiQuoRiCE-SuGAK. — The root of the common liquorice 
 {Glyofrrhiza glabra), fig. 38, contains a peculiar yellow, un- 
 crystallisable, sv^eet substance, which, 
 when united with an alkali, becomes 
 dark-brown. The dried extract is known 
 in this couiitry under the names of 
 Spanish and Italian juice, from the 
 countries in which it is most abundantly 
 produced ; it is also grown in Eussia. 
 It differs in flavour from all the other 
 sugars I have mentioned ; it does not 
 crystallise, and it does not ferment 
 when yeast is added to it. It is called 
 glycyrrhizin, and contains in 100 parts 
 — carbon, 61.5 ; hydrogen, 7.6 ; and 
 oxygen, 30.9. 
 
 For medicinal purposes the root is 
 largely cultivated at Mitcham in Sur- 
 rey, and other places. The extract is 
 imported partly in the sticks, known 
 under the name of Spanish Liquorice; 
 and partly in solid masses, run into 
 boxes containing about two hundred- 
 weight each. In 1850 about 500 tons 
 were imported. In 1867 the imports 
 were 1676 tons ; and in 1876 they were 
 1096 tons. It does not compete direct- 
 ly, however, with cane-sugar. A con- 
 siderable quantity, no doubt, is eaten as 
 a sweet, and to give relief to affections of the throat, but the 
 principal consumption is said to be by the brewers in the 
 manufacture of porter. 
 
 The roots of Glycyrrhiza echmata jMxi G. glandulifera, of Tri- 
 folium alpinum, and of Abrus precatorius, are said to possess the 
 same properties as the common liquorice ; and among other 
 
 Glyeyrrliiza glabra — ^The 
 
 Liquoripe-plant. 
 
 Scale, half an inch to a foot. 
 
SUGARS COMPAliED. 209 
 
 sweets which resemble tliat of liquorice, is one which is 
 found in the root of the Ononis spinosa. 
 
 V. MiLK-SuQAR. — Milk contains a peculiar species of sugar, 
 to which the sweetness of milk is owing. When the curd is 
 separated in the making of cheese, the sugar remains in the 
 whey, and may be obtained in the form of crystals by boiling 
 the whey to a small bulk, and setting it aside to cooL This 
 sugar crystallises ; it is hard, gritty, and rough when crushed 
 between the teeth, and is less soluble and less sweet than grape- 
 sugar. In Switzerland and some other cheese countries it is 
 extracted for sale, but the manufacture and consumption of 
 milk-sugar is on the whole very -trifling. In the preparation 
 of the pilules and globules of the homoeopaths it is, however, 
 employed, while it forms a desirable addition to the diluted 
 cow's milk used in feeding very young children. There are 
 about 5 parts of milk-sugar in 100 of cow's milk, while woman's 
 milk contains 7 per cent. In plants, milk-sugar rarely occurs, 
 — the acorn being almost the only common vegetable produc- 
 tion in which it has as yet been detected. 
 
 Among the most important of the varieties of sug-ar above 
 described — the grape, fruit, cane, and milk sugars — there 
 exists a remarkable analogy in chemical composition. They 
 all consist of the three elementary bodies already described 
 under the names of Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen.' And 
 in all of them the hydrogen and oxygen are in the propor- 
 tions to form water, so that we can, for simplicity of language, 
 say that they are composed of carbon and water. The pro- 
 portion of this water is not the same in each variety of sugar, 
 neither is it always different. Comparing together quantities 
 of various sugars which contain 12 atoms of carbon, the por- 
 portion of water in each kind wUl be — 
 
 Carbon, Water, 
 
 Cane-sugar and dried milk-sugar, . 144 198 
 
 Grape, fruit, and starch sugar, , . 144 216 
 
 Milk-sugar, 144 216 
 
 Or, simplifying these numbers as far as possible, we find — 
 
 72 lb, of carbon and 99 of water form 171 lb. of cane or dried milk sugar. 
 72 „ 108 ,, 180 lb. of grape, fruit, starch, and 
 
 crystallised milk sugar. 
 
 1 See Chaps. I. and II., " Tlie Air we Breathe," and "The Water we Dtink." 
 
210 THE SWEETS WE EXTKACT. 
 
 The proportions of carbon and water in crystallised cane and 
 milk sugars are identical ; and yet between these two kinds 
 of sugar the difference of properties is equally great. This 
 last is a very remarkable circumstance, and presents the first 
 example which has fallen in our way of one of the most inter- 
 esting discoveries of modern chemistry — that two compound 
 substances may consist of the same elementary bodies united 
 together in ihe same proportions, and yet be very dififerent 
 from each other in their properties. 
 
 Other kindred illustrations of this principle are presented 
 by cellular tissue (cellulose), starch, and dextrine, which, as 
 I have explained (p. 182), may be artificially converted into 
 grape-sugar by the action of weak sulphuric acid. Thus — 
 
 72 lb. of carbon nnited to 90 lb. of water, form 162 lb. either of cellulose, 
 of starch, or of dextrine. 
 
 And yet each of these three substances is very different in its 
 properties from either of the other two. 
 
 Now, regarding substances so composed, it is not difficult, 
 with the aid of this knowledge, to form a general idea of the 
 way in which they may be transformed, one into the other. 
 Thus— 
 
 162 of starch, with 18 of water, may form 180 of grape-sngar. 
 342 of cane-sugar, with 18 of water, may form 360 of grape-sugar. 
 
 And changes of this kind really take place in nature. The 
 starch of the tasteless pear, of the banana, and of the bread- 
 fruit (p. 85), changes into sugar as the fruit ripens and be- 
 comes sweet. And by the action of acids in the sour saps of 
 plants, and in somewhat acid fruits, cane-sugar, which is first 
 produced, is changed into grape-sugar. In all these cases, 
 the substance which disappears only combines with a little 
 more water to form the new compound which is produced. 
 
 And we artificially imitate these natural operations when, in 
 the manufacture of potato-sugar, we transform the starch of 
 the potato into a sweet resembling the sugar of grapes, or 
 when, by the prolonged action of sulphuric acid, we change 
 sawdust or rags into a similar sweet. 
 
 In these changes, the acid employed possesses the singtdar 
 property of causing cellulose or starch to unite with a larger 
 proportion of the elements of water, and thus to assume 
 the form of grape-sugar. And it is out of such observed 
 
APPLICATIONS OF CHEMISTRY. 211 
 
 rcactiotxs of bodies — as such influences are called — that new 
 chemical arts are daily springing up. Thus the manufacture 
 of potato-sugar, already described, is a valuable independent 
 art, founded solely upon a knowledge of this action of sul- 
 phuric acid. But many other arts, besides, have been either 
 wholly based upon or have been greatly improved by the 
 application of this property. It has, for instance, been em- 
 ployed in the purification and preparation of the colouring 
 matter of madder-root '^ (Bubia tinctorutn). 
 
 Thousands of similar reactions are known to chemists ; and 
 the origin of almost every art of life may be traced to the first 
 observation of some one of the countless visible influences 
 which one form of matter exercises over another. 
 
 Melted soda dissolves sea-sand, and the solution, when cold, 
 is our common window-glass. Hence the magnificent glass- 
 trade of our time. 
 
 Potash molted with hoofs and horns, and thrown carelessly 
 into water containing iron, gave an intense blue colour. 
 This was Prussian blue ; and hence a crowd of arts and 
 manufactures, and of beautiful applications of chemistry, 
 have sprang up. 
 
 Every day new arts sprout up, as it worn, beneath our feet, 
 as we linger in our laboratories observing the new reactions 
 of probably new bodies ; and in each now art is seen a new 
 means of adding to the comforts and luxuries of mankind, of 
 giving new materia;l8 and facilities to commerce, and of in- 
 creasing the power and resources of nations. 
 
 For pleasing examples of such arts — ^just bursting into leaf 
 like the buds before our eyes in the sunshine of our English 
 spring — I refer the reader to a succeeding chapter on " The 
 Odours we Enjoy," and to another entitled " The Colours we 
 Admire." 
 
 1 See "The Colours we Admire." 
 
CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 THE LIQUOES WE FERMENT. 
 
 THE BEERS. 
 
 Our fermented drinks.— Grape-sugar is changed into alcohol by fermentation. 
 — Cane-sugar and starch converted into alcohol.— Production of diastase 
 during the sprouting of corn, — Action of this substance upon starch. — How 
 the infant plant is fed. — Malt-liquors, principles involved in the preparation 
 of. — The malting of barley. — The making of beer. — Influence of diastase on 
 the processes. — The fermentation of the wort.— Influence of the yeast. — 
 How the yeast-plant grows and multiplies ; its remarkable influence still 
 inexplicable. — Composition of beer. — Proportions of malt-extract and of 
 alcohol. — Beer characterised by its nutritive quality and its bitter principle. 
 Chica or maize-beer of South America. — Maize-malt. — Preparation of chica 
 mascada, or chewed chica. — How the chewing promotes the process and 
 gives strength to the chica. — Influence of the saliva. — Chica from other 
 vegetable substances. — Bonza or millet - beer of Tartary, Arabia, and 
 Abyssinia. — Murwa-beer of Himalayas. — Chemical peculiarities of these 
 millet beers. — Qua.ss, or rye-beer. — Koumiss, or milk-beer ; mode of pre- 
 paring it ; its composition and nutritious qualities. — Lactic acid in this 
 beer. — Ava, cava, or arva. — Extensive use of this drink among the South 
 Sea Islanders ; how it is prepared and used ; its narcotic qualities. — Effect 
 of chewing on the ava-root. — Ceremonies attending its preparation and use 
 in the Tonga and Fiji Islands. — Sake or rice-beer of Japan; its manufacture. 
 
 The liquors we ferment are all directly produced either from 
 the natural sugars which we extract from plants, or from 
 the sugars which we prepare by art. I shall briefly advert 
 to the most interesting and important of these liquors now 
 in use in different parts of the world. The way in which 
 these drinks are prepared, their chemical composition, and 
 their cheniico - physiological action upon the system, are 
 
PKODUCTION OF ALCOHOL. 213 
 
 more or less connected with the common life of almost 
 every people. 
 
 L The Beers. — When grape-sugar is dissolved in water, 
 and a little yeast is added to the solution, it begins speedily 
 to ferment. During this fermentation the sugar is split up 
 into two different substances — alcohol, and carbonic acid.* 
 The former remains in the liquid, while the carbonic acid gas 
 escapes in bubbles into the air. 
 
 When common cane-sugar is dissolved in water and mixed 
 with yeast in a similar way, fermentation is induced as before. 
 The cane-sugar is first changed into fruit-sugar by the action 
 of the yeast, and then the fruit-sugar is split up into alcohol 
 and carbonic acid. These changes take place in close as well 
 as in open vessels, so that the presence of air is in no way 
 necessary to their perfect and rapid completion. 
 
 If starch be converted into grape-sugar by the action of 
 diluted sulphuric acid, or of a mixture of malt, as described 
 in a preceding chapter,* and yeast bo then added to the 
 sweet solution, the same changes and the same production of 
 alcohol take place. From potato-starch, treated in this way, 
 large quantities of spirit (potato-brandy) are manufactured in 
 France, Germany, and the northern countries of Europe. 
 
 But by a still more beautiful process the starch of barley 
 and other grains is converted into grape-sugar before it is 
 removed from the seed, and is then split up as before, by 
 means of yeast, into alcohol, water, and carbonic acid. 
 
 In a previous chapter ' it has been shown that these grains 
 consist essentially of two principal substances — starch and 
 
 ' This splitting up takes place as follows : — 
 Let C«denote 12 parts hy weight or 1 atom of carbon, H 1 part or 1 atom 
 of hydrogen, and 16 parts or 1 atom of oxygen — 
 
 II O 
 Then o»« of grape-sugar, . . . = 6 12 6 
 
 rioo of alcohol = 4 12 2 
 
 Two of carbonic add, . . . . =204 
 
 And these together make ... 6 12 6 
 
 So that tlio substance of one of grape-sugar is split up into two of alcohol and 
 two of carlronic acid. This splitting up is induced by the yeast, which, how- 
 ever, affords none of the materials of which the alcohol, tic., consist. 
 
 = See "The Sweets we Extract," p. 181. 
 
 3 See "The Bread we Eat," p. 69. 
 
214 THE LIQUOES WE FERMENT. 
 
 gluten. When moistened, in favourable circumstances, the 
 grain begins to sprout. The starch and gluten it c'ontams 
 are, of course, intended to form the first food of the young 
 plant ; but these substances are insoluble in water, and there- 
 fore cannot, in their natural state, pass onwards from the 
 body of the seed to supply the wants of the growing germ. 
 It has been beautifully provided, therefore, that both of them 
 should undergo chemical changes as the sprouting proceeds. 
 This takes place at the base of the germ — exactly where and 
 when they are wanted for food. The gluten is changed, 
 among other products, into a white soluble substance, which 
 has been distinguished by the name of diastase, and the starch 
 into . soluble grape-sugar. Hence the sweetness of sprouted 
 corn. 
 
 Starch can be transformed into sugar, as I have explained 
 (p. 181), by the agency of a minute quantity of sulphuric 
 acid. It is so transformed also by this diastase. Produced 
 in the sprouting seed in contact with the starch, the diastase 
 changes the latter into soluble starch, dextrine, or sugar, and 
 makes it soluble in the sap just as it is required. By this 
 means the infant plant is fed. 
 
 The maltster, brewer, and distiller avail themselves of this 
 natural change in the constituents of sprouting grain, and on 
 a large scale call into action the remarkable chemical influ- 
 ence of this unorganised ferment known as diastase. This 
 is abundantly illustrated by the chemical history of the art of 
 brewing. 
 
 1°, Malt-Beers are so called because they are prepared, 
 either in whole or in part, from infusions of malted barley. 
 The manufacture of these drinks involves two distinct chemi- 
 cal processes : first, the change of the starch of the g^in into 
 sugar ; and secondly, the change of the sugar into spirit-of- 
 wine or alcohol. With a view to the first of these ends, the 
 grain is manufactured into malt ; to attain the second, it is 
 submitted to fermentation through the medium of yeast. 
 
 a. The Malt. — The maltster first puts his barley into the 
 cistern, where it remains fifty hours. It is then shifted to the 
 " couch," and twenty hours afterwards is removed to the floors. 
 When, after ten or fourteen days, the young rootlet has attained 
 some length, the further growth is arrested by drying the 
 grain gently on the floor of the kiln. It is now malted barley, 
 
DIASTASE IN MALT. 215 
 
 and has a sweet taste, showing that it abeady contains sugar. 
 Other grains — such as wheat, oats, and rye — may be con- 
 verted into malt by a similar process. Even Indian com is 
 malted in North America ; and in South America this malt 
 has been used for making beer from the remotest times. In 
 Europe, however, barley has been found by long experience 
 to be best adapted for this process — though malted rye and 
 wheat are employed along with the barley for the manufac- 
 ture of some particular kinds of beer. In point of fact, 
 although malt makes the best beer, all starchy grains are 
 capable of furnishing beer if they do not contain noxious 
 principles, and are fermented. Much beer is now made 
 wholly or partly from glucose, obtained by submitting starch 
 to the action of sulphuric acid. Such beer is deficient in the 
 aromatic principle found in the skin of the grain. The total 
 quantity of sugar used in breweries in the United Kingdom 
 in 1877 was over 90 miUicms of pounds. The artificially pre- 
 pared sugar, made from starch, paper, &c., by the action of 
 sulphuric acid, is also largely used for brewing. The imports 
 of this substance have increased from 8508 cwt. in 1867 to 
 221,495 cwt. in 1876. 
 
 b. The Beer. — The brewer or distiller bruises the malt 
 (which has been previously screened or sifted from the root- 
 lets or acrospires), and introduces it into his mash-tun, with 
 water gently warmed to 157° or 160° Fahr. This water 
 dissolves first the sugar which has already been formed in 
 the seed, and afterwards the diastase. This latter sub- 
 stance then acts upon the rest of the starch of the seed, con- 
 verting it first into soluble starch, then into dextrine, a species 
 of soluble gum, and finally in great part into grape-sugar. 
 If the process has been well conducted, httle but the husk 
 of the grain is left undissolved, and the liquor or wort has a 
 decidedly sweet taste. 
 
 Three circumstances are remarkable in regard to this 
 diastase. First, That even in good malt, about 1 lb. of 
 diastase only is formed for every 100 parts of starch con- 
 tained in the grain. Secondly, That this 1 lb. of diastase 
 is sufiScient to change 1000 lb. of starch into grape-sugar. 
 And thirdly. That by heating the solution containing it to the 
 boiling-point, the diastase is killed, as it were : its power of 
 changing starch into sugar is wholly destroyed. 
 11 
 
216 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 
 The first and second of these circumstanoes enable the 
 brewer, if he choose, to mix with his malt a certain portion 
 of starch, or of nnmalted grain. The diastase of the malted 
 portion is sufficient to transform into sugar, not only the 
 whole starch of the malt, but aU the starch also of the raw 
 grain. Thus both the expense and the waste which would 
 attend the malting of the latter is avoided. In this country 
 the brewer is not permitted to avail himself of this oppor- 
 tunity of adding raw grain. Continental brewers, however, 
 and our home-distillers, both practise it largely. 
 
 The third circumstance determiaes the time when the wort 
 may be safely boiled — which is the next stage in the manu- 
 facture of beer. The change of aU the starch into sugar or 
 dextrine being effected, the diastase is no longer of service, 
 and the wort may be heated to boUiag, with advantage. By 
 this higher temperature the action of the diastase is stopped, 
 and at the same" time the albumen which the water has dis- 
 solved out of the grain is coagulated and separated in flocks. 
 Advantage is taken also of this boiling to introduce the 
 hops ; and these, besides imparting their peculiar bitterness 
 and aroma to the liquid, help further to clarify it, their 
 tannin curdling most of the remaining albuminous matter in 
 the liquor. Both the length of the boiling and the quantity 
 of hops added to the liquid vary with its richness in sugar, 
 and with the quality of the beer it is intended to make. 
 
 The boiled liquor is run off into shallow vessels, and cooled 
 as rapidly as possible to the best fermenting temperature, 
 ■which lies between 54° and 64° Fahr. when " top yeast " is 
 employed, but is much lower for " bottom yeast," used in brew- 
 ing the light beer of Bavaria. It is then transferred to the 
 fermenting tun ; a sufficient quantity of yeast is added — ob- 
 tained, if possible, from a kind of beer different to that which 
 it is desired to make — and it is allowed to ferment slowly for 
 six or eight days. During this fermentation, the sugar of the 
 wort is split up into the alcohol which remains in the beer, and 
 into the carbonic acid gas which, for the most part, escapes 
 from the surface of the liquid and mingles with the surround- 
 ing air. Cane-sugar assimilates water during fermentation, 
 becomes converted into grape or finit sugar, and then splits 
 up into alcohol and carbonic acid gas. 
 
 Tliree things are notable in this process : first, that the 
 
THE ACTION OF YEAST. 217 
 
 quantity of yeast which is added, and the temperature at 
 which the liquor is afterwards kept to ferment, vary with 
 every kind of beer ; secondli/, that the yeast works better 
 when transferred occasionally from one sort of beer to an- 
 other ; and thirdly, that the whole of the dextrine and sugar 
 contained in the wort is never in practice transformed into 
 aloohoL Good beer — however clear, hard, bright, and bitter — 
 always retains a' pleasant, sweetish taste. From one-half to 
 three^ourths only of the fermentable substances in the wort 
 is decomposed. Were the fermentation not so regulated as to 
 leave this residue of undecomposed dextrine, the beer would 
 refuse to keep. It would turn sour in the cask. 
 
 I do not follow further the manu&cture of this important 
 beverage. But I cannot dismiss the beautiful series of opera- 
 tions of which it consists, without calling the attention of my 
 reader for a moment to the remarkable place which the minute 
 yeast-plant (fig. 39), occupies among the agents by which the 
 final result is attained. I have already de- 
 scribed this plant; how small it is — how '^' 
 
 mysteriously it appears, and how rapidly it 
 grows (p. 62). 
 
 As sulphuric acid and diastase, by mere 
 contact apparently with starch, convert it 
 whoUy into sugar; so yeast, by a similar 
 species of contact, converts the sugar 
 wholly into alcohol and carbonic acid. Yeast-piant o. Row of 
 How either of these transformations is »|'sin^«iiiwShyo™g 
 effected by the agents employed, we cannot o^ '^J^t p^^ ^°"'" 
 explain. 
 
 There is this interesting difference in the way in which 
 these three agents operate — that, while the sulphuric acid 
 employed to transform starcli into sugar remains unchanged 
 in quantity, and while the diastase itself changes and dis- 
 appears, the yeast lives, multiplies, grows, increases in quan- 
 tity, and augments in size and vegetable development. The 
 minuteness of the yeast-plant, consisting in its simplest form 
 of only a single cell, long prevented it from being generally 
 regarded as a form of living matter. But the changes it 
 undergoes in the fermenting tub day by day, as shown by the 
 microscope, prove it to be unquestionably a growing vege- 
 table. The increase in the quantity of jeast during fermen- 
 
218 THE LIQUOBS WE FERMENT. 
 
 tation is so great, that 35 lb. of dry yeast, employed in 
 brewing 1250 gallons of beer, have been known to increase 
 to, or yield, 247 lb. 
 
 But that the yeast lives and increases in the fermenting 
 liquid, does not explain its action upon the sugar. The mys- 
 tery remains none the less. How this plant, in growing 
 rapidly itself, should induce the sugar at the same time to 
 split itself up as I have described, and that without combining 
 with or otherwise appropriating any of the new substances 
 produced- — -this is stUl altogether inexplicable. Neither 
 chemistry nor physiology can as yet hazard even a plausible, 
 light-bringing conjectiire upon the subject. It is something 
 to be able to see, in regard to any point that we have reached, 
 the actual hmits of our positive knowledge. It has, however, 
 been ascertained that an active ferment may be dissolved out 
 of the yeast-cells. 
 
 The composition of the beer, obtained as I have described, 
 varies with almost every sample. 
 
 a. "When beer is evaporated or boiled to dryness, it leaves 
 behind a certain quantity of solid matter, usually spoken of as 
 malt-extract. This consists of undecomposed sugar, of soluble 
 gluten from the grain, of bitter substances derived from the 
 hop, of glycerine, and of a certain proportion of mineral mat- 
 ter. It varies in quantity from less than 4 to upwards of 8 
 lb. in every 100 lb. of good beer. In fine wine-like beers, 
 euoh as our modem English bitter beers, the quantity of ex- 
 tract is small. In heavy sweet beers, it is large. Good Edin- 
 burgh ale contains about 4 per cent, or nearly half a pound 
 to the gallon. The German Brunswick beers are remarkable 
 in this respect. A sweet small-beer of that city contains 14 
 per cent of extract ; and a scarcely half- fermented black 
 drink, called Brunswick mumme, as much as 39 per cent — 
 about 5 lb. to the gallon. The nutritive qualities of beer, 
 which are often considerable, depend very much upon the 
 amount and nature of this extract. 
 
 h. But beer contains alcohol also, the result of the fermen- 
 tation ; and this varies fn quantity quite as much as the 
 extract. Thus — 
 
 Of alcohol. 
 Small beer contains . 1 to IJ per cent by weight. 
 Porter, . . . 3J to 5J „ „ 
 
 Brown stout, . . 5J to 6J ,, ,, 
 
 Bitter and strong ales, , 5J to 10 ,, ,, 
 
CONSTITUENTS OF BEER. 219 
 
 By measure, these proportions of alcohol are about one-fourth 
 more than the numbers above given. 
 
 Upon this alcohol depends the purely intoxicating effect of 
 malt-liquors. And in this respect our strong ales have about 
 the same strength and influence as hock and the light French 
 wines. But they contain, in addition, and as distinguishing 
 them from the wines — 
 
 First, The nutritive matters of the extract which are de- 
 rived from the grain. These, as I have said, vary from 4 to 
 8 per cent. In milk, the model food, the nutritive matter 
 amounts to 12 or 13 per cent, and is, besides, somewhat richer 
 in curd, the ingredient which corresponds to the gluten of 
 the plants. Beer, therefore, is food as well as drink. A 
 little beef eaten with it makes up the deficiency in gluten, as 
 compared with milk; so that beef, beer, and bread — our 
 characteristic English diet — are most philosophically put to- 
 gether, at once to strengthen, to sustain, and to stimulate the 
 bodily powers. 
 
 Secondly, The bitter narcotic principle of the hop. By this, 
 not less than by its nutritive quaUty, beer is distinguished 
 from wine. Of this ingredient and its effects I shall treat in 
 a subsequent chapter.* 
 
 We may set down the main constituents of beer in the 
 foUowing statement : — 
 
 1. Alcohol, or spirits of wiue, 8 to 8 per cent. 
 
 2. Dextrine and glycerine, about 4.5 per cent. 
 
 5. Sugar, about 0.5 per cent. 
 
 4. Hop-resin, oil, &c., about 0.5 per cent. 
 
 6. Gluten, about 0.5 per cent. 
 
 6. Acetic, lactic, and succinic acids, about 0.3 per cent. 
 
 7. Carbonic acid gas, about 0.16 per cent. 
 
 8. Mineral matter, about 0.3 per cent. 
 
 2°. CuiCA, or Maize-Beer. — The use of malt-beer in Ger- 
 many, and probably also in England," is very ancient ; but 
 that of chica or maize-beer in South America appears to be 
 equally remote. It was a common drink of the Indians long 
 before the Spanish conquest. 
 
 ' See "The Narcotics we Indulge in." 
 
 ' Eumenes, in his panegyric upon Constantius, in the year 296, remarks, that 
 Britain produced such abundance of corn that it sufficed to supply not only 
 br«ad but a drink comparable to wine. And in 694, Ina, king of the West 
 Sozons, ordered every possessor of ten hides of land to pay him 12 ambers 
 (nearly 90 wine gallons) bl Welsh ale. 
 
220 THE LIQUOKS "WE FEKMEKT. 
 
 The usual way of preparing chica is to water or moisten 
 Indian corn, as the English maltster does his barley— to leave 
 it till it sprouts sufficiently, and then to dry it in the sun. It 
 is now maize-malt. This malt is- crushed, mashed in warm 
 water, and then allowed to stand tiH fermentation takes place. 
 The liquor is of a dark-yeUow colour, and has an agreeable, 
 slightly bitter, acid taste.' It is in universal demand through- 
 out the west coast of South America, and is consumed in vast 
 quantities by the mountain Indians. Scarcely a single hut 
 in the interior is without its jar of the favourite liquor. 
 
 Posole is another maize -drink, which, in Yucatan and 
 Tabusco, forms a chief article of food. It is prepared by 
 steeping the grain for a length of time in water, along with 
 a Httle lime, grinding the steeped grain, and then mixing the 
 mass with water. It is taken cold, a little sugar being often 
 added to it. 
 
 In the valleys of the Sierra, however, the most highly- 
 prized chica is made in a somewhat different manner. " All 
 the members of the family, including such strangers as choose 
 to assist in the operation, seat themselves on the floor in a 
 circle, in the centre of which is a large calabash, surrounded 
 by a heap of dried maize (malt). Each person takes up a 
 handful of the grain and thoroughly chews it. This is de- 
 posited in the calabash, and another handful is immediately 
 subjected to the same process, the jaws of the company being 
 kept continually busy until the whole heap of com is reduced 
 to a mass of pulp. This, with some minor ingredient, is 
 mashed in hot water, and the liquid poured into jars, where 
 it is left to ferment. In a short time it is ready for use. Oc- 
 casionally, however, the jars are buried in the ground, and 
 allowed to remain there until the liquor acquires, from age, 
 a considerable* strength, and powerfully intoxicating quaUties. 
 Chica thus prepared is called chica mascada, or chewed 
 chica, and is considered far superior to that prepared from 
 maize crushed in the usual maimer. The Serrano believes he 
 cannot offer his guest a greater luxury than a draught of old 
 chica mascada, the ingredients of which have been ground 
 between his own teeth." ^ 
 
 Disgusting as this process of manufacture appears to the 
 
 1 Von Tchudi — Travels in Pern, p. 151. 
 = The Leisure Hour, June 1853, p. 372. 
 
CHICA-BEER. 221 
 
 European, it is nevertlieless founded in reason, and presents 
 a sort of instinctive or experience-bom application of a beau- 
 tiful cheraico-physiologioal principle. 
 
 We have seen that grain is malted in order that diastase 
 may be produced, and that it is then bruised and digested 
 in warm water, in order that this diastase may convert the 
 starch into sugar. But the saliva of the mouth possesses a 
 similar property of converting starch into sugar. Mix starch 
 intimately with saliva, and keep the mixture moderately warm 
 for a time, and sugar will gradually be produced. This is 
 what the Indian does in preparing his chica mascada. He 
 chews the grain thoroughly : this reduces it to a fine pulp, 
 and at the same time mixes it intimately with saliva. When 
 sot aside, this pulp sweetens and afterwards ferments. 
 
 Tlie maize he makes his liquor from is a large grain. The 
 diastase produced during the malting — which is not always 
 well conducted — is often insufficient to convert the whole 
 of the starch into sugar, but the mixture of saliva aids the 
 diastase, and insures the change. It also aids in producing 
 and promoting the fermentation which succeeds. It is very 
 interesting to discover so beautiful a chemico-physiological 
 reason for a practice so disagreeable and apparently so un- 
 accountable. 
 
 Chica is not always made from maize. It is prepared also 
 from barley, rice, pease, yuccas, pine-apples, grapes, and even 
 bread — (Von Tchudi). The name, originally restricted to the 
 liquor obtained from maize, appears to have been gradually 
 applied to the fermented drinks of various kinds which are in 
 use in different parts of South America. A variety of chica 
 mascada is made in some places from the pods of the Prosopis 
 ahfaroba, which are very sweet, mixed with the bitter stalks 
 of the Sehinus molle. Old women are employed to chew these 
 pods and stalks. The chewed pulp is mixed with water, and 
 the mixture soon ferments and forms an intoxicating beer.* 
 The addition of the bitter ingredient in this case is interest- 
 ing, not only because it resembles our own more recent prac- 
 tice of adding hops and other bitters to our beer, but because 
 it intimates the existence of a remarkable similarity in nat- 
 ural taste among tribes of men most remote in situation, and 
 most unlike in understanding and habits. Maize-beer is also 
 1 Chemical Gazette, 1844, p. 131, note. 
 
222 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT, 
 
 in use among tlie natives of Angola. The grain is steeped in 
 water, then kept in heaps till it has sprouted, and is finally 
 ground and then boiled with the starchy preparation of the 
 mandioo root. This African beer is known ■ as garapa or 
 uallua. 
 
 3°. BouzA, MuKWA, or Millet-Beer, is a favourite drink of 
 the Grim Tartars. They prepare it from fermented millet- 
 seed, to which they add certain admixtures which render it 
 excessively astringent — (Oliphant.^) They call it bouza. 
 
 The Arabians, Abyssinians, and many AiHcan tribes, give 
 the same name to a fermented drink which they usually pre- 
 pare from tef, the seeds of the Poa dbyssinica. They occa- 
 sionally employ millet-seed, however,, and even barley, for 
 the purpose. Their bouza is described as a sour, thick 
 drink. 
 
 In Sikkim, on the southern slopes of the lower Himalaya, 
 millet-beer, under the name of muriva, is in very general use. 
 It is prepared by moistening the grain of a kind of millet 
 [Eleusine coracanot), and allowing it to ferment for some days. 
 On a portion of this, considered sufficient for the occasion, or 
 for the day's consumption, hot water is then poured. It is 
 usually drunk while stiU warm — is served in bamboo jugs, 
 and sucked through a reed. When quite fresh, it tastes 
 " hke negus of Cape sherry, rather sour." It is very weak, 
 but in a hot day's march is described as a very grateful 
 beverage — (Hooker).^ The beer of the Kafirs is prepared 
 from a kind of millet, the grain of which is allowed to fer- 
 ment by keeping it in a warm place covered with wet mats. 
 When thus malted it is artificially dried. It is then simmered 
 in an earthen pot, and afterwards set aside to ferment in a 
 warm sunny place. After skimming it becomes the drink 
 called uchwala, a sort of spirituous gruel of a very fattening 
 character. It is only when consumed in immense quantities 
 that it has an intoxicating character ; but the Kafir chiefs 
 do sometimes imbibe so much as to lose their usual staid 
 demeanour. Uchwala is kept in marvellous vessels of plaited 
 grasses, quite watertight, and lavishly ornamented. In fact 
 the dehght of the Kafir in this drink has stimulated his in- 
 ventive faculties to an unusual degree. 
 
 1 Russian Shores of the Black Sea, p. 277. 
 ' Himalayan Journals, vol. i. pp. 285, 291. 
 
MILLET AND RYE BEER. 223 
 
 With the chemical peculiarities of these different forms of 
 millet-beer we are at present unacquainted. The speciality 
 in their preparation seems generally to be, that they are 
 fermented in the grain, and not in the wort, as is the case 
 with European beers ; and that the fermentation is spon- 
 taneous, and not produced by yeast. Under these circum- 
 stances, three chemical changes wiU be proceeding in the 
 moist g^in at the same time : — 
 
 First, The starch of the grain will be transformed into sugar 
 by the agency of the diastase, which is formed during the 
 sprouting that ensues after the grain is moistened. 
 
 Seeondli/, This sugar is partly changed into alcohol by the 
 fermentation which spontaneously commences. 
 
 Thirdly, A part of the sugar is changed also into lactic acid, 
 or the acid of milk, through the actioji of the gluten of the 
 millet, which, during the spontaneous fermentation, possesses 
 the peculiar property of producing this change. 
 
 The drink obtained by infusing this altered grain in water 
 agrees with our European malt-liquors, therefore, in contain- 
 ing nutritive matters derived from the starch and gluten of 
 the grain. But it differs from them in containing lactic in- 
 stead of acetic acid. The Indian mui-wa differs from them 
 also in being drunk like tea soon after it is infused, and 
 in containing no bitter addition resembling our hop. The 
 astringenoy of the bouza of the Crim Tartars seems to indicate 
 that thei/ use something in preparing it besides the fermented 
 millet-seed. 
 
 It is a singular coincidence that the mode of infusing in 
 hot water and sucking through a tube, practised on the 
 Himalayas, is exactly the same as is 'practised in South 
 America in preparing mat6 or Paraguay tea. In each of 
 these remote districts the beverage prepared is taken hot, 
 and is in universal use ; and yet, so far as I am aware, this 
 mode of drinking is adopted only in North-eastern Asia and 
 in Southern America. Is there anything more than a mere 
 coincidence in this? 
 
 4°. QcAss, or Eye-Beer, a favourite Eussian drink, is a 
 sharp, acid, often muddy liquor, which, in taste and appear- 
 ance, resembles some of the varieties of bouza. It is made 
 by mixing rye-flour, and occasionally barley-flour, with water, 
 and fennenting. It may possibly contain lactic acid. 
 
224 THE LIQUOES WE FERMENT. 
 
 Eye-beer affords an instance in whicli nnmalted grain is 
 employed in the manufacture of beer on tlie continent of 
 Europe. 
 
 6°. Koumiss, or Milk-Beek. — Mili, as I have explained in 
 the preceding chapter, contains a peculiar kind of sugar, less 
 sweet than cane-sugar, to which the name of milk-sugar is 
 given. This sugar, when dissolved in water, does not fer- 
 ment upon the addition of yeast ; but when dissolved in the 
 mOk, along with the curd and butter, it readily ferments, is 
 transformed into alcohol and carbonic acid, and gives to the 
 liquor an intoxicating quality.^ This fermentation wiU take 
 place spontaneously, but it is hastened by the addition of 
 yeast or of a little already fermented milk. The fermented 
 liquid is the koumiss of the Tartars. Mare's milk is richer 
 in sugar than that of the cow, and is usually employed for the 
 manufacture of milk-beer. It is prepared in the following 
 manner: — 
 
 To the new milk, diluted with " a sixth of its bulk of 
 wafer, a quantity of rennet, or, what is better, a sour koumiss, 
 is added, and the whole is covered up in a warm place for 
 twenty-four hours.- It is then stirred or churned together 
 tiU the curd and whey are intimately mixed, and is again 
 
 1 This transformation is effected, throTigli the agency of the curd, in a way 
 not yet clearly understood. The mere change of snhstance — that is, of the 
 sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid, supposing it to he produced directly — 
 appears very simple. Thus, C representing carbon, H hydrogen, and O 
 oxygen : — 
 
 C H O 
 
 One of milk-sugar in crystals is . . = 12 24 12 
 
 Four of alcohol are , . . . = 8 24 4 
 
 Four of carbonic acid, . . . .= 408 
 
 Sum, 12 24 12 
 
 So that in one of milk-sugar there are exactly the materials to form four of 
 alcohol and four of carbonic acid. But the transformation is probably much . 
 more indirect and circijijou^ — the curd changing one portion of the sugar into 
 lactic acid, this acid changing the rest of the milk-sugar into grape-sugar, and 
 then the altered curd again, in some unknown way, causing this grape-sugar 
 to ferment and split up into alcohol and carbonic acid. The non-chemical 
 reader will understand in some degree, from this example, how difficult it is 
 to follow, and distinctly make out, the rapid and successive changes which 
 often take place in consequence of the mutual reactions of different chemical 
 substances. 
 
AVA-UEElt. 225 
 
 loft at rest for twenty-four hours. At the end of tliis time it 
 is put into a tall vessel and agitated tiU it becomes perfectly 
 homogeneous. It has now an agreeable sourish taste, and, in 
 a cool place, may be preserved for several months in close 
 vessels. It is always shaken up before it is drunk. This 
 liquor, from the cheese and butter it contains, is a nourishing 
 as well as an exhilarating drink, and its consiunption is not 
 followed by the usual bad effects of intoxicating liquors. It 
 is even recommended as a wholesome article of diet in cases 
 of dyspepsia or of general debility." 
 
 By distillation, ardent spirits are obtained from this koumiss, 
 and, when carefuUy made, a pint of the liquor will yield half 
 an oimce of spirit. To this milk-brandy, when only once dis- 
 tilled, the Kalmucks give the name of arraca, and from the 
 residue in the still they make a kind of hasty-pudding. 
 
 The Ai-abians and Turks prepare a fermented liquor, or 
 milk-beer, similar to the koumiss, which the former caU Uban 
 and the latter yaourt. In the Orkney Islands, and in some 
 parts of Ireland and of the north of Scotland, buttermilk is 
 sometimes kept till it undergoes the vinous fermentation and 
 acquires intoxicating qualities. 
 
 This milk-beer agrees with tlie malt-beers in containing a 
 considerable proportion of nutritive matter. The butter and 
 cheese of the miUc remain as nutritious ingredients of tlie 
 beer. It differs from the malt-beers in containing more acid, 
 and in owing its sourness not to acetic acid but to the peculiar 
 acid of milk, the lactic acid which is present in malt-beer 
 in very small quantity. In both these respects it agrees 
 remarkably with millet -beer. We shall see in the next 
 chapter that, in the kind of acid it contains, milk-beer agrees 
 also with cider. 
 
 6°. AvA, Cava, or Arva. — Similar to chica in the mode 
 of preparation is the ava or cava of the South Sea Islands. 
 This liquor is in use over a very wide area of the Pacific 
 Ocean, and among the inhabitants of veiy remote islands. 
 In Tahiti, the use of it is said to have swept off many of the 
 inhabitants. In the Sandwich Islands it was some years ago 
 forBidden — (Simpson). In the Samoan group it is the only 
 intoxicating liquor known, and old and young, male and 
 female, are very fond of it — (Wilkes). In the Tonga Islands 
 it is prepared and drunk on every festive occasion — (Mariner).- 
 
226 
 
 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 
 And in the Fiji Islands, the preparation of the morning drink 
 of this liquor for the king was one of the most solemn and im- 
 portant duties of his courtly attendants — (Wilkes). 
 
 The name of ava is given to the root of the intoxicating 
 long-pepper [Macropiper methysticum), fig. 40, which is 
 chewed, either in the fresh or in the dried state, as the 
 Indian chews his maize. The pulp is then mixed with cold 
 water, which, after a brief interval, is strained from the chewed 
 fibre, and is ready for use. The taste, to one unaccustomed 
 to it, is not pleasant. It reminded Captain Wilkes of the 
 taste of rhubarb and magnesia I 
 
 Fig. 40. 
 
 Macropijper metliystieam—The Ava Pepper shrub. 
 Scale, 1 inch to 3 feeV , 
 Leaf, 1 inch to 2 inches. Outline of leaf, natural size. 
 Part of stem and root, showing section, natural si2e. 
 
 According to the white persons who have tried it, this in- 
 fusion does not intoxicate in the same manner as ardent 
 spirits. It more resembles opium in some of its effects, 
 producing a kind of temporary paralysis, tremors, indistinct- 
 ness, and distortion of vision, and a confused feeling about 
 the head. 
 
 The presence of a narcotic ingredient ia the root of this 
 
AVA-DEINKING. 227 
 
 plant is very probable. Its 'leaf is used very largely for 
 chewing with the well-known betel-nut,^ and is believed to 
 have a share in producing the pleasing state of mild excite- 
 ment in which the betel-chewer delights. The extraction of 
 this narcotic substance, during the process of mastication and 
 straining, accounts for the intoxicating property acquired by 
 the liquor, before ordinary fermentation and the production of 
 common alcohol has had time to begin. Still, that the saliva 
 produces a chemical change in the ingredients of the root, 
 upon which change their intoxicating quality in some 
 measure depends, is in itself very probable, from what we 
 know of the general properties of saliva. And the proba- 
 bility of such a change becomes greater, when it is considered 
 that the intoxicating qualities of the leaf only become sensible 
 to the betel-chewer as the roll he chews Becomes softened in 
 his mouth, and saturated with saliva. 
 
 In the Tonga Islands, the ava-root, when dry, is split up 
 into small pieces with an axe or other sharp instrument, is 
 scraped clean, and is then handed to the attendants to be 
 chewed. No one offers to chew it but young persons who 
 have good teeth, clean mouths, and have no colds. The 
 women often assist — (Mariner). But as the most curious 
 passage I have met with in connection with the preparation 
 and use of this liquor, I quote the following from Captain 
 Wilkes :— 
 
 " The ceremony attending the ava-drinking of the king at 
 Somu-somu, one of the Fiji Islands, is peculiar. Early in the 
 morning, the first thing heard is the king's herald, or orator, 
 crying out in front of his house, ' Yango-na ei ava,' somewhat 
 like the muezzin in Turkey, though not from the house-top. 
 To this the people answer, from all parts of the koro, ' Mama ' 
 (prepare ava). The principal men and chiefs immediately 
 assemble together from all quarters, bringing their ava-bowl 
 and ava-root to the mbure, where they seat themselves to 
 takinoa, or converse on the affairs of the day, while the 
 younger proceed to prepare the ava. Those who prepare the 
 ava are required to have clean and undecayed teeth, and are 
 not allowed to swallow any of the juice, on pain of punish- 
 ment. As soon as the ava-root is chewed, it is thrown into 
 the ava-bowl, where water is poured upon it with great for- 
 1 See " The Narcotics we Indulge In." 
 
228 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 
 mality. The king's herald, vfiih. a peculiar drawling whine, 
 then cries, ' Sevu-rui-a-na ' (make the offering). After this a 
 considerable time is spent in straining the ava through cocoa- 
 nut husks ; and when this is done, the herald repeats, with 
 stiU. more ceremony, his command, ' Sevu-rui-a-na.' When he 
 has chanted it several times, the other chiefs join him, and 
 they all sing, ' Mana endina sendina le.' A person is then 
 commanded to get up and take the king his ava, after which 
 the singing again goes on. The orator then invokes their 
 principal god, Tava-Sava, and they repeat the names of their 
 departed friends, asking them to watch over and be gracious 
 to them. They then pray for rain, for the life of the king, the 
 arrival of wangara papalangi (foreign ships), that they may 
 have riches, and live to enjoy them. This prayer is followed 
 by a most earnest' response, ' Mana endina ' (amen, amen). 
 They then repeat several times, ' Mana endina sendina le.' 
 Every time this is repeated, they raise their voices until they 
 reach the highest pitch, and conclude with ' 0-ya-ye ! ' which 
 they utter in a tone resembling a horrid scream. This screech 
 goes the rounds, being repeated by aU the people of the koro, 
 until it reaches its. farthest limits, and, when it ceases, the 
 king drinks his ava. All the chiefs clap their hands with 
 great regularity while he is drinking ; and after he has fin- 
 ished his ava, the chiefs drink theirs without any more cere- 
 mony. The business of the day is then begun. The people 
 never do anything in the morning before the king has drunk 
 his ava. Even a foreigner will not venture to work or make 
 a noise before that ceremony is over, or during the preparation 
 of it, if he wishes to be on good terms with the king and 
 people." 1 
 
 It wiU strike the reader as a singular ciroimistance, that 
 this mode of preparing fermented drinks — the ava and 
 the chica- — by chewing the raw materials, should exist 
 in the islands of the Pacific, and amid the sierras of South 
 America, and there only. The materials employed in the 
 two regions are very different, and the chemical changes pro- 
 duced by the chewing in the two cases very different also, 
 though the apparent result, in the production of an intoxicat- 
 ing liquor, is the same. Where did the custom originate? 
 Is its origin continental or insular ? Is it in any way con- 
 • Wilkes's United States' Exploring Expedition, vol. ii. p. 97. 
 
HICE-BF.ER. 229 
 
 nected with the eastward migrations, which the unknown past 
 has doubtless witnessed, towards the Pacific shores of the 
 American continent? Where analogies of tongue and feat- 
 ures fail, may not the occurrence of strange customs point to 
 old national relations which now no longer subsist ? 
 
 7". Sak^ or Eicb-Beer. — The chief native fermented liquor 
 of Japan goes by the general name of sakS. It is a rice^beer 
 or wine. Professor E. W. Atkinson of the University of 
 Toki6, has described ' from personal inspection the process of 
 manufacturing this beer. It is curious, for several reasons, 
 amongst which we include the fact that the natural ferment 
 produced in the germinating rice seems to be neglected as a 
 means of securing the necessary chemical changes whereby the 
 starch of the grain is transformed into the alcohol of the beer. 
 The first step in sak6-brewing is the preparation of a special 
 ferment, made by sowing the spores of a fungus upon steamed 
 rice, which has been previously mixed with some wood or 
 plant ashes, and keeping the whole at a high temperature for 
 ten days. A green fungus, full of spores, is then formed upon 
 the rice-grains. These spores are used for producing the 
 actual yeast, being sown for that purpose on steamed rice, 
 and kept a few days. The spores grow, producing fine, white, 
 silky threads of myceliumy which, when mixed with steamed 
 rice and water, and stirred for about ten days, and subse- 
 quently heated to 95° Fahr. for eight to thirteen days longer, 
 by means of hot water, causes the change of the starch into 
 sugar. At least, such appears to be the case, although it is 
 possible that another fungus or some unorganised ferment 
 may be the real cause of the change, the ordinary yeast-plant 
 abounding in the later stage of the process. All the above 
 processes having had for their object nothing but the prepa- 
 ration of this yeast, the actual fermentation of the rice-liquor 
 now proceeds, and is continued till the finished and clarified 
 product, which has a yellow colour, contains from 12 to 15 
 per cent of alcohoL It is generally served warm, in melon- 
 shaped porcelain jars, which are placed in hot water till 
 they have attained the right temperature. A common kind 
 of sake is made for immediate consumption, containing only 
 5 per cent of alcohol. 
 
 There are several features in the above process which are 
 > See a paper in ' Nature,' Sept. 12, 1878. 
 
230 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 
 worthy of remark, Buoh as the production of the aerial spores 
 of the fungus, and the fertihsation of the material used by 
 means of vegetable ashes, which are doubtless rich in those 
 manurial constituents, potash and phosphoric acid, in which 
 rice itself is somewhat deficient. Moreover, this elaborate 
 and tedious Japanese method of getting alcohol from rice- 
 starch affords a striking contrast to the modem simple and 
 rapid plan now so largely adopted in Europe, of attaining the 
 same end by boiling rice with weak sulphuric acid, and then 
 aUoycing the grape-sugar thus formed to ferment, Sak6 is 
 remarkable for containing so high a percentage of alcohol as 
 15, and it has been hitherto regarded as a distilled spirit, not 
 a mere fermented liquor. In the Japanese sake -breweries 
 Buoh a spirit is, according to Atkinson, also prepared. 
 
CHAPTER Xlir. 
 
 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 
 THE WINES. 
 
 The wines. — Apple and pear wines. — Cider and perry. — Differences in quality. 
 — ^Varieties of cider-apple. — Composition of cider; tendency to sour. — 
 Grape-wines. — Rapid fermentation of grape-juice. — Circumstances influence 
 the quality of wine. — Composition of wine. — Proportion of alcohol in dif- 
 ferent wines ; proportion of sugar. — Tartaric acid the peculiar acid of grape- 
 wine. — Proportions of acid in different wines. — (Enanthic ether gives the 
 vinous flavour to wines. — Peculiar odoriferous principles which impart to 
 each wine its own flavour or bouquet. — Consumption of wine in the United 
 Kingdom. — Palm-wine or toddy. — How extracted from the cocoa-nut tree, 
 and from the date-tree. — Extensive use of palm-wine. — Sugar-cane wine, or 
 guarapo.— Pulque, or agave-wine. — Soma-wine of India. 
 
 II. The Wines. — Wines are distinguished from beers chiefly 
 by these characters : first, they contain little of that solid 
 nutritious matter which, enables our home-brewed beer to feed 
 the body as well as quench the thirst and exhilarate the 
 spirits ; secondly, they are free from any bitter or narcotic 
 ingredient, such as the hops we add so largely to many of 
 our English ales ; thirdly, they are aU fermented, without 
 the addition of yeast, by a spontaneous fermentation ; and 
 fourthly, they contain other acids besides the acetic acid, or 
 vinegar, to which sour beer owes nearly all its acidity. 
 
 1°. Apple and Pear Wines. — Cider and perry are well- 
 kno\vn fermented drinks. The former especially is largely 
 prepared and consumed in England, France, and North 
 America. 
 
232 THE LIQUORS AVK FERMENT. 
 
 The expressed juices of the apple and the pear contain 
 grape-sugar abeady formed. When left to themselves they 
 soon begin to ferment, without the addition of yeast ; and 
 during this fermentation, the sugar is converted into alcohol 
 in the way already described. 
 
 Cider diifers in flavour, in acidity, in strength, and con- 
 sequently in quality, with many circumstances. The kinds 
 of apples which are grbwn and used for the purpose, the de- 
 gree of ripeness they are allowed to attain before they are 
 gathered, the time given them to mellow or ferment before 
 they are crushed, the skill with which the several varieties 
 are mixed before they are put into the mill, the nature of the 
 climate, the character of the season, the quality of the soil, 
 the mode in which the trees are managed — all these 'circum- 
 stances materially affect the quality of the expressed juice as 
 it flows from the crushing-mill ; and then the after-treatment 
 of the juice may introduce a hundred new shades of difier- 
 ence among the several ripe ciders produced from the same 
 juice. 
 
 In Normandy, not less than five thousand difiFerently-named 
 va,rieties of the acid or bitter apple are known, and grown for 
 the manufacture of cider ! Some of these varieties are dis- 
 tinguished by as many as eighteen difierent names in differ- 
 ent parts of the country. In that province also it is remarked, 
 that the cider produced upon chalk soils, from the same 
 varieties of apple, differs in flavour from that of sandy dis- 
 tricts, and both from that of clay soils ; so that the flavour of 
 the soil {gout de terrain) is in Normandy a familiar expression 
 in reference to the qualities of this fermented drink.'- 
 
 Amid these differences in quality, however, there are cer- 
 tain general chemical characters in which alljjJderB agree. 
 They are said to contain little extractive or solid nutritious 
 matter ; but this is extremely improbable. They doubtless 
 contain albuminous substances, and it is owing to these that 
 a slight elevation of temperature detei-mines a rapid acetifica- 
 tion (change into vinegar). No bitter or narcotic ingredient 
 has been added to them. They contain, on an average, about 
 8 per cent of alcohol — thus resembling in strength the com- 
 mon hock, the weaker champagnes, and our stronger Enghsh 
 ales. They are also chemically distinguished from malt- 
 1 See the Author's Notes on North America, vol. i. p. 170. 
 
GUAPB-WINE. 233 
 
 liqnoTS by containing lactic instead of acetic acid. In this 
 latter respect they agree with the spontaneously-fermented 
 bouza or murwa beer of Abyssinia and the Himalayas, and 
 with the milk-beer of the Tartarian steppes. 
 
 Cider is further distinguished by the great facility with 
 which it becomes sour, or runs to acid. Hence the frequency 
 of hard cider, the difficulty of transporting it unchanged from 
 place to place, and the frequent disappointments which attend 
 the efforts to keep it -sound for any length of time. Strong 
 cider, without water, keeps almost as well as wine. M. 
 Basset says he has drunk excellent cider which has been 
 bottled ten years ; and he recommends the addition of sugar 
 as a means of giving increase of alcohol, and consequently 
 increased power of preservation. 
 
 2°. Grape-Wine. — The name of wine is usually given 
 among tis, by way of eminence, to the fermented juice of the 
 grape. This juice, like that of the apple, contains grape- 
 sugar ready formed ; and, like the juices of the apple, the 
 pear, the gooseberry, and most other fruits, it enters easily 
 and speedily into spontaneous fermentation. Within half an 
 hour, in ordinary summer weather, the clearest juice of the 
 grape begins to appear cloudy, to thicken, and to give off 
 bubbles of gas. Fermentation has already commenced ; and 
 within three hours a distinct yellow layer of yeast has col- 
 lected on the surface, and a sensible quantity of alcohol has 
 been formed in the body of the liquid. It is still a mystery 
 in what way the germ, seed, or sporule of the yeast-plant 
 obtains admission into the liquid juice, and in such quantity 
 as to give rise to an almost instantaneous fermentation. 
 
 Grape-wine differs in composition and quality with a thou- 
 sand circumstances. The climate of the country, the nature 
 of the season, the soil of the locality, the variety of grape, 
 the mode of culture, the time of gathering, the way in which 
 the fruit when gathered is treated and expressed, the mode of 
 fermenting the juice or must, the attention bestowed upon the 
 young wine, the manner in which it is treated and preserved, 
 the temperature at which it is kept, the length of time it is 
 preserved, — upon these, and numerous other conditions, the 
 composition and quality of wine are dependent. An idea of 
 the complexity of wine may be gathered from the fact that 
 no less than eight different vegetable or organic acids occur 
 
234 
 
 THE LIQUOES WE FERMENT. 
 
 in it, not to mention the colouring matters, the glycerine, the 
 gluten, the mineral matters, and the more important sub- 
 stances, namely, alcohol, sugar, and flavouring ethers. The 
 above-named acids are these — 
 
 Tartaric, 
 
 Malic, 
 
 Tannic, 
 
 ric,"! 
 
 naturally present in grape-juice or the skins. 
 
 tannic, I 
 Gallic, J 
 
 Carbonic, ■! 
 
 Acetic, I fojijieci during fermentation. 
 Formic, | 
 Succinic, J 
 
 AU grape-wines, however, contain — 
 
 a. A notable proportion of alcohol, or pure spirit-of-wine. 
 This proportion is different in different kinds of wine, and 
 varies considerably also in wines of the same kind. Thug, 
 the proportion of absolute alcohol, by weight, in our best- 
 known wines is as. follows : — 
 
 Port, 
 
 Sherry, 
 
 Madeira, 
 
 Marsala, 
 
 Claret, 
 
 Burgundy, 
 
 Port, sherry. 
 
 In 100 
 
 
 measures 
 
 
 15 to 20 
 
 Ilhenish, . 
 
 17 „ 19 
 
 Moselle, 
 
 17 „ 18 
 
 Malmsey, . 
 
 15 „ 17 
 
 Tokay, 
 
 8„ 10 
 
 Champagne, 
 
 8„ 12 
 
 Carlowitz, 
 
 In 100 
 measures. 
 8 to 12 
 8„ 9 
 
 16 
 9 
 7 „ 12 
 
 11 
 
 and Madeira wines, still largely drunk in this 
 country, are therefore two or three times stronger in spirit 
 than those of France or Germany. The wines which have 
 the least body or spirit bear transport worst, and do not keep 
 well, soon becoming sour from acetic acid on exposiure to the air. 
 6. A more or less sensible quantity of grape-sugar, which 
 has escaped the decomposing action of the fermentation. 
 This gives to wines their sweet taste and fruity character. 
 Wines are called dry when they contain little sugar. The 
 order of sweetness in certain wines, as they are brought to 
 the English market, is as follows : — 
 
 Claret, Burgundy, Rhine, Moselle, and Carlowitz 
 contain no sugar, or a mere trace. 
 
 Sherry contains about 2 parts in 100 of wine. 
 
 Madeira „ „ 2 J 
 
 Port 
 Champagne 
 Patras 
 LachrymsE Christi 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 15 
 
 27 
 
ACIDS IN WINKS. 235 
 
 The extreme fruitiness of some port wines is indicated by 
 ■le largo proportion of sugar which this variety of wine 
 sometimes contains. Sugar is added to the juice of the 
 ■hampagne grape by the grower. This is necessary, not 
 ■ily to give it body, but to keep it sparkling, and to pre- 
 vent its becoming sour. And it is remarkable that the 
 selection of the kind of sugar which is added has great in- 
 fluence upon the flavour of the wine. If doubly refined cane 
 and beet sugars be added respectively to the same cham- 
 pagne, the one wiU give the liquor the aroma and pleasant 
 flavour of the cane-juice, the other the disagreeable go4t of 
 the beet-root. In the wine, the senses of taste and smell 
 readily discover traces of impurity derived from the sugar, 
 which neither eye, nose, nor mouth can detect in the purified 
 sugar itself, 
 
 c, A variable proportion of free acid, which imparts to them 
 a more or less distinctly sour taste, "We have seen that 
 neither malt-beer nor cider is ever quite free from acid, and 
 the same is the case with wine. Only the grape-wine is 
 made sour by tartaric acid,'- Thus — 
 
 Acetic acid (vinegar) is the acid of malt-beer. 
 
 Lactic acid is the acid of millet-beer, milk-beer, aud cider. 
 
 Tartaric acid is the acid of grape-wine. 
 
 Oxalic, malic, and citric add are found in English fruit-wines. 
 
 In all the four liquors, acetic acid is present in greater or 
 less quantity, as this is always produced when the fermenta- 
 tion of alcoholic liquors is allowed to proceed too far. But 
 lactic acid is found neither in malt-beer, nor in grape-wine, 
 in sensible quantity ; nor is tartaric acid found in beer or 
 cider. These acids, therefore, characterise the liquors in 
 which they especially exist, and establish a marked chemical 
 distinction among the four classes of fermented drinks to 
 which they severally belong. 
 
 Wines made from unripe grapes sometimes contain 
 another peculiar acid which resembles the acid of lemons 
 (citric acid), but this acid disappears from the finit as it 
 ripens. 
 
 Tartaric acid exists in the juice of the grape in combinar 
 
 > Tartaric acid is the acid which gives its sourness to cream of tartar, and 
 which we use along with soda in making artificial seidlitz powders. It is so 
 named because it is extracted from the tartar or crust which deposits itself, on 
 the sides of wine casks or bottles, by long standing. 
 
236 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 
 tion with potash, formiug what is called bi-tartrate of potash, 
 or cream of tartar — a substance which has a well-known sour 
 taste. When the fermented juice is left at rest, this bi- 
 tartrate gradually separates from the liquor, and deposits 
 itself as a crust or tartar on the sides of the casks and bottles. 
 Hence by long keeping good wines become less acid, and 
 every year added to their age increases, in proportion, their 
 marketable value. 
 
 In regard to acidity, due to tartaric and other fixed acids, 
 our common wines arrange themselves in the following 
 order : — 
 
 Champague is the least acid. 
 
 Port and sherry come next. Then 
 
 Burgundy, 
 
 Madeira, 
 
 Claret, 
 
 Carlowitz, 
 
 Hock and Rhine wines, and 
 
 Moselle. 
 
 d. A minute proportion of an ethereal substance to which 
 the name of cenanthic ether is given, and to which grape-wines 
 owe the agreeable vinous odour which characterises them alL 
 When obtained in a separate state, this ether is a very fluid 
 liquid, of a sharp, disagreeable taste, but having an odour of 
 wine so excessively powerful as to be almost intoxicating. 
 It does not exist in the jiiice of the grape, but is produced 
 during the fermentation. It seems also to increase in quan- 
 tity by keeping, as the odour of old wines is stronger than 
 that of new wines. So powerful is the odour of this sub- 
 stance, however, that few wines contain more than one-forty- 
 thousandth part of their bulk of it ! Yet it is always present, 
 can always be recognised by its smell, and is one of the general 
 characteristics of all grape-wines. 
 
 e. Besides the general vinous flavour derived from this 
 cenanthic ether, all wines contain one or more odoriferous, 
 more or less fragrant, substances, to which the peculiar 
 bouquet or scent of each is due. As these give the special 
 character to the wine, they are more or less different in each 
 variety. They are present even in more minute quantity 
 than the cenanthic ether, and, like it, mainly consist of com- 
 pounds known as ethers. But other circumstances ' influence 
 the flavour of wine. Thus, casks made of the wood of the 
 
PALM-WINE. 237 
 
 white mulberry give a slight bouquet resembling violets to 
 sherry that has been long kept in them. 
 
 Grape-wine is the principal fermented drink of the southern 
 European nations. The consumption in the United Kingdom 
 in 1853 amounted to upwards of seven millions of gallons 
 (7,197,572) ; in 1857 it amounted to 7,044,636, and in 1877 
 to 16,942,155. This is chiefly consumed by the upper classes. 
 In England, beer is the poor man's substitute; while in 
 Scotland and Ireland, whisky, more or less diluted with 
 water, takes its place. The physiological effects of wines 
 differ according to differences in their composition. Cham- 
 pagne, which contains not only much sugar but more tartrate 
 of potash than port or sherry, will soon render the urine 
 alkaline. 
 
 3°. Palm-Wine, or Toddy. — The sap of many palm-trees is 
 rich in sugar. In some countries this sugar is extracted by 
 boiling down the collected juice, as cane-sugar is extracted 
 from the expressed juice of the sugar-cane {see p. 186). In 
 other countries the juice is allowed to ferment, which it does 
 spontaneously, and in hot climates within a very short period 
 of time. This fermentation converts the sugar into alcohol, 
 and the juice which contains it into an intoxicating liquor. 
 
 In the islands of the Indian Archipelago, the Moluccas, and 
 the Philippines, an intoxicating liquor is prepared in this way 
 from the sap of the gommuti-palm, Saguents saccharifer. It 
 is called neva in Sumatra, and the Batavian arrack is distilled 
 from it. The cocoa-palm, Gocos nucifera (fig. 41), produces 
 the palm-wine, known in India and the Pacific by the name 
 of toddy. In Ceylon whole plantations of these palms are set 
 apart for the extraction of this wine. The mode of collecting 
 it in the islands of the Pacific is thus described bv Captain 
 Wilkes :— 
 
 " The karaca or toddy is procured from the spathe of the 
 cocoa-nut tree, which is usually about four feet long and two 
 inches in diameter. From this spathe the flower and fruit are 
 produced ; but in order to procure tlieir favourite toddy, it is 
 necessary to prevent nature from taking her course in bring- 
 ing forth the fruit. With this view they bind up the spathe 
 tightly with sennit, then cut off the end of the spathe and 
 hang a cocoa-nut shell to catch the sap as it exudes. One 
 tree will )rield from two to six pints of karaca. When first 
 
238 
 
 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 
 FiK. 41. 
 
 obtained from the tree it is like the milk of the young cocoa- 
 nut, and quite limpid ; but after it stands for a few hours it 
 
 ferments and becomes acid. 
 When the sap ceases to 
 drop, another piece is cut 
 off the spathe, and every 
 time the flow ceases the 
 same process is repeated 
 until the spathe is entirely 
 gone. Another spathe is 
 formed soon after, above 
 this, which is suffered to 
 grow, and when large 
 enough is treated in the 
 same manner." ^ 
 
 This method of cutting 
 the spathe, or flowering 
 head, is a very common 
 one for procuring the sweet 
 sap of the palm-trees. In 
 some countries, however, 
 it is obtained, like that 
 of the sugar-maple and the 
 manna-ash, by simply mak- 
 ing an incision near the 
 top of the tree. On the 
 West African coast palm- 
 juice is thus obtained from 
 the oil-palm, Ulcsis guine- 
 ensis, the cut being made 
 in the evening, while next 
 morning the gourd which 
 receives the juice will be 
 found filled with a slightly 
 milky fluid, something like 
 the milk in the cocoarnut, 
 but sweeter and richer. Collected in an old calabash it soon 
 ferments, becoming acid and intoxicating, though its alco- 
 holic strength is not great — (Monteiro). This custom prevails 
 also in the interior of Africa, and in the Indian province of 
 1 United States' Exploring Expedition, vol. ii. p. 220. 
 
 Cocos mtcifera — The Cocoa-nut Palm. 
 Scale, 1 incli to 12 feet. 
 
WINE OF THE DATE-TREE. 
 
 239 
 
 Bahar, whero the abundant date-palm (fig. 42) is yearly bled 
 
 for the favourite toddy. Dr Hooker thus describes a grove of 
 
 date-palms in which he encamped 
 
 on the banks of the Soane river '^' 
 
 in that province : — 
 
 " All were curiously distorted, 
 the trunks growing zigzag, from 
 the practice of yearly tapping 
 the alternate sides for toddy. 
 The incision is made just below 
 the crown, and slopes upwards 
 and inwards. A vessel is hung 
 below the wound, and the juice 
 conducted into it by a little piece 
 of bamboo. This operation spoils 
 the fruit, which, though eaten, is 
 smaller and much inferior to the 
 African date." ^ 
 
 Date-wine was known among 
 the Hebrews as sechar. In Le- 
 vit, X. 9, and in Deut. xiv. 26, 
 it is translated " strong drink." 
 
 In India, generally, it is the 
 fan -palm (^Borassm) which is 
 chiefly bled for toddy. But in 
 Bahar the date-tree is preferred, 
 because its sap more readily fer- 
 ments. In the fertile oases which 
 are sprinkled over the desert 
 Sahara of Northern Africa, where 
 date-tree forests cover the soil, 
 and form the chief food and 
 wealth of the inhabitants, this 
 variety of palm is constantly tap- 
 ped in the flowering season by 
 the Arab and other Mohammedan 
 tribes. They call the s.ap lagmi, 
 and from two to three pints are 
 yielded by each tree in a singlie night. But wine of the best 
 quality is said to be yielded by the oil-palms {Cocos hutyracea 
 
 Phanix dactyli/era — The Date-ralm. 
 Scale, 1 inch to 20 feet. 
 Fruit, 1 inch to 2 inches. 
 
 12 
 
 ' Himalayan Journals, vol. i. p. 35. 
 
240 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 
 and Ulceis guineensis) which grow on the West African coast ; 
 while for abundant yield few excel the Garyota urens, the 
 most beautiful of Indian palms, which will often yield a hun- 
 dred pints of toddy in the twenty-four hours ! — (Koxbuegh.) 
 
 In the oasis of Tozar, a dependency of Tunis, the date-wine 
 is to be found in every house, and reeling Arabs are fre- 
 quently to be seen in the streets of its principal towns. They 
 are strict Mohammedans ; but they justify their apparent dis- 
 obedience to the Prophet by saying " Lagmi is not wine, and 
 the Prophet's prohibition refers to wine." ^ 
 
 The juice of the palm-tree varies in quality with the species 
 of palm, and with the locality in which it is grown. As it 
 flows from the tree it is sweet, and void of intoxicating proper- 
 ties ; but when allowed to stand for a short time it usually 
 ferments, and becomes first intoxicating, and afterwards acid. 
 Upon the tendency to ferment, the place of growth appears to 
 have an influence. This is shown by the circumstance, that 
 while the juice of the fan-palm produces the usual toddy of 
 India, that of the date-tree is preferred to it among the hills 
 of Bahar, because there the sap of the fan-pahn does not 
 readily ferment — (Hooker). 
 
 The date -juice, in the Sahara, when drunk immediately, 
 tastes like genuine rich milk ; but when allowed to stand for 
 a night, or at most for twenty-four hours, it ferments, and, 
 except that it continues whitish, it acquires the sparkling 
 quahty and flavour of champagne. This quality no doubt 
 differs with the kind of tree, and with the place of growtL 
 By distillation the fermented juice yields a strong brandy, 
 which is almost everywhere extracted from it in Africa, as 
 well as in Asia. At Monghyr, on the banks of the Ganges — 
 which is celebrated not only for its iron manufactures but for 
 its drunkenness — Dr Hooker observes that the abundance of 
 toddy-palms was quite remarkable. 
 
 In Chili, on the American coast, wine is made from a spe- 
 cies of palm ; in India, and other parts of Asia, palm-wine is 
 extensively consumed ; whUe in Africa it is almost the only 
 fermented liquor in very general use. Though we know so 
 little of it in Europe, therefore, the wine of the palm-tree is 
 drunk as- an exhilarating liqilor hj a larger number of the 
 human race than the wine of the grape. 
 
 1 Evenings in my Tent. By the Rev. William Davis. 
 
ALOE-WINE. 241 
 
 i". SuOAR-CANE Wine, or Guabapo. — ^Like the sap of the 
 pabn-tree, that of the sugar-cane ferments epontaneously, and 
 produces an intoxicating liquor. To this cane-wine the 
 negroes give the name of Guarapo, and they hold it in high 
 esteem. It contains, of course, aU the ingredients of the 
 cane-juice, except those which are changed or naturally dis- 
 appear during the fermentation, and tiiose which subside 
 when it clarifies. In the island of Luzon (Philippines,) this 
 liquor is called bast, and is very intoxicating. 
 
 5°. Pulque, Octli, or Aoave-Wine, is the favourite drink 
 of the lower classes in the central part of the table-land of 
 MexicOj at a height of 6000 to 7000 feet above tlio sea. It 
 is produced by fermenting the sap of the Maguey or American 
 aloe [Agave americana or mexicana), which is cultivated in 
 plantations for the purpose. This plant is of slow growth, 
 but when full grown its leaves attain a height of five to eight 
 feet, and even more. It flowers on an average only once in 
 ten years, and, as in the case of palm-wine, it is from the 
 flower-stalk that the juice is extracted. In the plantations, 
 the Indian watches each plant as the time of its flowering ap- 
 proaches, and juat when the central shoot or flower-stem is 
 about to appear, he makes a deep cut, and scoops out the 
 whole heart (el corazon) or middle part of the stem, leaving 
 nothing but the outside rind. This forms a natural basin or 
 well, about two feet in depth and one and a half in width. 
 Into this well the sap, which was intended to feed the shoot, 
 flows so rapidly that it is necessary to remove it twice, and 
 sometimes three times a day. To make this more easy, the 
 leaves on one side are cut away and the central basin laid 
 open, as is seen in fig. 43. 
 
 The sap as it flows has a very sweet and pleasant taste Kke 
 apple-must, and none of that disagreeable smell which it 
 afterwards acquires. It is called aguamiel or honey-water. 
 It ferments spontaneously, and a small quantity of old fer- 
 mented juice speedily induces fermentation in that which is 
 newly drawn, as sour leaven does in new dougL It is usual, 
 therefore, to set aside a portion of sap, to ferment separately 
 for ten or fifteen days, and to add a small quantity of this to 
 each vessel of fresh juice. Fermentation is excited immedi- 
 ately, and in twenty-four hours it becomes pulque in the very 
 beat state for drinking. A good maguey yields from eight to 
 
242 
 
 THE LIQUOUS WE FEKMENT. 
 
 fifteen pints a-day, and this supply continues during two and 
 often three months — (Ward).i 
 
 Agave ai}iericana — The American Aloe. 
 
 As prepared for producing pult^ue, and with a distant flowering-plant. 
 
 Sc^e, 1 inch to 5 feet. 
 
 The chemical changes which take place during the fermen- 
 tation of this juice are the more interesting as they are in 
 some respects peculiar. 
 
 First, Alcohol is produced as in other fermented liquors. 
 This is shown by the slightly intoxicating qualities of the 
 drink, and by its yielding, when distilled, an ardent spirit. 
 To this brandy the name of mexical is given, or of aguardiente 
 de maguey. 
 
 Secondly, An acid is formed also, or rather, as the sugar 
 disappears, the natural acids and acidulous salts are no longer 
 masked by the saccharine substance — the pulque, as a drink, 
 being described as resembling cider. But, 
 
 Thirdly, The most remarkable result of the fermentation is, 
 that the nearly smell-less juice acquires a fetid and disagree- 
 able odour of tainted meat. This makes the liquor to be 
 looked upon at first with disgust, especially by Europeans. 
 It is so cool, agreeable, and refreshing, however, that this first 
 disgust being overcome, the pulque is preferred, even by 
 Europeans, to every other liquid. 
 
 The nature of this evil-smelling ingredient, and the chemi- 
 cal changes by which it is produced, have not been investi- 
 ' Mexico in 1827, vol. i. p. 57. 
 
SOMA. 243 
 
 gated. It is probably similar in kind to that which gives 
 the bad smell to putrid fish [trimethylamine)}- Substances of 
 this kind are sometimes produced in the living plant. The 
 Bladder-headed Saussurea, for example, which grows in the 
 Himalayas, emits as it grows the smell of putrid meat ; and 
 the Stapeliaa are called carrion-flowers, because of the dis- 
 agreeable putrid odours they exhale. 
 
 The natives of Mexico ascribe many good quaUties to their 
 national drink. It is an excellent stomachic, promotes diges- 
 tion, induces sleep, and is esteemed as a remedy in many dis- 
 eases. It is chiefly in the neighbourhood of large towns, like 
 Puobla and Mexico, that the maguey plantations exist. The 
 pulque so soon passes that state of fermentation at which it 
 is most pleasant to drink, that the manufacture only pays 
 where a speedy sale is certain. The brandy or aguardiente, 
 which is not liable to this inconvenience, is largely manufac- 
 tured, and more widely consumed than the pulque itself. 
 
 6°. Soma. — A kind of intoxicating beverage was formerly 
 prepared in India fi'om the Soma plant, Sarcostigma hrevistigma,^ 
 a sacred shrub of ancient Vedic times, and still celebrated 
 among the Brahmins. It was doubtless the first alcoholic or 
 fermented intoxicant discovered by the Aryan race : sacred 
 rites accompanied the drinking of the fermented sap of this 
 plant. In the Rig Veda, enthusiastic admiration for soma is 
 to bo found. " The purifying Soma, hke the sea, rolling its 
 waves through my heart, has poured forth songs, and hymns, 
 and praise." The plant became a god, the Bacchus of India. 
 
 1 See in a subsoquent chapter "The Smells we Dislike." 
 * Dt O. Biidwood— Handbook to British Indian Section: Paris Exhibition 
 of 1878. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE LIQUORS "WE FERMENT. 
 
 THE BRANDIES. 
 
 Tlie brandies, or ardent spirits. — Methods of distillation. — Absolute alcohol. 
 — Strength of different varieties of spirits. — Peculiarities in the prepara- 
 tory processes of the distiller. — Use of raw grain mixed with malt : profit 
 of this, — Average produce of proof spirits. — Peculiar flavours of cognac, 
 rum, &c.— Consumption of home-made ardent spirits in the three kingdoms. 
 — Quantity of malt used in brewing. — Spirits consumed in the form of beer. 
 — Comparative sobriety of England, Scotland, and Ireland. — Consumption 
 of foreign liquors. — Alleged greater intemperance of Scotland and Ireland : 
 how this impression has been produced. — Influence of the nutritive matter 
 and of the hops contained in beer.— Influence of general food and tempera- 
 ment. — Ardent spirits serve, to a small extent, the same purpose as the 
 starch and fat of our food, and retard the waste of the body. — ^Wine, " the 
 milk of the aged." — Substances employed to give a fictitious strength to 
 fermented liquors. 
 
 III. The Brandies, or Ardent Spirits. — When fermented 
 liquors, such as those just described, are put into an open 
 vessel and heated over a fire till they begin to boil, the alco- 
 hol they contain rises in the form of vapour, along with a 
 little steam, and escapes into the air. If this boiling be per- 
 formed in a close vessel, from which the vapours as they rise 
 are conducted by a pipe into a cooled receiver, they condense 
 again into a liquid state. This is the process called distilla- 
 tion, and the vessel in which it is carried on is called a still. 
 
 1°. The Distillation. — A retort connected with a receiver, 
 over which a stream of cold water is kept flowing (fig. 44), 
 represents the simplest form of such a stiU ; but many more 
 
PROCESS OF DISTILLATION. 
 
 245 
 
 complicated forms of apparatus have been contrived for the 
 purpose of oouductiiiig the process with economy and effici- 
 
 Fig. 44. 
 
 ency. Tho i'uUowiiig- illuHtriitii)ii (fig. 45) represents a form 
 of still, of common use in our laboratories, for distilling water. 
 The kettle a, which contains the water, is covered by the 
 
 Fig. 45. 
 
 movable dome b, from which the pipe b c conducts the vapour 
 into the receiver b, which is surrounded with cold water. 
 
246 
 
 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 
 Thence the condensed liquid descends through a continuation 
 of the tube, bent spirally, called the worm, by which it is, ex- 
 posed to the prolonged action of the cold water, till at length 
 it flows quite cool into the bottle placed to receive it. Into 
 the worm-tub a stream of cold water constantly enters by the • 
 pipe p p, while a similar stream of warm water as constantly 
 escapes by the pipe q. 
 
 Arrangements somewhat different are made in the large 
 distilleries, chiefly with the view of economising time and 
 fueL The following (fig. 46) represents a simple form of 
 
 Fis. 46. 
 
 apparatus formerly in extensive use in distilleries. The 
 principal peculiarities in this are— first, The broad flat bottom 
 of the pot or still a,- by which the effect of the heat is more 
 quickly and fully obtained ; and, secondly. The adoption of 
 two worms, b and c, in different vessels. In the first of these 
 vessels cold wort is put, which is heated by the vapours as 
 the distillation proceeds, and when hot is run at once by the 
 stopcock s into the stUl. The second vessel contains cold water 
 as before, and as this water heats it is run off, and is employed 
 in mashing the grain. Thus heat is economised in various 
 ways. 
 
 The spirit which passes off and condenses in the worm is 
 more or less mixed with water ; but by means of successive 
 
8TKENGTH OF SPIRITS. 247 
 
 distillations^-or rectifications, as they are called — it may be 
 obtained nearly free from water. But the last traces of moist- 
 ure are removed with great difficulty. Substances having a 
 strong attraction for water are put into the most highly rec- 
 tified spirit, and then it is again distilled. In this way is 
 obtained what chemists call absolute alcohol. This pure or 
 absolute alcohol has a peculiar penetrating smell ; a hot, fiery, 
 and burning taste ; is about one-fifth part lighter than water ;i 
 bunis readily, but with a pale flame, when kindled in the air, 
 and is intoxicating in a high degree. It gives ofi" vapour 
 freely, but it also absorbs water from the air. It is used only 
 for chemical purposes. The spirit-of-wine, or common alcohol 
 of the shops, which we bum in our lamps, and employ for 
 other familiar uses, is already diluted with a considerable pro- 
 portion of water, and contains, moreover, some quantity of 
 another kind of alcohol as well as oily impurities. 
 
 In the brandies, or other varieties of ardent spirits which 
 we consume as exhilarating drinks, the alcohol is still further 
 diluted with water. 
 
 Thus the proportions of alcohol per cent, in some of the com- 
 mon varieties of commercial spirits, are as nearly follows (at 
 60° Fahr.) :— 
 
 AtCOHOL. 
 
 By weight. By measoic 
 
 British proof spirit contains ... 49 67 
 
 Commercial Cognac, 15 under proof, . 41 48 
 
 Rum, 15 over proof, . . 68 06 
 
 Gin, 17 under proof, . 40 47 
 
 Whisky, 10 over proof, . . 65 63 
 
 So that, on an average, we may say that the ardent spirits we 
 consume contain less than half their weight, or three-fifths of 
 their bulk, of absolute alcohol. They are about twice as 
 strong as our port, sherry, and Madeira wines. 
 
 Every different fermented liquor, when distilled, yields art 
 ardent spirit which has a flavour, and is generally distin- 
 guished by a name of its own. Thus wine yields what we 
 call brandy or cognac ; fermented molasses yields rum ; In- 
 dian com, potatoes, and rye, yield liquors which are dis- 
 tinguished as com, potato, and rye brandies ; while malt worts 
 
 • A vessel which will hold 1000 grains of water will hold only 792 of abso- 
 lute alcohol. Its specific gravity is therefore said to be 792, that of water 
 being 1000— or 0.792, that of water being 1. 
 
248 THE LIQUOKS WE FERMENT. 
 
 or liquors give our Scotch and Irish whiskies. If juniper- 
 berries be added previous to distillation, as is usually done in 
 Holland, a flavour is imparted to the spirit which is character- 
 istic of gin or Hollands ; and if the malt be dried over a peat- 
 fire, the smell and taste of the peat (the peat-reek) accompany 
 the spirit prepared from it ; and these, in the estimation of 
 the initiated, impart a peculiar value to peat-reek whisky. 
 
 2°. The Distillers' Processes. — But though malt and 
 other liquors, fermented in the usual way — ^indeed, in almost 
 any way — will yield brandy by distillation, yet the distiller 
 by profession conducts his fermenting operations in a some- 
 what different way from the brewer, whose object is merely 
 the production of beer. Thus — 
 
 First, We have seen that, in fermenting the wort for the 
 manufacture of beer, a large proportion of the dextrine, and 
 some of the sugar, is left in the liquor unchanged. The 
 fermentation is stopped before these materials are trans- 
 formed into alcohol, in order that the beer may be pleasant to 
 drink, and that it may keep in the cask without turning sour. 
 But the distiller's object is to obtain the largest possible 
 quantity of spirit from his grain ; he therefore prolongs the 
 fermentation until the whole of the dextrine is changed into 
 sugar, and all the latter, as nearly as possible, into alcohol 
 and carbonic acid. To leave any of it unchanged would not 
 only involve a loss of spirit, but, during the subsequent dis- 
 tillation, might injure the flavour and general quality of the 
 spirit he obtained. The securing of this point, therefore, 
 requires on his part an attention to minute circumstances, 
 different a little in kind, but not less nice and delicate than 
 those which determine the success of the brewer's operations. 
 
 Again, the most agreeable and generally esteemed grain- 
 spirit is obtained when malted barley only is employed in the 
 manufacture. This yields in Scotland and Ireland the best 
 malt whisky. The profit of the distiller, however, is often 
 promoted by mixing with the malt a greater or less propor- 
 tion of unmalted grain, or even of potato-starch. To the 
 reason of this I have already briefly alluded (p. 216), but it is 
 worthy of a fuUer explanation. 
 
 We have seen that it is the diastase, produced during the 
 germination of the barley, which subsequently transforms the 
 starch of the grain into sugar. This diastase is capable of so 
 
QEAIN WHISKY. 249 
 
 transforming nearly a thousand times its own weight of 
 starch ; but good malt contains only a hundred of starch to 
 one of diastase. The latter ingredient, therefore, will trans- 
 form into sugar ten times as much starch as it is associated 
 with in the best malt. Hence a large quantity of starch, 
 either in the form of crushed unmalted g^in, or of potato or 
 rice starch, may be mixed even with ordinary malt in the 
 mash-tub, with the certainty that the diastase of the malt wiU 
 transform it all into sugar. 
 
 This is what the distiller does in making grain whisky; 
 and the profit of it consists in this — that he saves both the 
 expense of malting his grain and the loss of matter (usually 
 8 per cent) ^ which barley always undergoes in malting. He 
 is able, also, to use for these additions of grain an inferior or 
 cheaper material than is usually employed for conversion into 
 malt.* The sweet wort obtained in this way, when fermented 
 and distilled, yields a spirit of a somewhat harsher and less 
 pleasant flavour than when malt alone is used. 
 
 Along with the spirit, during the distillation of fermented 
 
 1 100 lb. of barley yield only 80 lb. of malt. But of this loss 12 per cent 
 consists of water driven off by the beat of the malt kiln, so that the real loss 
 of substance is 8 lb. in the 100. 
 
 ' Thus, in some of the Scotch distilleries, such a mixture- as the following 
 is employed : — 
 
 Malt, .... 42 bushels at 40 lb. a bushel. 
 Oats, .... 25 „ 47 „ 
 
 Rye 25 „ 53 „ 
 
 Barley, .... 158 „ 63 „ 
 
 250 
 The diastase in the 42 bushels of malt converts into sugar the starch of the 
 whole 260 bushels, weighing eight times as much as the malt itself. This 
 quantity of grain yields on an average 683 gallons of proof whisky, or 14 gal- 
 lons from 6 bushels of the mixture. 
 
 In an Irish grain distillery the components of the mixture, or grist, for fer- 
 mentation, were these :— 
 
 
 (1.) 
 
 
 (2.) 
 
 
 (8.) 
 
 
 Bills. 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Bhis. Per cent 
 
 Bhls. Percent. 
 
 Malt, 
 
 280 
 
 
 14 
 
 240 
 
 12 
 
 80 14i 
 
 Oats, 
 
 320 
 
 
 16 
 
 280 
 
 14 
 
 120 21i 
 
 Rye, 
 
 600 
 
 
 30 
 
 320 
 
 16 
 
 80 14i 
 
 Barley, 
 
 800 
 
 
 40 
 
 920 
 
 46 
 
 280 60 
 
 Maize, 
 
 ... 
 
 
 ... 
 
 240 
 
 12 
 
 ... 
 
 100 100 100 
 
250 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT 
 
 liquors, there always passes over a small but variable propor- 
 tion of one or more volatile oily liquids, -which mix with, the 
 spirit and give it a peculiar flavour. These volatile oils vary 
 in kind, in composition, and in sensible properties, with the 
 source of the sugar which has been submitted to fermentation, 
 and with the substances which are present along with it in 
 the wort. Hence the spirit obtained from almost every differ- 
 ent fermented liquor is distinguished by its own characteristic 
 flavour. Thus wine-brandy, or cognac, derives its vinous 
 flavour from the juice of the grape ; and cognacs of different 
 districts their special flavours from the kinds of wine which 
 are distilled in each. Eum obtains its smell and taste from 
 molasses, the scorched and altered juice of the sugar-cane ; 
 whisky, its peculiarities from the barley-malt or grain that is 
 mixed with it ; potato-brandy, from the mashed potato or its 
 skin ; palm-brandy, from the fermented toddy ; the aguardi- 
 ente of Mexico, from the strong-smelling pulque ; and the 
 arraca of the Kalmucks, from their fermented milk. And so 
 with other varieties of spirit. In each case a volatile sub- 
 stance accompanies the spirit ; and though this substance is 
 always very small in quantity, it is yet sufficient to impart to 
 each different variety a flavour at once characteristic and 
 peculiar to itself. In potato-brandy the main flavouring sub- 
 stance is an oily liquid closely related to wine alcohol, and 
 known as amyl alcohol ; it is the chief ingredient of Jv,sel oil. 
 In beet-root spirit, and in other sorts as well, there is much 
 amyl alcohol, generally accompanied by two other alcohols. 
 All these bodies have more powerful poisonous properties 
 than wine alcohol. Eoughly, they may be found by pouring 
 a little of the suspected gin or whisky on the hands, rubbing 
 them together, and allowing the more volatile wine alcohol to 
 evaporate. A pungent, suffocating, and nauseous odour re- 
 maining on the skin shows fusel oil, or one or more of the 
 so-called higher alcohols of amyl, butyl, or propyl. These 
 bodies, with other odorous substances found in distilled 
 spirits from different sources, may be removed by an elabo- 
 rate system of rectification, filtration through charcoal, &c. 
 
 It is chiefly from malted and raw grain of various kinds 
 that ardent spirits are distilled in the British Islands, in 
 northern Europe generally, and in the North American states 
 and colonies. Maize or Indian corn is most extensively em- 
 
CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOL. 251 
 
 ployed for this purpose in the United States, and rice and 
 miUet in China, Potatoes are used to a considerable extent 
 on the continent of Europe, and sugar is occasionally em- 
 ployed in our own distilleries. 
 
 3°. Consumption of Akdent Spirits. — The manufacture 
 and consumption of ardent spirits, especially in northern 
 climates, is exceedingly great. In the United Kingdom, the 
 quantity distilled and consumed, in the year ending on the 
 6th of January 1854, was about 25,000,000 gallons, distri- 
 buted as follows : — 
 
 dstiUed. Consnmed. 
 
 England, . . . 10,729,243 gallons. 10,350,307 gallons. 
 
 ScotUnd, . . . 6,567,839 „ 6,634,648 „ 
 
 Ireland, . . . 8,136,362 „ 8,136,362 „ 
 
 United Kingdom, 26,428,444 26,021,317 
 
 In 1875 the quantity consumed was — 
 
 England 16,737,366 gallons. 
 
 Scotland, 6,990,170 „ 
 
 Ireland, 6,094,038 
 
 United Kingdom, .... 29,821 ,674 
 
 This is a very large quantity of ardent spirits to bo con- 
 sumed by a population of less than 34,000,000. The numbers 
 appear especially large in the cases of Scotland and Ireland, 
 and would seem at first sight to imply a much greater pro- 
 portionate consumption of alcohol in these countries than in 
 England. 
 
 But a simple application of chemical knowledge materially 
 alters this first conclusion. 
 
 a. In the year ending on the 1st October 1857, and in that 
 ending on the 31st of March 1875, the quantities of malt con- 
 sumed in each of the three kingdoms, in the making of beer, 
 were, in bushels, respectively — 
 
 18S7. 1875. 
 
 England, .... 83,140,696 53,661,020 
 
 Scotland, .... 1,228,520 2,840,212 
 
 Ireland 2,083,968 3,221,329 
 
 United Kingdom, 86,453,184 69,722,561 
 
 From which numbers it appears, that of the 59f millions of 
 bushels of malt used in the three kingdoms for the making of 
 
252 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 
 beer,^ more than 53 J millions were consumed in England 
 alone. 
 
 Now, in the average of years, one bushel of malt yields two 
 gallons of proof spirit, or 18 gallons of light ale or porter ; so 
 that the malt yearly made into beer in England, if employed for 
 making whisky, would yield the enormous quantity of 107 millions 
 of gallons I 
 
 I have already stated, however, that in the fermentation of 
 the worts for the manufacture of beer, the whole of the dex- 
 trine and sugar is not transformed into alcohol : from one- 
 fourth to sometimes one-half of the whole remains unchanged 
 in the beer. The quantity of malt, therefore, which is con- 
 sumed in England for the making of this milder drink does 
 not in reality indicate the consumption of so large a number 
 of gallons of ardent spirits as the distiller would extract from 
 it. And we must not forget that large quantitiBS both of beer 
 and spirits are exported from one part of the United Kingdom 
 to another. If we aUow one-fourth of the whole for the dex- 
 trine and sugar' remaining unchanged in the beer, then the 
 quantity of alcohol or proof spirits actually consumed in the 
 three kingdoms during 1875 would be very nearly as foUows 
 (in gallons) : — 
 
 England. Scotland. Ireland. 
 
 Spirits consumed as such, 16,737,366 6,990,170 6,094,038 
 
 Spirits consumed in the teer, 80,491,530 4,260,318 4,831,994 
 
 Total spirits consumed, 97,228,896 11,250,488 10,926,032 
 
 Now, if we divide these several total sums by the popula- 
 tion of each of the three kingdoms, we obtain the following 
 numbers for the quantity of ardent spirits consumed per head 
 in each country : — 
 
 England. Scotland. Ireland. 
 
 Total consumption in gallons, fl7J millions, llj millions. 11 millions. 
 
 Population, ... 24 „ 3^ ,, SJ ,, 
 
 Consumption per head in I 41 31 2 
 
 gallons, / " " 
 
 In so far as the mere consumption of alcohol, in the form 
 of home-made liquors, goes, therefore, it appears that Scotland 
 does not in reality surpass England. On the contrary, Eng- 
 land somewhat exceeds Scotland, while both England and 
 
 1 In 1875 over 6,000,000 bushels of malt were consumed in making ardent 
 spirits. 
 
CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOL. 25 J 
 
 Scotland greatly Birrpass Ireland. For every head of its popu- 
 lation, Ireland consumes less than half of what is consumed 
 in England, and somewhat more than half of what is con- 
 sumed in Scotland. This very small comparative consump- 
 tion in Ireland is not to be ascribed to increased temperance 
 caused by the labours of Father Mathew and others. On the 
 contrary, since his time the consumption per head has greatly 
 increased ; but it is both fairer and safer, I think, to ascribe 
 this increase to a general advance in material prosperity than 
 to augmenting intemperance and dissipation. 
 
 b. But in estimating the actual and relative consumption 
 of alcohol in England and Scotland, there are still two other 
 items to be taken into calculation. Wine and foreign spirits 
 are imported into the United Kingdom, and consumed in 
 large quantities. Thus, in the year ending Slst March 1876, 
 there was entered for home consumption, in gallons — 
 
 Wine 16,942,156 . . . 2,388,4211 
 
 Foreign spirits, 11,936,263 
 
 14,323,684 
 
 Now, in England, the consumption of wine and foreign 
 spirits, among the middle and higher classes, is certainly 
 more general and more considerable than among the same 
 classes in Scotland. A much larger proportion per head of 
 the 14,000,000 gallons of spirits consumed in the form of 
 imported liquors must therefore be ascribed to England. But 
 the distribution of this large quantity within the United 
 Kingdom cannot be accurately detenniried. However, the 
 following fig^es have been arrived at after due consideration 
 of the various data at our disposal. Of gallons of proof 
 spirits, in one form or another, in the year 1876, there were 
 consumed per head of the population — 
 
 England. Scotland. Ireland. 
 
 In beer, SJ IJ 1 
 
 In home and foreign wines and spirits, 1^ iff 1^ 
 
 4i 8! 2i 
 
 Tliese numbers do not, in themselves, imply very extreme 
 intemperance in either country. Were the total quantity of 
 
 ' Sapposing foreign wines to contain an average of only ten per cent of ab- 
 solute or trae alcohol, which is decidedly too low. 
 
254 THE LIQUOKS WE FEKMENT. 
 
 ardent spirits we use really equally distributed and consumed 
 in the above proportions by the whole population, cases of 
 drunkenness would not necessarily occur. It is because 
 many consume more than their share that the evils of intem- 
 perance so often manifest themselves. 
 
 c. Two chemico-physiological points in connection with 
 this subject are deserving of our consideration. It is very 
 generally believed, and has recently at least been very often 
 asserted — and what is curious, most strongly and earnestly in 
 Scotland itself — that in Scotland intemperance is a much 
 more common vice than in England. But how can this be, 
 since the average individual consumption of alcohol in Eng- 
 land is one-fourth part greater than in Scotland ? 
 
 And, again, Ireland has been reproached for its intemper- 
 ance and for its love of whisky even more than Scotland, and 
 yet the individual consumption of alcohol in any form is prob; 
 ably less iu that island than in any northern country, either 
 European ^ or American. Can this allegation be true, or how 
 is it to be accounted for? 
 
 First, As to the alleged greater sobriety of England, it is 
 to be observed that nearly three-fourths of all the alcohol 
 drunk in that country is in the form of beer. This liquor,- as 
 we have seen, feeds and nourishes while it exhilarates the 
 Englishman. All that the distillers' fermented wort contains, 
 except its alcohol, rernains behind in the still, and is lost as 
 food for man. AU. that the brewers' wort contains, with the 
 exception of what separates in the fining of his liquor, is 
 retained and drunk in the beer. Sugar, dextrine or gum, 
 glycerine, and gluten, to the amount of from 4 to 8 per cent of 
 its weight, exist in the malt-liquor ; and these, by strength- 
 ening the system, modify and mollify the apparent action of 
 the alcohol with which they are associated. They place malt- 
 liquors in a somewhat similar relation to ardent spirits as that 
 which cocoa bears to tea and coffee.^ 
 
 Besides, beer is drugged, so to speak, with hops, the tonic, 
 narcotic, and sedative influences of which restrain, retard, and 
 modify the intoxicating action of the spirit. Thus — con- 
 trolled by the nutritive and narcotic ingredients it is asso^ 
 
 1 In Sweden it is said that 3,000,000 of people consume 30,000,000 gallons 
 of spirits. 
 
 a See " The Beverages we Infuse," p. 169. 
 
EFFECTS OF ALCOHOLIC LIQUOES. 256 
 
 oiated with — a larger proportion of actual alcohol or spirit 
 will produce a smaller sensible intoxicating effect than if 
 tak(-n alone. But still more than all these causes is the 
 effect produced by the greater dilution of the alcohol in beer. 
 " Spread out the thunder into its softest tones, and it becomes 
 a lullaby for children," says Schiller ; and the same principle 
 operates in diluting alcohol instead of drinking it neat. A 
 glass of whisky diluted in a tumbler of water, and sipped so 
 slowly that an hour passes before the whole is consumed, will 
 have no appreciable effect upon the person who could not toss 
 off a glass of neat whisky without intoxication. And thus a 
 people may appear more temperate and sober, while in reality 
 consuming a larger proportion of ardent spirits. 
 
 Secondly, But though these reasons may go far to explain 
 the difference in the reputed sobriety of the two ends of our 
 own island, they scarcely explain why Ireland, which con- 
 sumes so little per head, should be charged with an amount 
 of intemperance greater even than Scotland itself. Here, I 
 believe, other causes come into play. Of these I instance 
 only two — the less substantial food, and the more excitable 
 temperament of tlie Irish people. Every one knows how 
 easily a man becomes intoxicated if he pours down ardent 
 spirits into an empty stomach. And from this extreme case 
 the effect of a given quantity of spirits becomes less as the 
 quantity of good food eaten becomes greater. It is least of 
 all on the well-fed, muscular, beef-eating labourer. 
 
 And, again, excitable people, even when well fed, are influ- 
 enced more than others by intoxicating drinks. As a people, 
 it will, I believe, be conceded that the Irish are more excitable 
 than the English ; and likely, therefore, to be overcome by a 
 quantity of liquor which persons of a more torpid tempera- 
 ment could, in the same circumstances, drink wth impunity. 
 It is probable that the quality and quantity of the national 
 food has a material influence upon national temperament. 
 But however this be, I am inclined to see, in the two things 
 — in the national food and the national temperament — an 
 explanation of the alleged insobriety of a people who, it is 
 certain, do really consume so little intoxibating drink.^ 
 
 > Oood-fellowship is an enemy to sobriety— not for the vulgar reason that it 
 provokes to the passing of the bottle, but because it makes what is drank 
 have a greater apparent effect. It is familiar to the knowing ones, that if a 
 
256 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 
 This influence of temperament, in connection with that of 
 climate, has probably something to do also with the great 
 evils which are said to arise fkim the use of ardent spirits 
 among the European races settled in North America. These, 
 as is well known, have of late years given rise to much dis- 
 cussion — to strenuous efforts, on the part of the benevolent; 
 to check the consumption of fermented liquors — and to the 
 passing of what is called the Maine Law, for the purpose of 
 effectually repressing it. 
 
 4°. Influence op Ardent Spikits. — In the ardour of this 
 crusade against fermented liquors, statements have been 
 hastily made by over-zealous champions of total abstinence, 
 which are not quite borne out by chemical and physiological 
 
 Ardent spirits of every variety are little else than alcohol 
 diluted with a large proportion of water, and flavoured with a 
 minute admixture of volatile oil, the precise action of which 
 upon the system is not known. They contain none, there- 
 fore, of the common forms of nutritive matter which exist in 
 our usual varieties of animal and vegetable food. It does not 
 follow from this, however, as some have too broadly alleged, 
 that they are incapable of serving any useful purpose in the 
 animal economy. On the contrary, it is ascertained of ardent 
 spirits — 
 
 First, That they are in a measure burnt in the body, and, 
 by the changes they undergo in the blood, supply a por- 
 tion of that heat and energy which are a necessity of life. 
 They so far, therefore, supply the place of food — of the fat 
 and starch, for example — which we usually eat. Hence a 
 schnapps, in Germany, with a slice of lean dried meat, makes 
 a mixture like that of the starch and gluten in our bread, 
 which is capable of feeding the body. So we either add sugar 
 to milk, or take spirits along with it (old man's milk), for the 
 purpose of adjusting the proportions of the ingredients more 
 suitably to the constitution, or to the circumstances in which 
 it is to be consumed. 
 
 Secondly, That they diminish the absolute amount of car- 
 bonic acid, urea, and earthy phosphates usually given off by 
 
 man wishes to drink, he had better let his companions do all the talKng. 
 " Gin ye're gaun to drink, sir, dinna ye tallc muckle." Here the temperament 
 ot the mercurial and excitable tells at once. i 
 
EFFECTS OF ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS. 257 
 
 the lungs and the kidneys. They thus lessen, as tea and 
 coffee do (p. 173), the natural waste of the fat and tissues, 
 and tliey necessarily diminish, in an equal degree, the quan- 
 tity of ordinary food which is requisite to keep up the weight 
 of the body. In other words, they have the property of 
 making a given weight of food go furthier in sustaining the 
 strength and bulk of the body. This is a very different thing 
 from the preventing of the digestion and assimilation of food 
 which their excessive use occasions. And in addition to the 
 saving of material thus effected, they ease and lighten the 
 labour of the digestive organs, which, when the stomach is 
 weak, is often a most valuable result. " Persons accustomed 
 to the use of wine," says Liebig, " when they take cod-liver 
 oil, soon lose their taste for wine. Since the establishment 
 of temperance societies it was thought fair, in many English 
 families, to compensate in money those servants who took 
 the pledge, and no longer drank beer, for the former daily 
 allowance of beer ; but it was soon found that the monthly 
 consumption of bread mcreased in a striking degree, so that 
 the beer was twice paid for : once in money, and a second 
 time in its equivalent in bread." 
 
 In comparing the physiological effects of fermented liquors 
 with those of distilled spirits, we must not forget the marked 
 diuretic action of the latter. An illustration is afforded by 
 the case of a number of men employed on the Thames. Of 
 these men, half drank porter, half spirits. Dr Garrod tells 
 us that several of the porter-drinkers were attacked with gout, 
 while all the spirit-drinkers escaped ; the uric acid in the 
 blood of the latter being more freely removed. 
 
 Hence fermented liquors, if otherwise suitable to the con- 
 stitution, exercise a beneficial influence upon old people, and 
 other weakly persons whose fat and tissues have begun to 
 waste — in whom the process of digestion, that is, does not 
 replace the tissues as fast as they natvirally waste. This 
 lessening in weight or substance is one of the most usual 
 consequences of the approach of old age. It is a common 
 symptom of the decline of life. The stomach either does not 
 receive or does not digest food enough to replace that which 
 is daily removed from the substance of the body. Weak 
 alcoholic drinks arrest or retard, and thus diminish the daily 
 amount of this loss of substance. They gently stimulate the 
 
258 THE LIQUORS WE FERMENT. 
 
 digestive organs also, and help them to do their work more 
 fully and faithfully ; and thus the body is sustained to a later 
 period in life. Hence poets have called wine " the milk of 
 the old," and scientific philosophy owns the propriety of the 
 term. If it does not nourish the old so directly as milk 
 nourishes the young, yet it certainly does aid in supporting 
 and filling up their failing frames. And it is one of the happy 
 consequences of a temperate youth and manhood, that this 
 spirituous milk does not fail in its good effects when the 
 weight of years begins to press upon us. But the water, the 
 organic and inorganic salts, the odorous ethers, the bitter and 
 other extractives, as well as the sugar in the various kinds of 
 fermented liquor, must aU be taken into account if we are to 
 understand the physiological effects of these drinks. To a 
 moist and cold climate and duU skies must be attributed some 
 of the intemperance of northern regions. Continuous bright^ 
 ness of weather and light dry air favour sobriety. ' 
 
 AU this, of course, in no w£ly justifies the indulgence in 
 fermented liquors of any kind to excess, or palliates the moral 
 evils to which this excess invariably gives rise. The good 
 results I have spoken of follow only from a moderate use of 
 them. But the peculiar danger attendant upon the consump- 
 tion of intoxicating drinks arises from their extreme seduc- 
 tiveness, and from the aU but unconquerable strength of the 
 drinking habit when once formed. Their peculiar malignity 
 appears — where they have once obtained a mastery — ^in their 
 becoming the parent and nurse of every kind of suffering, 
 immorality, and crime. How difficult is it to forge a chain 
 sufficiently strong to restrain men from alcoholic drink '. In 
 an early number of the ' Band of Hope Eeview ' it was stated 
 that, of 500,000 persons who had taken the pledge in the 
 United States, 350,000 had broken it ! Have the same pro- 
 portion broken other solemn vows ? 
 
 " Who hath woe ? " says Solomon ; " who hath sorrow ? who 
 hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds 
 without cause ? who hath redness of eyes ? They that tarry 
 long at the wine ; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look 
 not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his 
 colour in the cup, when it nioveth itself aright. At the last 
 it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." 
 
 5°. Adulteration of Fermented Liquors. — The real 
 
ADULTERATION OF FERMENTED LIQUORS. 259 
 
 strength of pure fermented liquors depends, as we have seen, 
 on the proportion of alcohol they contain. But in various 
 countries adulterating substances are added to them, often 
 of a narcotic kind, for the purpose of imparting flaTonr, or 
 a fictitious or apparent strength. 
 
 Thus, to malt-beer, in England, quassia-chips and chiretta- 
 roots give extra bitterness ; the Ledum palustre and Ledum 
 lalifoUum have been used in North Germany ; the Achillea 
 Millefolium, or yarrow, in Dalecarlia ; and the seeds of Datura 
 Stramonium, or thorn-apple, in Russia, in India, and formerly 
 in China. In Java, ragi cakes made of onions, black pepper, 
 and capsicums, are fermented with boiled rice, to give a 
 similar strength to rice-beer. 
 
 To grape-wine poppy-heads are now added in Persia, In 
 ancient Palestine frankincense was added, especially to the 
 wine given to criminals, for the purpose of stupefying them 
 before the execution began ; and in ancient Greece, sea-water 
 in the proportion of 1 of wefter to 50 of wine, with the view 
 of aiding digestion, and preventing its affecting the head. 
 
 Mastic is the name given to a kind of liqueur in use 
 throughout the Levant and in the Grecian Isles. The best 
 comos from Chios. It is a strong spirit, in which an aromatic 
 resin or balsam has been dissolved, and is drunk with water. 
 Some Greek wines at Constantinople are rendered bitter by 
 an infusion of fir-cones. Chartreuse contains pine, anise, and 
 angelica oils. 
 
 To ardent spirits, seeds of thorn-apple are added in India ; 
 and in England, Malagueta pepper with capsicum, calamus, 
 and juniper-berries, to give a hot strong flavour to London 
 gin. 
 
 These substances are all foreign to the true nature and 
 composition of the liquors we ferment. They add nothing to 
 the amount of alcohol contained in these liquors. They affect 
 their quality generally by introducing narcotic or stimulating 
 ingredients. The chemical properties of most of these nai-- 
 cotio ingredients, and their action upon the system, wiU be 
 treated of in the immediately succeeding chapters upon the 
 "Narcotics we Indulge in." But we cannot refrain from 
 referring here to a substitute for alcohol which is actually 
 now used in some parts of Ireland. It is a liquid derived 
 from alcohol, being the oxide instead of the hydrate of ethyl. 
 
260 THE LIQUOES WE FEKMENT. 
 
 Its employment for producing a rapid, and, happily, transitory 
 state of intoxication, appears to date from about 1846-47, after 
 the crusades of Father Mathew. When he expelled alcohol 
 at the front door ether came in at the back. Dr B. W. Eich- 
 ardson has lately ^ described a visit he paid to Draper's Town 
 from Ballymena. In the lower and business part of the town 
 the smell of ether was distinctly perceptible. The dose taken 
 is from a quarter to lialf an ounce, but now and then two or 
 three ounces are tossed off at once. It is sold to the local 
 dealers at Is. 3d. the pint, and is made from methylated spirit. 
 There are three stages in ethereal intoxication, the first indi- 
 cated by hysterical laughter and loquacity ; the second often 
 accompanied by violent or riotous conduct ; in the third the 
 subject becomes dead drunk. In half an hour recovery is tol- 
 erably complete. 
 
 1 Gentleman's Magazine, Oct. 1878. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE NARCOTICS "WE INDULGE IN. 
 TOBACCO. 
 
 Man's wants progressive ; how he ministers to them. — Narcotics now in use 
 in different parts of the world ; map of their distribution. — Tobacco 
 brought to Europe from America. — Its rapid spread over the globe. — Its 
 extended use. — Opposition encourages it. — Is it indigenous in China as we)I 
 aa in America ?— Present consumption in the United Kingdom. — It is rapidly 
 increasing. — Circumstances which affect the quality of tobacco. — Where 
 the best qualities grow. —Forms in which tobacco is used.— Manufacture 
 of snuff. — Effects produced by tobacco. — It soothes and excites. — Influence 
 of climate, constitution, and temperament in modifying its effects. — In- 
 teresting physiological facts. — Does it necessarily provoke to dissipa- 
 tion! — What is the tobacco reverie? — Chemical ingredients of the 
 tobacco : the volatile oil ; the volatile alkali ; the alkalies produced 
 during smoking; the empyreumatic oil. — Proportion of these poisonous 
 substances is variable. — Chemical differences between smoking, chewing, 
 and snuffing. —Cause of diversities in the quality of tobacco. — Adulterations 
 of tobacco. — ^The ash of the tobacco-leaf. — ^The growing of tobacco an ex- 
 hausting culture. 
 
 Akin to the intoxicating liquors we consume are the narcotic 
 substances we indulge in ; and if the history of the former, 
 in their relations to the social state, be full of a melancholy 
 interest, that of the latter is still more striking and extra- 
 ordinary. I may say, indeed, that to the economical statist, 
 not less than to the physiologist and psychologist, the con- 
 nection of man with the narcotics in common use, in different 
 countries, forms one of the most wonderful chapters in his 
 entire history. 
 
262 THE NAKCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 In ministering fully to his natural wants and cravings, man 
 passes through three successive stages. 
 
 First, the necessities of his material nature are provided 
 for. Beef and bread represent the means. by which, in every 
 country, this end is attained. And among the numerous 
 forms of animal and vegetable food which different nations 
 make use of in the place of these two staples of English life, 
 a considerable amount of similarity in chemical composition 
 prevails. Exactly the same gluten and starch and fat are 
 supplied to the body in every country ; while under very 
 varied conditions of climate and of natural vegetation, the 
 experience of man has led him everywhere to adjust in a 
 measure the chemical constitution of the staple forms of his 
 diet to the chemical wants of his living body.^ 
 
 Next, he seeks to assuage the cares of his mind and to 
 banish uneasy reflections. Fermented liquors are the agents 
 by which this is effected. And here also it is interesting to 
 remark, not only that this lightening of care is widely and 
 extensively attained, but that the chemical substance, by 
 the use of which it is brought about, is everywhere one and 
 the same. Savage and civilised tribes, near and remote — the 
 houseless barbarian wanderer, the settled peasant, and the 
 skilled citizen — all have found out, by some common and 
 instinctive process, the art of preparing fermented drinks, 
 and of procuring for themselves the enjoyments and miseries 
 of intoxication. And thus, whatever material is employed 
 for the purpose, whether the toddy of the palm-tree, the sap 
 of the aloe, the juice of the sugar-cane, the syrup of honey, 
 the must of the grape, the expressed liquor of the apple and 
 pear, the wort of malted grain, or the milk of the Tartar mare 
 — in every instance the substance called alcohol is produced 
 by the fermentation, and forms the intoxicating ingredient of 
 the liquor. 
 
 And lastly, he desires to multiply his enjoyments, intel- 
 lectual and animal, and for the time to exalt them. This 
 he attains by the aid of narcotics. And of these narcotics, 
 again, it is remarkable that almost every country or tribe has 
 its own, either aboriginal or imported ; so that the imiversal 
 instinct of the race has led, somehow or other, to the universal 
 supply of this want or craving also. 
 
 > See " The Bread we Eat," and " The Beef we Cook." 
 
TOBACCO, THE CHIEF NARCOTIC. 2G3 
 
 The aborigines of Central America rolled up the tobacco- 
 leaf, and dreamed away their lives in smoky reveries, ages 
 before Columbus was bom, or the colonists of Sir Walter 
 Raleigh brought it within the precincts of the Elizabethan 
 court. The coca-leaf, now the comfort and strength of the 
 Peruvian mtdetero, was chewed as he chews it, in far-remoto 
 times, and among the same mountains, by the Indian natives 
 whose blood he inherits. The iise of opium, of hemp, and of 
 the betel-nut among Eastern Asiatics, mounts up to the times 
 of most fabulous antiquity. The same probably is true of the 
 pepper-plants among the South Sea Islands and the Indian 
 Archipelago, and of the thorn-apples used among the natives 
 of the Andes, and on the slopes of the Himalayas ; while in 
 northern Europe the ledum and the hop, and in Siberia the 
 narcotic fungus, have been in use from time immemorial. — 
 {See Map, p. 265.) 
 
 As from different plants, in different parts of the world, the 
 favourite intoxicating liquor was obtained, so from different 
 plants the favourite narcotic was extracted by different races 
 of men. But this important difference prevails between the 
 two classes of indulgences, that while in aU the fermented 
 liquors, as I have said, the same alcohol or intoxicating spirit 
 exists, each narcotic in use contains its own peculiar principle. 
 From whatever source obtained, the fermented liquor produces 
 nearly the same effect upon the human system. But each 
 narcotic indulgence produces its own peculiar and special 
 effect. Tobacco, and opium, and hemp, and coca, and the hop, 
 and tlie toad-stool, while they aU exercise a narcotic influence 
 upon the human frame, do so in a form and with modifications 
 which in each case are peculiar, in many respects full of in- 
 terest, and always worthy of deep study and consideration. 
 These narcotic substances, therefore, occupy an important 
 place in the chemistry and chemico-physiology of common 
 life. 
 
 I. Tobacco. — Of all the narcotics I have mentioned, tobacco 
 (fig. 47) is in use over the largest area, and among the great- 
 est number of people. Opium is probably next to it in these 
 respects, and the hemp plant occupies the third place. This 
 is exhibited to the eye in the map which I have attached to 
 till- present chapter. A glance at this map shows the original 
 13 
 
264 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 Fig. 47. 
 
 home of each of the most important narcotics, as -well as the 
 parts of the earth in which each is known to be at present 
 cultivated. 
 
 Tobacco is believed to be a native of tropical America ; at 
 all events, it was cultivated and 
 used by the native inhabitants of 
 various parts of that continent long 
 before its discovery by Europeans.* 
 In 1492, Columbus found the chiefs 
 of Cuba smoking cigars, and Cortes 
 met with it afterwards, when he 
 penetrated to Mexico. From Ame- 
 rica it was introduced into Spain 
 by the Spaniards, it is not certain 
 in what year. In 1560 it was 
 brought to France by Nicot, and 
 in 1586 to England by Sir Francis 
 Drake, and the colonists of Sir 
 Walter Ealeigh. Into Turkey and 
 Arabia, according to Mr Lane, it 
 was introduced about the beginning 
 of the seventeenth century, and in 
 1601 it is known to have been 
 carried to Java. Since that time 
 both the cultivation and the use of 
 the plant have spread over a large 
 portion of the habitable globe. 
 
 Thus the diEferent parts of Ame- 
 rica in which it is now grown in- 
 clude Canada, New Brunswick, the 
 United States, Mexico, the western 
 coast as far as 40° south latitude, 
 Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad, Jamaica, 
 and the other West India Islands.- 
 In Africa it is cultivated on the 
 Red Sea and the Mediterranean, in Egypt, Algeria, the 
 Canaries, along the western coast, at the Cape of Good 
 
 1 The history of tobacco and its uses has Ibeen elaborately. compiled by 
 Tiedmann, ' Geschichte des Tabaks und ahnlioher Genussmittel,' 1854— an ab- 
 stract of which is given by Von Bibra, ' Die Narkotisohen Genussmittel und 
 der Mensch,' 1855. 
 
 Nicotlaiia tabaeiim — 
 
 The Virginian Tobacco. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to a foot and a haif. 
 
MAP OF DISTUIBUTION OF KAUCOTIGH. 
 
 265 
 
266 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 Hope, and at numerous places in the interior of the con- 
 tinent. In Europe, it has been raised with success in almost 
 every country,^ and it forms at present an important agri- 
 cultural product in Hungary, Germany, Flanders, and France. 
 In Asia, it has spread over Turkey, Persia, India, Thibet, 
 China, Japan, the Bahamas, the Philippine Islands, Java, 
 Ceylon, and to Australia and New Zealand. Among nar- 
 cotic plants, indeed, it occupies a similar place to that of 
 the potato among food-plants. It is the most extensively 
 cultivated, the most hardy, and the most tolerant of changes 
 in temperature, altitude, and general climate. From the 
 equator to the fiftieth degree of latitude it may be raised 
 without difficulty, though it grows best within thirty-five 
 degrees of latitude on either side of the equator. The finest 
 qualities are raised between the fifteenth degree of north lati- 
 tude, that of the Philippines, and the thirty-fifth degree, that 
 of Lattakia in Syria. — [See Map.) 
 
 1°. Extensive use op Tobacco. — And the use of the plant 
 has become not less universal than its cultivation. Next to 
 salt, it is supposed by some to be the article most extensively 
 consumed by man. Tea alone can compete with it ; for 
 although it may not be in use over so large an area, tea is 
 probably consumed by as great a number of the human raoe.^ 
 In America, tobacco is met with everywhere, and the con- 
 sumption is enormous. To its use in some parts of the United 
 States, at the present moment, King James's description, in 
 the opinion of many, applies more justly than to the prac- 
 tice in any other part of the world : " A custom loathsome to 
 the eye, hateful to the nose, harmfull to the brain, dangerous 
 to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof neerest 
 resembling the horrible Stygian smoake of the pit that is 
 bottomless." In Paraguay, some fourteen or fifteen varieties 
 of tobacco, each having its advocates, are grown. 
 
 In Europe, from the plains of sunny Castile to the frozen 
 Archangel, and from the Ural to Iceland, the pipe, the cigar, 
 and the snuff-box, are a common solace, among all ranks and 
 conditions of man. In vain, when it first came among us, 
 King James opposed it by his ' Counterblaste to Tobacco ; ' in 
 
 1 In the canton Vaud in Switzerland tobacco worth £32,000 is annually 
 raised. 
 
 - See what is said in tlie succeeding chapter as to the consumption of tlio 
 hop in England. 
 
SPREAD OF THE USE OF TOBACCO. 267 
 
 vaiu Pope Urban the Eighth thundered out his bull against it; 
 in vain was the use of it prohibited in Bussia, and the knout 
 tlireatened for the first offence, and death for the second. 
 Opposition and persecution only excited more general atten- 
 tion to the plant, awakened curiosity regarding it, and tempted 
 people to try its effects. 
 
 So, in the East, the priests and sultans of Turkey and 
 Persia declared smoking a sin against their holy religion ; yet 
 the Turks and Persians have become the greatest smokers in 
 the world. In Turkey, the pipe is perpetually in the mouth. 
 In India, all classes and both sexes smoke. The Siamese 
 chew moderately, but smolse perpetually. The Burmese of 
 all ranks, of both sexes and of all ages, down even to infants 
 of three years old, smoke cigars — (Crawford). In China, 
 where tobacco was not introduced until the close of the six- 
 teenth century, the Emperor Tsung Ching issued a prohibitory 
 edict in 1641 with about the same effect as King James's 
 ' Counterblaste.' For in that empire the practice is so uni- 
 versal that every female, from the age of eight or nine, wears, 
 as an appendage to her dress, a small silken pocket to hold 
 tobacco and a pipe. 
 
 Indeed, from the extensive prevalence of the practice in 
 Asia, and especially in China, Pallas argued long ago that 
 the use of tobacco for smoking in those countries must be 
 more ancient than the discovery of America. " Amongst the 
 Chinese," he says, "and amongst the Mongol tribes, who had 
 the most intercourse with them, the custom of smoking is so 
 general, so frequent, and has become so indispensable a 
 luxury ; the tobacco-purse aflSxed to their belt so necessary 
 an article of dress ; the form of the pipes, from which the 
 Dutch seem to have taken the model of theirs, so original ; 
 and, lastly, the preparation of the yeUow leaves, which are 
 merely rubbed to pieces, and then put into tlie pipe, so peculi- 
 ar, — that they could not possibly derive all this from America by 
 way of Europe, especially as India, where the practice of smok- 
 ing is not so general, intervenes between Persia and China." 
 
 This opinion of Pallas, though probably untenable, has 
 since been supported by high botanical authorities. Thus 
 Meyen says : " It has long been the opinion that the use of 
 tobacco, as well as its culture, was peculiar to the people of 
 America ; but this is now proved to be incorrect, by our 
 present more exact acquaintance with China and India. The 
 
268 
 
 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 Fig. 18. 
 
 coriBumption of tobacco in the Chinese empire is of immense 
 extent, and the practice seems to be of great antiquity, for 
 on very old sotdpttires I have observed the very same to- 
 bacco-pipes which are still nsed. Besides, we now know the 
 plant which furnishes the Chinese tobacco ; it is even said to 
 grow wild in the East Indies." 
 
 According to MM. Hue and Gabet, the yellow tobacco of 
 eastern Thibet and western China is the leaf of the Nicotiana, 
 nistica. In flavotir it resembles the finest Syrian tobacco, 
 which is the produce of a variety of N. Tabacum, and owes its 
 peculiar properties to the mode of curing the leaf. The 
 tobacco of central and southern India is the Nicotiana Tabacum, 
 or Virginian tobacco — (Hooker). 
 
 The common green tobacco (fig. 48) is a smaller plant than 
 the Virginian, being only 3 to 5 feet in 
 height, and has shorter and broader leaves 
 and smaller flowers, with rounded instead 
 of pointed segments. It is the species 
 generally cultivated in Eussia, Sweden, 
 and North Germany, and two varieties 
 of it are grown in some parts of Ireland, 
 xmder the names of Oronooko and Negro- 
 head. It is said, I do not know upon 
 what authority, to have been imported' 
 to Britain from America in 1570. The 
 variety cultivated in China is stiU smaller 
 than the one represented in fig. 48. 
 
 If this be reaUy the species cultivated 
 in western China, the argument of Meyen 
 loses much of its weight, and the opinion 
 that eastern Asia did not derive the use 
 of tobacco from America must rest chiefly 
 on the general prevalence and antiquity 
 of the custom in China. Other late 
 writers, indeed, dissent from this opinion, 
 and consider that there can hardly be a 
 doubt but that tobacco was introduced 
 into the different countries of the East 
 from Europe, and by Europeans — (Ckaw- 
 i'OEo). Other considerations, however, 
 which it would be out of place here to discuss, incline me to 
 
 Nuotiama rustica — 
 Common green Tobacco. 
 Scale, 1 inch to the foot. 
 
CONSUMPTION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. 269 
 
 regard its introduction in this way as less certain than it 
 appears to Mr Crawford. The truth may possibly be (though 
 the whole botany of tobacco is still obscure), that species of 
 the tobacco plant are native to Europe and Asia as well as to 
 America, and that only the custom of using them as narcotics 
 was introduced into western Europe from the New World. 
 
 But whichever of these opinions we adopt in regard to the 
 East, still, one of the most remarkable circumstances con- 
 nected with the history of tobacco is the rapidity with which 
 its growth has spread, and its consumption increased, in those 
 countries to which we are certain that the use of it came from 
 America. In 1662, the quantity raised in Virginia, then the 
 chief producer of tobacco on the American shores of the 
 Atlantic, was only 60,000 lb., and the quantity exported from 
 that colony in 1689 only 120,000 lb. During the 190 years 
 which have since elapsed, the produce of this coast has risen 
 to twice as many millions of pounds ! 
 
 The enormous extent to which its use has increased in our 
 own country, may be judged of from the fact, that while in 
 the above-mentioned year (1689) the total importation was 
 only 120,000 lb. of Virginian tobacco, part of which was re- 
 exported, the consumption in the United Kingdom is at pre- 
 sent above 50,000,000 lb. I Thus the quantity entered for 
 home consumption in — 
 
 1857 was 32,856,9131b. 
 
 1867 , 40,720,767 „ 
 
 1875 , 49,051,830 „ 
 
 And to this must be added the contraband tobacco, which the 
 heavy duty of 3s. 6d. a lb. tempts the smuggler to introduce. 
 That the consumption among us is still rapidly on the 
 increase, appears from the above numbers ; but it is more 
 clearly shown by the following table, which exhibits the 
 quantities consumed at each of the last six decennial periods : — 
 
 Ycara. 
 
 Total Consumption, 
 
 Population. 
 
 Consumption 
 per head. 
 
 1821 
 1831 
 1841 
 1851 
 1861 
 1871 
 
 15,698,152 lb. 
 19,633,841 „ 
 22,309,360 „ 
 28,062,841 „ 
 85,413,846 „ 
 42,666,658 „ 
 
 21,282,960 
 24,410,439 
 27,019,672 
 27,462,692 
 28,974,362 
 31,513,442 
 
 lb. llf oz. 
 „ 12| „ 
 
 " 13i „ 
 
 1 „ o| „ 
 
 1 „ 3* .. 
 1 ,. 6i„ 
 
270 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 These numbers show that, during the last fifty years, the 
 consumption of the United Kingdom has nearly doubled. 
 The number of retail dealers in tobacco was 83,493 in 1801; 
 it is now about 250,000. 
 
 The duty on unmanufactured tobacco was 3s. a lb., and 5 
 per cent, from the year 1842 till 1858 ; 3s. 2d. a lb. from 1859 
 tiU the spring of 1878, when it was raised to 3s. 6d. The gross 
 produce of the duty- on the raw tobacco retained for home 
 consumption in 1876 was £7,407,794. To this must be added 
 the proceeds of the duty on the cigars, snuff, cavendish, and 
 other manufactured tobaccos consumed in the country: — say, 
 £500,000. 
 
 In Europe generally, the consumption is restricted by the 
 heavy duties imposed upon it ; yet the consumption of the 
 United Kingdom is said to be less than that of most of the 
 other European nations. But in some of the States of North 
 America the proportion greatly exceeds the European allow- 
 ance of 1 to 5 lb. per head ; while among Eastern nations, 
 where no duty is imposed upon tobacco, it is believed to be 
 greater stiU. Some twenty years ago Mr Crawford estimated 
 the average consumption of tobacco by the whole human race 
 of 1,000,000,000 at 70 ounces a-head, and the total produce 
 and consumption of this favourite narcotic at 2,000,000 tons, 
 or 4,480,000,000 lb I At 800 lb. an acre, this would require^ 
 upwards of 5,500,000 acres of rich land to be kept constantly 
 under tobacco cultivation. And since this calculation was 
 made, not only has the estimated population of the world in- 
 creased to 1,439,000,000, but the use of tobacco has extended) 
 and its consumption per head notably increased. It is doubtftil, 
 however, if as large sums are now anywhere spent upon this 
 indulgence as there were in England in the time of King 
 James I., who speaks of " some of the gentry bestowing three 
 and some four hundred pounds a yeere upon this precious 
 stink." 
 
 2°. Varieties of Tobacco. — Many species of the tobacco 
 plant have been enumerated : but most ©f these are now, how- 
 ever, regarded as varieties, though a few distinct species are 
 still retained, of which different varieties are grown in differ- 
 ent countries. 
 
 These facts possess an economical and chemical, as well as 
 a botanical interest : for, on the one hand, the quality of the 
 
VARIETIES OF TOBACCO. 271 
 
 tobacco grown in the same locality, and under the same cir- 
 cumstances, differs with the variety of plant cultivated ; and, 
 on the other, the proportions of the chemical ingredients for 
 which tobacco is distinguished likewise differ with the species 
 or the variety. Exactly the same facts are observed with the 
 cinchona plant — that precious medicine. 
 
 Other circumstances also affect those sensible properties 
 for which tobacco is prized. The climate, the soil, the mode 
 of culture, tlie kind of manure applied, the period at which 
 the leaves are gathered, the way in which they are dried and 
 cured, the time they are kept in store, the distance to which 
 they are carried to market, and the process by which they 
 are prepared for use — all these circumstances exercise a well- 
 known influence upon the quality of the leaf. Well-packed 
 tobacco, like some wines, improves by a sea voyage. It 
 undergoes by the way a species of fermentation, by which its 
 flavour is meUowetl. European tobacco is said to be much 
 better when smoked in America than in its native Europe. 
 The conditions for the most favourable development of the 
 qualities of the leaf being so varied, there can be only few 
 places in which they all conspire to the production of tho 
 most valuable crop. Hence, as is the case with the vine, 
 and with the tea and coffee plants, the localities which yield 
 tobacco in the greatest perfection are not only few in number, 
 but generally very limited in extent. 
 
 The finest tobacco of America is produced in the island of 
 Cuba, where, according to Heller, it is grown only in new 
 sandy but fertile soils. That of the island of Luzon in the 
 I'hilippines, from which the celebrated Manila cigars are 
 made, is nearly equal to that of Cuba. A fine but strong 
 tobacco is produced in the province of Cadoe in Java, where' 
 it is grown in a naturally rich soil alternately with rice, and 
 without manure. Excellent tobacco is now grown in Jamaica 
 and Fiji, while the cultivation has begim in the Bahamas. 
 In Hindostan, a fine tobacco, known by the name of Bilsah, 
 is grown in the province of Malwa, and in the province of 
 Guzerat another fine variety called Kaira. All these are the 
 produce of the Nicotiana Tahacum. In central Asia, the yellow 
 tobacco of China and Thibet is peculiarly mild and agree- 
 able, though, probably from its rarity, the inferior tobacco of 
 India, when carried to Lhassa, sells as high as 30s. a lb. — 
 
272 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 (Hooker). In western Asia the most prized tobaccos are those 
 of Lattakia (the ancient Laodicea) in Syria, and of Shii'az in 
 Persia. Both of these, like the Chinese tobacco, are the leaf of 
 varieties of the iV. Tabacum, and not, as has been long supposed,- 
 of other and distinct species of Nicotiana, such as N. rustica, N. 
 persica, and N. repanda. Thus the finest tobacco has a wide 
 range of latitude, though the districts in which it is anywhere 
 produced are, as I have said, very limited in extent. A warm 
 suiilmer appears to be necessary to the production of a deh- 
 cately-flavoured leaf. That of temperate and cold regions is 
 generally harsh and strong, as if it abounded more in the 
 narcotic ingredients upon which the activity of tobacco prin- 
 cipally depends. The mercantile values of the tobacco of dif- 
 ferent countries greatly diifer from each other ; and also, it will 
 be found, that from the same country a tobacco worth 2d. per 
 lb., and another worth Is. or more, may come'. The amount 
 of manufactured tobacco imported into Great Britain in 1876 
 was 3,818,6*82 lb. ; of unmanufactured, 76,814,974 lb. The 
 imports of the latter were from the following countries : — 
 
 United States, . 
 
 61,644,985 lb. 
 
 Germany, 
 
 655,312 lb 
 
 Holland, . 
 
 7,150,504 „ 
 
 Philippines, 
 
 217,210 „ 
 
 Japan, 
 
 785,438 „ 
 
 France, . 
 
 . 1,475,854 „ 
 
 Turkey, . 
 
 724,669 „ 
 
 
 
 The commercial history of Dutch-grown tobacco is some- 
 what curious. In the valley of Guelderland — ^the Veluwe, as 
 it is called — about 2,000,000 lb. of tobacco are raised. Of 
 this nearly one-half is bought by the French Government for 
 the supply of France. In that country it is used partly for 
 cigars, and partly for making snuff. The rest of the Guelder- 
 land tobacco is shipped to North. America, and even to Cuba, 
 The fineness of the leaf, and its fl'eedom from thick fibres, 
 make it in request for the outer covering of cigars. In this 
 case the market value of the tobacco is independent of its 
 general quality or its chemical composition. Chinese tobacco 
 is equally employed for covering cigars. 
 
 " The tombeki, a tobacco destined exclusively for the narghUe, 
 comes from Persia. It is not cut like the other, but pressed, 
 and broken in small morsels. It is of a darker colour than the 
 other kinds, and so strong that it cannot be smoked until 
 after two or three washings ; and as it is liable to scatter, 
 it is kept in glass jars, like a drug. Without tombeki, the 
 
TOBACCO IN ICELAND. 273 
 
 narghile cannot be smoked ; and it is vexatious that this 
 tobacco is very difiScult to procure in Europe ; because nothing 
 is more delicious, or more favourable to poetic reverie, than 
 to inhale, in gentle puffs, while seated upon the cushions of 
 a divan, this perfumed smoke, freshened by the water through 
 which it passes, and which reaches you, after traversing a 
 large circle of tubing, in which you entwine your arm, like 
 an Aiub snake-charmer playing with his serpents. It is 
 the sybaritism of smoking carried to the highest degree of 
 perfection." *• 
 
 3°. Forms in which Tobacco is used. — Tobacco is used in 
 nearly all countries for each of the three purposes of chewing, 
 smoking, and snuffing. The first of these practices is in ' 
 many respects the most disgusting, and is now rarely seen 
 in this country except among seafaring men. On shipboard 
 smoking is always dangerous, and often forbidden, while 
 snuffing is expensive and inconvenient, and less perfectly 
 satisfies the narcotic appetite. If the weed must be used, 
 therefore, the form of chewing is more excusable in the 
 sailor. 
 
 In some of the southern and western States of North Amer- 
 ica, chewing to an offensive extent prevails ; and in Iceland, 
 according to Madame Pfeiffer, tobacco is chewed and snuffed 
 " with the same infatuation as it is smoked in other countries." 
 The traveller in northern Sweden may have observed the 
 bunde who accompanies or drives his post-horses, putting a 
 large pinch of snuff from time to time, into his mouth, thus 
 applying to the wrong organ, as he conceives, the finely- 
 powdered leaf. An loelatider applies the snuff to his nose, 
 but in a peculiar manner. "Most of the peasants," says 
 Madame Pfeiffer, " and even many of the priests, have no 
 proper snuff-box, but only a box made of bone, and shaped 
 like a powder-flask. When they take snuff they throw back 
 the head, insert the point of the flask in the nose, and shake 
 a dose of snuff into it. They then, with the greatest amia- 
 bility, offer it to their neighbour — he to his ; and so it goes 
 round till it reaches the owner again." ^ 
 
 The box described in this passage is only a Highland horn 
 mull, a little different in shape from those of modem fashion. 
 
 1 Constantinople of To-day, by Thfophile Gautier, p. 114. 
 ' Madame Pfeiffer's Visit to Iceland, London edition, p. 179. 
 
274 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 The Higlilander lifts the powder to his nose with a little 
 shovel ; the Icelander, using the small end of the horn, at 
 once pours it in. But among the Celto-Scandinavians of 
 Northern Britain there is the same love of the powdered 
 tobacco as in Iceland and northern Scandinavia, and the 
 same amiability in handing round the box as is seen in 
 primitive Iceland. Are these not lingering relics of similar 
 social customs, which still point to the ancient unity and 
 common origin of the three now disconnected peoples ? 
 
 The Brazilians are great snuff-takers, and always offer the 
 box to a welcome visitor. The etiquette is to take the offered 
 pinch with the left hand. Thoy do not smoke much. 
 
 " Smoking is a necessity of existence to the Turks ; one 
 could almost fancy it a part of his religion. The tobacco, 
 cut very fine, and disposed in long, silky tufts, of a pale tint, 
 is laid in masses upon shelves, and arranged with reference 
 to its price and quality. The principal qualities are four in 
 number — namely, iavach (sweet), orta (medium), dokan-akhn 
 (piquant), and sert (strong) ; and are sold at from eighteen to 
 twenty piastres (from 3s. 6d. to 4s, English) for an ocque — 
 a quantity equivalent to about 2J lb. These tobaccos, of 
 graduated strength, are smoked in chibouques, or rolled into 
 cigarettes ; the use of which last is beginning to be very 
 general in Turkey. ' "■ 
 
 " In general, the Turks and Arabs of Egypt are great 
 smokers, but not those of the other tribes. Before the 
 Turkish invasion, tobacco - smoking {dogdhn, smoke) was 
 unknown to the Schaigies, and even yet it is not practised 
 by anything like a fourth part of these natives. Among 
 the Mograbins it is hardly known at aU; but chewing, each 
 portion of tobacco being accompanied by a piece of na- 
 tron, is the order of the day. Master and servant, rich or 
 poor, all carry about with them a bag with tobacco and pieces 
 of natron in it; and they do not carry their quid as Europeans 
 who indulge in this bad habit do, in their cheek, but in front, 
 between the teeth and upper lip. The blacks of Gesira have 
 another method of enjoying this plant. They make a cold 
 infusion of tobacco, and dissolve the natron in it. Of this 
 precioiTs mixture, called hucca, they take a mouthful, which 
 they keep rinsing about in their mouths for some quarter of 
 ^ Conslantjnople of To-day, lay Thfiophile Gautier, p. 114. 
 
PREPARATION OF TOBACCO. 276 
 
 an hour ere they eject it. So much do they delight in this 
 bucca, that it is the highest treat they can offer to their 
 dearest friends. The whole party sit in solemn silence, the 
 bucca -cup makes its round, each takes his mouthful, and 
 nothing is heard save the gurgling and working inside the 
 closed mouths : at such a moment these blacks will give no 
 reply to the most important questions, as to open the mouth 
 would be to lose the cherished bucca, so signs are only used. 
 All these races, however, blacks and all, are much addicted to 
 snuff-taking {nuschuk). The snuff they usually carry in small 
 oval-shaped cases, made out of the fruit of the Doum-palm ; 
 these have a very small opening at one end, stopped up by a 
 wooden peg, and the snuff is not taken in pinches, but shaken 
 out on the back of the hand." * 
 
 The practice of using snuff is said to have come into Eng-' 
 land after the Eestoration, and to have been brought from 
 France. The name of rappees {raph), which we give to our 
 moist snuffs, is certainly of French extraction, and a large 
 proportion of the tobacco now used in France is in the form 
 of snuff. 
 
 For the smoker and chewer, tobacco is prepared in various 
 forms, and sold under many names. The dried leaves, coarse- 
 ly broken, are sold as canister or knaster. When moistened, 
 compressed, and cut into fine threads, they form cut or shag 
 tobacco. Softened with molasses, or with syrup, and pressed 
 into cakes, they are called Cavendteh or Negrohead, and are 
 used indifferently either for chewing or smoking. Moistened 
 in the same way, and beaten until they are soft, and then 
 twisted into a thick string, they form the pigtail or twist of 
 the chewer. Cigars are made of the dried leaves deprived of 
 their midribs, sprinkled sometimes with a solution of saltpetre 
 to make them bum better, and rolled up into a short spindle. 
 When cut straight across or truncated at each end, as is fre- 
 quently the custom at Manila, they are distinguished as che- 
 roots. In Mexico, and indeed in some other countries as well, 
 tobacco is used only in cigars. 
 
 In preparing them for the snuff-taker, the dried leaves are 
 
 sprinkled with water, laid in heaps, and allowed to heat and 
 
 ferment from one to six months. During this fermentation a 
 
 chemical decomposition takes place in the leaves, and they 
 
 ' Wcrne's African Wanderings, p. 127. 
 
376 THE NARCOTICS M'E INDULGE IN. 
 
 give off at first nicotine and ammonia,^ and afterwards water 
 and acetic acid. They are then reduced to powder, moistened 
 with salt and water, and put into close boxes. Here they 
 again heat and ferment. This gives them an agreeable 
 ethereal odour and the well-known pungency of snuff. Eap- 
 pees, or moist snuffs, are usually prepared from the soft part 
 of the leaves. Dried snuffs, like the Scotch and Welsh, are 
 made from the fibres or midribs. The former are variously 
 scented to suit the taste of the customer. In some countries 
 snuff is mixed with wood-ashes or lime, and is even made 
 more pungent still by adding ground cayenne pepper. On 
 the west coast of Africa the Mushicongos and the natives of 
 the Lombo country use snuff so prepared, not taking a mere 
 pinch as we do, but drawing it up from the pahn of the hand 
 through their capacious nostrils. K their hands are occupied, 
 a stubbly moustache, grown for the purpose, serves as a means 
 of carrying and conveying the powder to their nostrils. 
 
 The quality and flavour of the snuff are materially affected 
 by the variety of tobacco used — ^by the part of the leaf from 
 which the snuff is formed — by the extent to which the two 
 fermentations are carried — by the degree of heat at which the 
 leaves are dried or roasted for dry snuffs — and by the length 
 of time during which they are exposed to this heat. The 
 kind of influence exercised by the fermentation and the roast- 
 ing will appear, when I shall have described the properties 
 of the ingredients on whioh the activity of tobacco upon the 
 human system depends. And it must not be forgotten that a 
 great variety of "liquors," "pickles," or "spices," are in use 
 to add or develop special flavours in tobacco. 
 
 As to a fourth, and, we wiU hope, a rare employment of 
 tobacco, it need only be said that it has been used to drug 
 beer, and so to increase its stupefying property. 
 
 4°. Effects op Tobacco. — In whichever of the three ways 
 it is used, the effects produced by tobacco appear to be much 
 the same in kind ; they differ chiefly in degree. But, exten- 
 sively as it is consumed, it is remarkable how very few per- 
 sons can state distinctly the effects which tobacco produces 
 upon them — the kind of pleasure which the daily use of it 
 
 1 Ammonia is an invisible kind of air or gas, whioli gives its smell to the 
 hartsliom (liquid ammonia) and to the common smelling-salts (carbonate of 
 ammonia) of the shops. It consists of the two gases, nitrogen and hydrogen. 
 
El'FECTS OF TOBACCO. 277 
 
 gives them — why they began, and for what reason they con- 
 tinue, the indulgence. If the reader be a consumer of tobacco, 
 let him ask himself these questions, and he will be surprised 
 how little satisfactory the answers he receives will be. In 
 truth, few have thought much on these points — have cared to 
 analyse their sensations when under the narcotic influence of 
 tobacco — or if they have analysed them, would care to tell 
 truly what kind of relief it is which they seek in the use 
 of it. 
 
 " In habitual smokers," says Dr Pereira, a high authority 
 in such matters, " the practice, when moderately indulged, 
 provokes thirst, increases the secretion of saliva, and produces 
 that remarkably soothing and tranquillising effect on the 
 mind, which has caused it to be so much admired and adopted 
 by all classes of society, and by all nations, civilised and 
 barbarous." ^ Smoked to excess, and especially by persons 
 imaccustomed to its use, it produces nausea, vomiting, in 
 some cases purging, universal trembling, staggering, con- 
 vulsive movements, paralysis, torpor, and death. Cases are 
 on record of persons killing themselves by smoking seventeen 
 or eighteen pipes at a sitting. With some constitutions it 
 never agrees ; but both Dr Pereira, and Dr Christison in 
 his ' Treatise on Poisons,' agree that " no well-ascertained ill 
 effects have been shown to result from tlie habitual practice 
 of smoking." Dr Prout, an excellent chemist, and a physician 
 of extensive medical experience, whom all his scientific con- 
 temporaries held in much esteem, was of a different opinion. 
 But even he expresses himself obscurely as to its being gen- 
 erally deleterious when moderately indulged in.^' 
 
 1 Materia Medica, 3(1 edition, p. 1431. 
 
 ' I give Dr Prout's own words : " Tobacco disorders the assimilating func- 
 tions in general, but particolaily, as I believe, the assimilation of the saccha- 
 rine principle. Some poisonous principle, probably of an acid nature, is gen- 
 crated in certain individuals by its abuse, as is evident from their cachectic 
 looks, and from the dark and often greenish-yellow tint of the blood. The 
 severe and peculiar dyspeptic symptoms sometimes produced by inveterate 
 snufr-takinR are well known ; and I have more than once seen such cases ter- 
 minate fatally with malignant disease of the stomach and liver. Great smokers, 
 also, especially those who employ short pipes and cigars, are said to be liable 
 tn cancerous affections of the lips. But it happens with tobacco as with dele- 
 terious articles of diet, the strong and healthy suffer comparatively little, while 
 the weak and predisposed to disease fall victims to its poisonous operation. 
 Surely, if the dictates of reason were allowed to prevail, an article so injurious 
 
278 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 The effects of chewing are of a similar kind ; but the 
 vapours which accompany the smoke of burning tobacco are 
 more penetrating, and act more speedily than the juice which 
 is squeezed from the leaf, as it is chewed, and occasionally 
 turned over in the mouth. Those of snufBng, also, are only 
 less in degree. The same influence of tobacco which, when 
 the quid or the pipe is used, promotes the flow of saliva in the 
 mouth, manifests itself when snuff is taken, in producing 
 sneezing, and in. increasing the discharge of mucus from the 
 nose. The excessive use of snuff, however, blunts the sense 
 of smell, alters the tone of voice, and occasionally produces 
 dyspepsia and loss of appetite. In rarer cases it ultimately 
 induces apoplexy and delirium. 
 
 The author of ' A Tour Eound my Garden ' says : " I must 
 confess I smoke, my friend. I acquired the habit among 
 fishermen and sailors, and I practised it for another reason. 
 I formerly fell in with people who wearied and annoyed me. 
 I was to be with them while they were talking, but I had a 
 great objection to talking too ; I had absolutely nothing to 
 say to them. I found it polite and convenient to make them ' 
 smoke and smoke myself; they spoke less, and I did not 
 speak at all. ' Now, although I do smoke sometimes, I am 
 likewise sometimes whole months without taking down my 
 pipe. I never smoke in my garden ; I am not willing to 
 mingle the odour of tobacco with the perfume of my flowers. 
 What charming travellers are all these flowers, assembled 
 together from all parts of the world ! Tobacco comes from 
 America, the Queen Marguerite comes from China ; the heho- 
 trope from Peru ; the day-lily from Portugal ; the rose-laurel ' 
 from Greece ; the azaleas are originally from India ; the tulip 
 is from Asia. I could write a capital history of the voyages 
 I have failed to make, I was very nearly going to. Greece, 
 to see the wild uncultivated rose-laurels blow, with their roots 
 in the waters of the Eurotas. I learnt that quite as good 
 were to be seen in the south of France, so I did not go. 
 There are things which we do all at once, or else never do at 
 
 to the health, and so offensive in all its modes of enjoyment, would speedily 
 be banished." 
 
 Yet reason is not so certainly on Dr Prout's side ; for Locke says, " Bread 
 or tobacco may be neglected, but reason at first reconunends their trial, and 
 custom makes them pleaj^aiit." 
 
EFFECTS OF TOBACCO. 279 
 
 alL Tho excess of the thing gives you an excess of resolu- 
 tion ; and in making the tour of the world, to have descended 
 your own staircase is to have performed a quarter of the 
 undertaking." 
 
 It is chiefly because of "the soothing and tranquillising 
 effect it has on the mind," as it is expressed by Dr Pereira, 
 that tobacco is indulged in. And were it possible, amid the 
 teasing paltry cares, as well as tho more poignant griefs of 
 life, to find a mere material soother and tranquilliser, produc- 
 tive of no evil after-effects, and accessible alike to all — to tho 
 desolate and the outcast equally with him who is rich in a 
 happy home and the felicity of sympathising friends — who so 
 heartless as to wonder or regret thiit millions of tho world- 
 ohafcd should flee to it for solace 1 I confess, however, that 
 in tobacco I have never found this soothing effect. This, 
 no doubt, is constitutional ; for I cannot presume to ignore 
 the united testimony of the millions of mankind who assert^ 
 from their own experience, that it does produce such effectk. 
 Its influence, indeed, appears very much to depend upon 
 the constitution and natural temperament of the consumer. 
 Among Europeans this is manifested chiefly by the difference 
 of its effects upon different individuals, causing some to reject 
 and avoid it, while others constantly and eagerly indulge in it. 
 But in other countries, as in North America, the effects it 
 produces separate, physiologically, entire regions from each 
 other. The States of intellectual New England and New 
 York, for example, taken as a whole, appear to dislike the use 
 of tobacco ; at least there is a very large, thinking, and con- 
 scientious body of men in these States, who are exerting 
 themselves to repress and suppress the use of the weed, and 
 who oven desire a legislative enactment to prevent it. The 
 western and southern States, on the other hand, largely, and 
 almost universally, indulge in tobacco ; and one cannot travel 
 from New York towards those States without coming in con- 
 tact with the practices of smoking and chewing in their most 
 offensive forms. In the one region the mass of thoughtful 
 and religious men condemns the use of tobacco, chiefly, I be- 
 lieve, on moral grounds ; in the other region, a vast majority 
 of the thoughtful and religious, as well as almost universal 
 practice, uphold and maintain it. The Wahabees in northern 
 Africa smoke no tobacco : the Parsees of India abominate it. 
 
280 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 In Eussia, the Starovierze, or " Old Believers," a very moral 
 sect of dissenters from the Greek Church, look with horror on 
 the use of tobacco — (De Lagny). 
 
 These are very interesting physiological facts, well worthy 
 of calm study on the part of those whose feelings wiU permit 
 them to look at the matter coolly, and whose minds are capa- 
 cious enough to take in and balance contradictory opinions 
 and testimony. Climate gradually affects constitution and 
 temperament. It has so affected, I believe, but in different 
 ways, the two regions of North America to which I have re- 
 ferred. Upon constitutions and temperaments so diversely 
 altered, the constituents of tobacco act differently, and thus 
 the broadest assertions, both of the abusers and of the defend- 
 ers of tobacco in the several regions, may be strictly true, 
 though decidedly opposed to each other, and entirely contra^ 
 dictory. There is much wisdom in the Irish form of equivocal 
 assent to a doubtful assertion : " True for you " — meaning, 
 " with my knowledge you would think differently." 
 
 Again, in New England, it is alleged as a strong moral ar- 
 gument against the use of tobacco, that it provokes thirst and 
 leads almost necessarily to excess in drinking, to frequent in- 
 toxication, and to aU the evils which flow from it. This, which 
 is sometimes alleged at home, and often with truth, is singu- 
 larly at variance with its reputed effects among the Asiatic 
 nations. Mr Lane, the translator of the 'Arabian Nights,' 
 says, " that being in a slight degree exhilarating, and at the 
 same time soothing and unattended by the injurious effects 
 which proceed from wine, it is a sufficient luxury to many 
 who without it would have recourse to intoxicating beverages, 
 merely to pass away hours of idleness." Mr Layard, whose 
 intercourse with Eastern nations has been most extensive, 
 entertains the same opinion ; while Mr Crawford, who has 
 also seen much of Eastern life, "thinks it can hardly be 
 doubted that tobacco must, to a certain extent, have contrib- 
 uted to the sobriety both of Asiatic and European nations." * 
 
 These opposite facts form another interesting physiological 
 study. In North America the smoking of tobacco provokes 
 to alcoholic dissipation ; in Asia it restrains the use of intoxi- 
 cating drinks, and takes their place. How complicated are 
 the causes out of which these different effects spring 1 Cli- 
 1 Journal of tho Statistical Society, March 18S3, p. 52. 
 
INFLUENCE OF TEMPERAMENT. 281 
 
 mate, temperament, bodily constitution, habits, and institutionB, 
 act and react upon each other ; and according to the peculiar 
 result of all these actions in this or that country, the same 
 narcotic substance produces upon the mass of the people a 
 salutary, a harmless, or a baneful effect I 
 
 Generally, of the physiological action of tobacco upon the 
 bulk of mankind, and apart from its moral influences, it may be 
 received as characteristic of this substance among narcotics — 
 
 First, That its greater and first effect is to assuage and allay 
 pain, and soothe the system in general. 
 
 Secondly, That its lesser and second, or after effect, is to 
 excite and invigorate, and at the same time give steadiness 
 and fixity to the powers of thought. 
 
 To what special action of its chemical constituents on the 
 brain and nerves the soothing action and the pleasing reverie, 
 so generally spoken of, are to be ascribed, we can only guess. 
 According to Dr Madden, " the pleasure of the reverie conse- 
 quent on the indulgence of the pipe, consists in a temporary 
 annihilation of thought. People really cease to think when 
 they have been long smoking. I have asked Turks repeat- 
 edly what they have been thinking of during their long smok- 
 ing reveries, and they replied, ' Of nothing.* I could not 
 remind them of a single idea having occupied their minds ; 
 and in tiie consideration of the Turkish character there is 
 no more curious circumstance connected with their moral 
 condition." * 
 
 Is it really a peculiarity of the Turkish or Moslem tempera- 
 ment, that tobacco soothes the mind to sleep while the body 
 is alive and awake ? That such is not its general action in 
 Europe, the study of almost every German writer can testify. 
 With the constant pipe diffusing its beloved arOma around 
 him, the German philosopher works out the profoundest of 
 his results of thought. He thinks and dreams, and dreams 
 and tliinks, alternately ; but while his body is soothed and 
 stilled, his mind is ever awake. From what I have heard 
 such men say, I could almost fancy they had in this practice 
 discovered a way of liberating the mind from the trammels 
 of the body, and of thus giving it a freer range and more 
 undisturbed liberty of action. I regret that I have never 
 found it act so upon myself. 
 
 ' Travels in Turkey, vol. i. p. 16. 
 
282 THE NAKCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 Andersson, in his ' Travels to Lake Ngami,' thus describes 
 the way in which the Damaras, a tribe of South-western 
 Africans, smoke, and the effects of tobacco so consumed upon 
 them : " A small quantity of water is put into a large horn 
 three or four feet long. A short clay pipe, fiUed with either 
 tobacco or hemp, is then introduced, and fixed vertically into 
 the side near the extremity of the narrow end, communicating 
 with the interior by means of a small aperture. This being 
 done, the party present place themselves in a circle, observing 
 deep silence, and with open mouths, and eyes glistening with 
 delight, they anxiously await their turn. The chief man 
 usually has the honour of enjoying the first pull at the pipe. 
 From the moment that the orifice of the horn is applied to his 
 lips, he seems to lose all consciousness of everything around 
 liim. He swallows the smoke. As little or no smoke escapes 
 from his mouth, the efiect is soon apparent. His features be- 
 come contorted, his eyes glassy and vacant, his mouth covered 
 with froth, his whole body convulsed, and in a few seconds 
 he is prostrate on the ground. A little water is then thrown 
 over him, proceeding not unfrequently from the mouth of a 
 friend ; his hair is violently puUed, or his head unceremoni- 
 ously thumped with the hand. These somewhat disagreeable 
 applications usually have the effect of restoring him in a few 
 minutes. Cases are, however, known where people have died 
 on the spot." 
 
 5°. Chemical Constituents of Tobacco. — The active sub- 
 stances or chemical ingredients of tobacco or of tobacco-smoke, 
 those by which all its varied effects are produced, are four or 
 five in number : a volatile oil, and a volatile alkali, which- 
 exist in the natural leaf: one or two volatile alkalies produced 
 from this natural alkali ; and an empyreumatio oil, which is 
 formed during the burning of the tobacco in the pipe. 
 
 a. The volatile oil. — When tlie leaves of tobacco are mixed 
 with water and submitted to distillation, a volatile oil or fat 
 comes over in small quantity. This fatty substance congeals 
 or becomes solid, and floats on the surface of the water which 
 distils over along with it. It has the odour of tobacco, and 
 possesses a bitter taste. On the mouth and throat it pro- 
 duces a sensation similar to that caused by tobacco-smoke. 
 When applied to the nose, it occasions sneezing ; and when 
 taken internally, it gives rise to giddiness, nausea, and an 
 
CONSTITtJENTS OF TOBACCO. 283 
 
 inclination to vomit. It is evidently one of the ingredients, 
 therefore, to which the usual effects of tobacco are owing; 
 and yet it is remarkable, that from a pound of leaves only two 
 grains of this fatty body are obtained by distillation. Upon 
 such minute quantities of chemical ingredients do the peculiar 
 action and sensible properties of some of our most powerful 
 medicinal agents depend I 
 
 b. The volatile alkalies. — When tobacco-leaves are infused 
 in water made slightly sour by sulphuric acid, and the infu- 
 sion is subsequently distilled with quicklime, there comes 
 over mixed with the water a small quantity of a volatile, oUy, 
 colourless, alkaline liquid, which is heavier than water, and 
 to which the name of nicotine has been given. It has the 
 odour of tobacco — an acrid, burning, long-continuing tobacco 
 taste — and possesses narcotic and very poisonous qualities. 
 In this latter respect it is scarcely inferior to prussic acid, a 
 single drop being sufficient to kill a dog. Its vapour is so 
 irritating that it is difficult to breathe in a room in which a 
 single drop has been evaporated. Nicotine, taken internally, 
 in very small doses, produces general muscular excitement, 
 copious secretions of gastric juice, diarrhoea, and sickness. 
 The proportion of this substance contained in the dry leaf of 
 tobacco varies from 2 to. 8 per cent.^ 
 
 So far as experiments have been made, the tobaccos of Ha- 
 vannah and Maryland contain 2 per cent, that of Kentucky 6, 
 that of Virginia nearly 7, and that of France from 2^ to 8 per 
 cent It is rare, however, that 100 lb. of the diy leaf yield 
 more than 7 lb. of nicotine. In pmoking tobacco, however, 
 a good deal of the active nicotine is changed into other 
 alkalies, such as pyridine and picoline. These are poisonous 
 also, but not so virulent as the natural base. Still, from 
 a hundred grains of tobacco — say a quarter of an ounce — 
 there may be drawn into the mouth two grains or more of 
 nicotine, and of the two other poisons we have named. The 
 nicotine boils at 468° F., tlie pyridine at 243°, and the pico- 
 line at 275°; so that, as all rise into vapour at a temperature 
 considerably below tliat of burnina; tobacco, these poisonous 
 substances are constantly present in the smoke. The propor- 
 
 ' Tho reader may recollect the great sensation produced in 1851 by the trial 
 of tlie Conite de Bocarmc at Mens, and liis subsequent execution, for poison- 
 ing his brnther-in-law witli nicotine. 
 
284 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 tion will vary with the variety of tobacco, the rapidity of the 
 burning, the form and length of the pipe, the material of 
 which it is made, and with many other ciroumstanoes. In 
 manufactured tobacco, the French (1878) official returns give 
 the nicotine as amounting to the following percentages : — 
 
 Tobaccos. Per cent of nicotine. 
 
 Scaferlati, 1.8 to 2.5 
 
 Cheap cigars, 1.5 „ 1.8 
 
 Uavannah, 1.8 „ 2.5 
 
 Snuff, 2.0 „ 3.0 
 
 c. The empyreumatic oil. — But besides the two volatile sub- 
 stances which exist ready forined in the tobacco-leaf, another 
 substance of an oily nature is produced when tobacco is dis- 
 tilled dry and alone in a retort, or is burned as we do it in a 
 tobacco-pipe. This oil resembles one which is obtained in a 
 similar way from the leaf of the poisonous foxglove [Digitalis 
 purpurea). It is acrid and disagreeable to the taste, narcotic 
 and poisonous. One drop applied to the tongue of a cat 
 brought on convulsions, and in two minutes occasioned deatk 
 The Hottentots are said to kill snakes by putting a drop of it 
 on their tongues. Under its influence the reptiles die as in- 
 stantaneously as if killed by an electric shock. It appears to 
 act nearly in the same way as prussio acid. The natives of 
 Cambambe on the west coast of Africa poison the chameleon 
 in a few seconds, by drawing a. straw dipped in the "oU of 
 pipes " across the poor creature's tongue and mouth. 
 
 The oil thus obtained consists of at least two substances. 
 If it be washed with acetic acid (vinegar), it loses its poison- 
 ous quality. It contains, therefore, a harmless oU, and a 
 poisonous alkaline substance, which the acetic acid combines 
 with and removes. This poison contains the two liquid and 
 volatile alkalies, pyridine and picoline, before named. The 
 same liquids have been obtained from peat, shale, and coal. 
 The crude oil is supposed to be the "juice of cursed hebenon," 
 described by Shakespeare as a distilinent.i 
 
 1 The effects, veal or imaginary, of this "juice " are thus desoribed :— 
 " Sleeping within mine orchard, 
 My custom always of the afternoon, 
 Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, 
 With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial. 
 And in the porches of mine ears did pour 
 
PIPE OR CIGAli? 
 
 285 
 
 Thus at least four active chemical substances uuite their 
 influences to produce the sensible effects which are experi- 
 enced during the smoking of tobacco. All are contained in 
 variable proportions in the smoke of burning tobacco. The 
 form and construction of the pipe, among other circumstances, 
 influence, as I liave said, the proportion of these ingredients 
 which the smoke contains. Thus the Turkish ^ and Indian 
 pipes, in which the leaf bums slowly, and the smoke is made 
 to pass gently bubbling through water, arrest a large propor- 
 tion of the poisonoMS vapours, and convey the smoky air in a 
 much milder form to the mouth. The reservoir of the German 
 pipe retains the grosser 
 portions of the oily and ^'S- ^^• 
 
 other products of the burn- 
 ing tobacco, and the long 
 stem of the small Bussian 
 pipe has a similar effect. 
 The Dutch and English 
 clay pipes retain less ; the 
 metal (bronze or iron) 
 pipes of Thibet (fig. 49), 
 by becoming warm, bring 
 still more of the constitu- 
 ents of the mild Chinese tobacco to the mouth of the smoker ; 
 while the cigar discharges much of its active constituents and 
 products into the air. Cigars are generally made of such 
 strong tobacco, that they produce, when in a pipe, a far 
 greater degree of nausea and intoxication than when con- 
 sumed in the proper way. Thus, the more rapidly the leaf 
 
 The leperous distilment ; whose effect 
 
 Holds such an enmity with blood of man, 
 
 That swift as quicksilver it courses through 
 
 The natural gates aud alleys of the body ; 
 
 And with a sudden vigour it doth posset 
 
 And curd, like eager droppings into milk. 
 
 The thin and wholesome blood : so did it mine ; 
 
 And a most instant tetter bark'd abbut, 
 
 Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, 
 
 All my smooth hody."— Hamlet, Act I. scone v. 
 ' A collection of pipes worth £6000 is no unusual thing with high ofScial 
 and rich private persons in Constanttuople. Amber mouthpieces, mounted 
 with gold and jewels, and stems of cherry-wood, with unbroken bark, or of 
 jasmine, with regular knots, are highly esteemed. 
 
 Thibet I . . 
 The pipe la of brass or iron, often with an 
 agate, amber, or bamboo monthpiece. 
 
 , tobacco-poach, and steel 
 rtro 
 
286 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 burns and the smoke is inhaled, the greater the proportion 
 of the poisonous substances which is drawn into the mouth- 
 That the smoke does intoxicate is shown by a peculiar way 
 of using tobacco practised in Hawai. The natives swallow 
 tobacco-smoke to produce intoxication : one pipe or a single 
 cigar used in this way sufficing for a large company, each 
 swallowing a whiff in quick succession. And finally, when 
 the saliva is retained, the fullest effect of all the three narcotic 
 ingredients of the smoke will be produced upon the nervous 
 system of the smoker. Those who have been accustomed to 
 smoke cigars of strong tobacco, find any other pipe both tame 
 and tasteless except the short black cutty, which has lately 
 come into favour again among inveterate smokers. Such 
 persons live in an almost constant state of narcotism or nar- 
 cotic drunkenness, which must ultimately affect the health, 
 even of the strongest. It is a singular circumstance that the 
 Mograbins of northern Africa chew natron, the native carbon- 
 ate of soda, with their tobacco : and that the blacks of Gesira 
 make a cold infusion of natron and tobacco, with a mouthfiil 
 of which they delight to rinse their mouths for a quarter of an 
 hour and then reject it. Is this custom of chewing soda with 
 tobacco an imitation of the betel and lime used by the Indian 
 traders to the African ports of the Eed Sea ? or is the origin 
 of both customs to be found in the abundance of natron about 
 the soda-lakes of Egypt and elsewhere in northern Africa? 
 In either case it is equally remarkable that the practice of 
 mixing an alkali with a narcotic should prevail in many differ- 
 ent pla,ces, including even the Andes of Peru. Chemically, 
 we know that the action of soda and of lime is literally the 
 active ingredient of the plant, whether tobacco or coca. The 
 chewer of tobacco, it will be understood, from the above de- 
 scription, does not experience the effects of the poisonous oil 
 which is produced during the burning of the leaf. The nat- 
 ural volatile oil and the nicotine are the substances which 
 act upon him. These, from the quantity of them which he 
 involuntarily swallows or absorbs, impair his appetite, and 
 gradually weaken his powers of digestion. 
 
 The same remarks apply to the taker of snuff. But his 
 dnag is still milder than that of the chewer. During the first 
 fermentation which the leaf undergoes in preparing it for the 
 niaunfaoture of snnff, and again during the second fermenta- 
 
CONSTITUENTS OF TOBACCO. 287 
 
 tion, after it is ground, a large proportion of the nicotine 
 escapes or is decomposed. The ammonia produced during 
 these fermentations is partly the result of this decomposition.^ 
 Further, the artificial drying or roasting to which tobacco is 
 exposed in fitting it for the dry snufis, expels a portion of the 
 natural volatile oil, as well as an additional portion of tho 
 natural volatile alkali or nicotine. Manufactured snuff, there- 
 fore, as it is drawn up into the nose, and especially dried 
 snuff, is much less rich in active ingredients tlian the natural 
 leaf. Even the rappees, though generally made fi'om the 
 strongest Virginian and European tobaccos containing 5 or 
 6 per cent of nicotine, retain only 2 per cent when fiiUy 
 manufactured. In the French Exposition of 1878, the follow- 
 ing official figures were given as representing the percentage 
 proportion of the various organic or combustible ingredients 
 of French tobacco leaves unfermented : — 
 
 Nicotine, 1.5 to 9 
 
 Malio and citric acids, 10 „ 11 
 
 Oxalic acid, 1 „ 2 
 
 Pectose 6 
 
 Cellulose 7 „ 8 
 
 Besin 4 „ 6 
 
 Nitrogenous matters, 25 
 
 I have already stated that in aU the sensible properties by 
 which the unadulterated leaf of the tobacco plant is charac- 
 terised, the produce of different countries and districts exhib- 
 its important economical differences. All such diversities 
 in quality and flavour, in strength, mildness, odour, &c., the 
 chemist explains by the presence of the above-named active 
 ingredients, sometimes in greater and sometimes in smaller 
 proportion ; and it is interesting to find science in his liands 
 first rendering satisfactory reasons for the long-established 
 decisions of taste. Thus he has shown that the' natural vola- 
 tile oil does not exist in the green leaf, but is formed during 
 the drying ; hence the reason why the mode of drying and 
 curing afiects the strength and quality of the dried leaf. He 
 lias also shown that the proportion of the poisonous nicotine 
 
 ' Nicotine is one of those powerful vegetaWe principles which, like the 
 theine of tea and coSfee, are rich in nitrogen. Of this element it contains 17i 
 per cent. It is from this nitrogen that the ammonia is formed during the 
 decomposition dpsrrilied in the text. 
 14 
 
288 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 is smallest in the best Havannah, and largest in the Virginian 
 and coarser French tobaccos. Hence a natural and sound 
 reason for the preference given to the former by the smokers 
 of cigars. And lastly, by showing that both of the active 
 ingredients of tobacco are volatile, and tend to escape slow- 
 ly into the air, he has explained why the preserved leaf, or 
 the manufactured cigar, becomes of more refined flavour by 
 keeping, and, like good wine, increases in value by increase 
 of age. 
 
 As to the lesser niceties of flavour, by which certain 
 samples of tobacco are distinguished, these probably depend 
 upon the presence of other odoriferous ingredients, not so 
 active in their nature, or so essential to the leaf as those 
 abeady mentioned. The leaves of plants, in respect of their 
 odours, are easily affected by a variety of circumstances, and 
 especially by the nature of the soil they grow in, and of the 
 manures applied to them. Even to the grosser senses and 
 less minute observation of Europeans, it is known, for example, 
 that pig's dung carries its goAt into the tobacco raised by its 
 means. But the more refined organs and nicer appreciation 
 of the Druses and Maronites of Mount Lebanon readily re- 
 cognise by the flavour of their tobacco the variety of manure 
 employed in its cultivation. Hence, among the mountains of 
 Syria, and in, other parts of the East, those samples of tobacco 
 are held in the highest esteem which have been aided in their 
 growth by the droppings of the goat. 
 
 6°. Adulterations op Tobacco. — But in countries where 
 high duties upon tobacco hold out a temptation to fraud, ar- 
 tificial flavours are given by various forms of adulteration. 
 Sugar in some form or other is a very favourite material for 
 this purpose, and molasses, treacle, and liquorice are all used. 
 Gum, dextrine, common salt, green vitriol, and saltpetre, 
 with various mineral and vegetable colouring matters, have 
 been detected from time to time in different samples. The 
 leaves of other plants dried and then flavoured with tobacco 
 extract are not unfrequently found in manufactured tobaccos. 
 Beet leaves, and those of rhubarb, dock, burdock, colts- 
 foot, and cabbage, are the most common. Is it surprising, 
 therefore, that we should meet with manufactured tobacco 
 possessing a thousand different flavours for which the chem- 
 istry of the natural leaf can in nq^way account ? 
 
TOBACCO EXHAUSTS THE SOIL. 289 
 
 Snuff has its own special adulterati jns, among which 
 hellebore, to provoke sneezing, is the most deadly. Others 
 are ground dyewoods, as Brazil wood, logwood, and fiistic ; 
 ochre, red-lead, and ground peat ; starches and meals ; ground 
 oak-bark and roasted acorns. 
 
 As substitutes for, or admixtures with tobacco, the leaves of 
 different species of rhubarb, large and small, are collected in 
 Thibet and on the slopes of the Himalaya. The long leaves 
 of a Tupistra, called Purphiok, which yield a sweet juice, are 
 also gathered in Sikkim, chopped up and mixed with the 
 tobacco for the hookah — (Dr Hooker). Other substitutes for 
 genuine tobacco have been adopted in other countries, either 
 from poverty or from taste. As a substitute for tobacco-snuff, 
 the powdered rusty leaves of the Bhododendtvn campanula- 
 turn are used in India, and in the United States of North 
 America the brown dust which adheres to the petioles of the 
 kalmias and rhododendrons. All these plants possess narcotio 
 qualities. The Otomacs, a tribe of clay -eaters in South 
 America, also make a kind of snuff from the powdered pods of 
 the Acacia niopo. This snuff throws them into a state of in- 
 toxication bordering on madness, which lasts for several days. 
 While under its influence the cares and restraints of life are 
 forgotten, and dreadful crimes are perpetuated. 
 
 Z°. Tobacco an exhausting Crop. — One other point in the 
 chemical history of tobacco, though not connected with its 
 narcotio influence upon the system, it may be proper here to 
 notice. I have elsewhere explained ^ that, when vegetable 
 substances are burned in the open air, they leave unconsumed 
 a portion of mineral matter or ash. The leaves of plants 
 are especially rich in this incombustible ash, and those of 
 tobacco are among the richest in this respect among culti- 
 vated leaves. The dried tobacco-leaf, when binned, yields 
 from 1 1 to 28 per cent of ash ; or, on an average, every 4 lb. 
 of perfectly dry tobacco contains 1 lb. of mineral or incom- 
 bustible matter. It is this which forms the iashes of our 
 tobacco-pipes and of our burning cigars. 
 
 It is unnecessary here to descrilse in detail the composition 
 of this ash, but I may remind my reader that aU the sub- 
 stances it contains have been derived from the soil on which 
 the tobacco plant was grown, and that they belong to the 
 1 Seo the " Plant we Rear." 
 
290 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 class of bodies which are at once most necessary to vegetation 
 and least abundant even in fertile soils. In proportion, there- 
 fore, to the weight of leaves gathered must have been the 
 weight of these substances withdrawn from the soiL And as 
 every ton of perfectly dry leaves carries off four to five hun- 
 dredweight of this mineral matter — as much as is contained 
 in fourteen tons of the grain of wheat — it will readily appear 
 even to those who are least familiar with agricultural opera- 
 tions, that the growing of tobacco must be a very exhaustive 
 kind of cultivation. He wiU see in this, also, one main 
 reason why tobacco plantations have in past times gradually 
 become so exhausted as to be incapable, in many instances, of 
 being longer cultivated with a profit — why once fertile lands 
 are now to be seen lying waste and deserted — and why the 
 fortunes of tobacco-planters, even in naturally favoured regions, 
 have gradually declined with the failing fertility of their 
 wearing-out plantations. Upon the Atlantic borders of the 
 United States of America the best-known modem instances of 
 the effects of this exhausting tobacco-culture are to be found. 
 It is one of the triumphs of the chemistry of the present cen- 
 tury, that it has ascertained what the land loses by such im- 
 prudent treatment, whatever crop is grown — what is the cause, 
 therefore, of the barrenness which befalls it — by what new 
 management its ancient fertility may be restored, and thus 
 how new fortunes may be extracted from the same old soil.* 
 But the immense quantity of nitrogen existing in the nicotine 
 and nitre of tobacco, must not be left out of our calculations 
 when considering the exhaustion of soil caused by this crop. 
 The nitrogen is not left in the ash, but escapes during burn- 
 ing. It is a constituent of tobacco, requiring continual re- 
 newal in the soil under this crop. 
 
 ' See the Author's Lectures ou Agricultural Chemistry and Geology, 2d 
 edition, p. 6ii. 
 
CHAPTER XVL 
 
 THE N-ARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 THE HOP, AND IT8 SUBSTITUTES. 
 
 The hop : whence derived. — When brought to England. — Consumption in the 
 United Kingdom. — Produce of Belgium. — Importance of the hop. — 
 Beauty of the hop-grounds.— Management of the plant. — Properties which 
 recommend its use in beer. — ^Varieties of the hop cultivated in Englaud.--- 
 Qualities of the Farnham, Kent, North Clay, and Worcester hops. — Dif- 
 ferences in estimation and flavour.— Soils on which they grow.— Chemical 
 constituents of the hop-flower. — The oil of hops. — The aromatic resin. — 
 The lupuline grains. — The bitter principle. —Physiological action of the 
 hop. — Difference between ale and beer — Bitter substances used instead of 
 the hop. — Cocoulus indicus. — Singular qualities of this berry : its use in 
 adulterating beer. — Poisonous picrotozin contained in it, — Narcotic substi- 
 tutes for the hop in South America, in India, and in China. — The Heetoo, 
 Koesho, and Taddo of Abyssinia. — The marsh ledum used in Northern 
 Europe. — Use of the yarrow, clary, and saffron. 
 
 II. The Hop — wliioh may now be called the English nar- 
 cotic — was introduced into this country at a comparatively 
 recent period. It may have been employed in Germany in 
 the times of the Eoraan writers, but was probably unknown 
 to them. Its use, as an addition to malt-liquor, appears to be 
 of German origin. Hop-gardens, by the name of HumolariiB, 
 are spoken of in documents of the early part of the ninth cen- 
 tury, and frequently in those of the thirteenth century. Into 
 the breweries of the Netherlands the hop seems to have been 
 introduced about the beginning of the fourteenth century. 
 From the Low Countries, or, as some say, from Artois, which 
 borders upon them, it was brought to England in tho reign of 
 
292 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 Henry VIII., some time after his expedition against Toumay, 
 and about the year 1524. In the twenty-second year of Idg 
 reign (1530), that monarch, in an order respecting the ser- 
 vants of his household, forbade sulphur ^ and hops to be used 
 by the brewers. Three quarters of a century later (1603) the 
 introduction of spoilt and adulterated hops was forbidden by 
 James I. under severe penalties. This appears to show that, 
 though considerable attention is known to have been already 
 given to the cultivation of the hop in England, a large part of 
 the hops supplied to the home market was stiR brought from 
 abroad. In books of the sixteenth century, Kent was abeady 
 called the county of hops. 
 
 1°. Consumption of the Hop. — At present the hops con- 
 sumed in the United Kingdom are partly of home and partly 
 of foreign growth, and the consumption is very great. Of 
 hops of foreign growth, there were imported into the United 
 Kingdom in 1876 : — 
 
 United States 67,752 cwt. £311,816 
 
 Belgium 46,543 „ 208,630 
 
 Germany, 40,761 „ 189,922 
 
 Holland, 9,541 „ 40,015 
 
 France 2,02l „ 9,718 
 
 Other countries, .... 748 „ 3,330 
 
 The exports of British hops are not considerable, while 
 those of foreign hops are quite trifling. 
 
 It has been estimated that nearly one-third of all the hops 
 grown in the world is consumed in Great Britain. How 
 different a taste does this large consumption argue now from 
 what must have prevailed in the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century, when the city of London petitioned Parliament 
 against two nuisances, — against Newcastle coals in regard of 
 their stench, and against hops in regard they would spoil the 
 taste of drink and endanger the people ! ^ 
 
 But Germany has a larger acreage under hops than Eng- 
 land, and its average production is likewise greater — proba- 
 bly 30 per cent more. And the cultivation of this plant has 
 extended to the American continent and to Australia. About 
 22,000 acres are devoted to it in the United States and 
 
 1 This probably refers to the practice, which still prevails, of whitening or 
 bleaching hops with fumes of sulphur, and which may not then have been so 
 skilfully conducted as it is now. 
 
 2 See Walter Blith's English Improver Improved, 3d edition, 1653. 
 
HOP-GAEDENS. 
 
 293 
 
 Fig. 60. 
 
 Canada ; aud nearly 1000 in New Zealand, Tasmania, and 
 Victoria. 
 
 The importance of the hop among narcotics may be judged 
 of by comparing its home consumption with that of tobacco : — 
 
 Hops, average consumption, . . . 690,000 cwt. 
 Tobacco in 1876 466,300 „ 
 
 Still, while all the above tobacco is consumed in this 
 country, a considerable amount of the beer brewed in the 
 United Kingdom is exported to foreign countries and colo- 
 nies, and so the hops used in manufacturing it should be de- 
 ducted. If 600,000 barrels be 
 exported in a year, this would 
 involve the use of at least 
 11,000 cwt. of hops. 
 
 And who that has visited 
 the hop-grounds of Kent and 
 Surrey in the flowering season 
 will ever forget the beauty and 
 grace of this charming plant? 
 Climbing the tall poles, and 
 circling them with its clasping 
 tendrils, it hides the formality 
 and stiffness of the tree that 
 supports it among the exuber- 
 ant profusion of its clustering 
 flowers. Waving and drooping a 
 in easy motion with every tiny 
 breath that stirs them, and 
 hanging in curved wreaths 
 from pole to pole, the hop-bines 
 dance and glitter beneath the 
 bright English sun — the pic- 
 ture of a true English vineyard, 
 which neither the Rhine nor 
 the Rhone can equal, and only 
 Italy, where her vines climb 
 the freest, can surpass. 
 
 2°. CuLTrVATION OF THE HoP. 
 
 — The hop " joyeth in a fat and fruitful ground," as old Gerard 
 •wTOte in 1596 : " it prospereth the better by manuring." And 
 few spots surpass, either in natural fertility or in artificial rich- 
 
 llum^dus lMinilus—'U\Q Hop plant 
 a Female cone ; b Male flowed 
 
294 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 ness, the hop-lands of Surrey, which he along the outcrop of 
 what are called the greensand measures in the neighbourhood 
 of Farnham. Naturally rich to an extraordinary degree in the 
 mineral food of plants, the soils in this locaUty have been famed 
 for upwards of two centuries for the growth of hops ; and 
 with a view to this culture alone, the best portions have sold 
 as high as £500 an acre. And the highest Scotch farmer — the 
 most liberal of manure— will iind himself outdone by the hop- 
 growers of Kent and Surrey. An average expenditure of 
 £10 sterling an acre for manure over 100 acres of hops, 
 farmed by a single individual, makes this branch of farm- 
 ing the most liberal, the most remariable, and the most 
 expensive of any in England. It is remarkable that on the 
 introduction of guano and superphosphate about 1841-43, the 
 average yield of hops per acre took a sudden upward jump, 
 which it has maintained ever since. Shoddy and other wool- 
 waste, as well as rape-cake, are now largely used as hop- 
 manure. Hops are grown in fifteen counties of England, but 
 the acreage under this plant is insignificant except in Kent, 
 Sussex, Herefordshire, Hampshire, Worcestershire, and Sur- 
 rey. The total number of acres now (1878) devoted to this 
 crop is 71,789, an increase of 550 acres over the preceding 
 year. The following table shows the number of acres of 
 hops in the six hop-growing counties, with the percentage of 
 Buch acreage to all the land under hops in England : — 
 
 r'«««+;«« Acres of hops. Percentage of an 
 
 '=™''*'^- 1878. ^' English hip-land. 
 
 Kent, 46,693 64.9 
 
 Sussex 10,991 15.3 
 
 Hereford, 5,947 8.3 
 
 Hampshire, 3,190 4.4 
 
 Worcestershire, .... 2,474 3.4 
 
 Surrey, 2,305 3.3 
 
 Shropshire, and 9 others, , . 289 0.4 
 
 71,789 100.0 
 
 The mode of managing the hop, and the peculiar value 
 and rarity of hop-land, were known very early. They form 
 parts of its history which were probably imported with the 
 plant itself. Tusser, who lived in Henry VIIL's time, and in 
 the reigns of his three children, in his ' Points of Husbandry,' 
 thus speaks of the hop : — 
 
USES OF HOPS. 296 
 
 " Choose soil for the hop of the rottenest mould, 
 Well-doonged and wrought as a garden-plot should: 
 Not far from the water (but not overfloune), 
 This lesson well noted, is meet to be knowne. 
 
 The suD in the south, or else southlie and west, 
 Is joy to the hop as welcommed ghest ; 
 But wind in the north, or else northerly east. 
 To hop is as ill as fray in a feast. 
 
 Meet plot for a hop-yard, once found as is told. 
 Make thereof account as of jewel of gold ; 
 Now dig it and leave it, the sun for to bume. 
 And afterwards fense it, to serve for that tumo. 
 
 The hop for his profit, I thus do exalt : 
 It strengtheneth drink, and favoureth malt ; 
 And being weU brewed, long kep it will last, 
 And drawing abide, if ye draw not too fast." ^ 
 
 3°. Uses op the Hop. — The hops of commerce consist of 
 the female flower and seeds of the Humulus Lupulus, or com- 
 mon hop plant (fig. 51). Their principal consumption is in 
 the manufacture of beer, and they possess three properties 
 which particularly fit them for this use. First, They impart 
 to malt-liquors a pleasant, bitter, aromatic flavour and tonio 
 properties. Second, They give them a peculiar headiness, 
 often confounded with alcoholic strength, and thus save to 
 the brewer a certain proportion of his malt. The soporific 
 quality of beer, also, is ascribed in part to tlie narcotic quality 
 of the hop. Third, by their chemical influence they clarify 
 malt-liquors, and check their tendency to become sour. They 
 arrest the fermentation at the alcoholic stage ; and it appears 
 from the history of the art of browing, that beer which could 
 be kept for a length of time has only been manufactured in 
 England since the hop has been introduced. " The ale," says 
 Parkinson (1640), " which our forefathers were accustomed 
 only to drink being a kind of thicker drink than beere, is now 
 almost- quite left off to be made, the use of hoppes to be put 
 therein altering the quality thereof, to be much more health- 
 ful or rather physical!, to preserve the body from the repletion 
 of grosse humours which the ale engendereth." 
 
 4°. Varietihs of the Hop. — Of the cultivated liop there 
 are many varieties ; but in our principal English hop-districts, 
 Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, only about five varieties are exten- 
 ' Five HuDilrcd Points of Good Husbandry. London edition of 1812, p. 167. 
 
296 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 sively grown. These sometimes go iinder different names 
 in different districts, while other varieties (as Mathon'a and 
 Cooper's) are now grown. The five oldest sorts are — 
 
 First, The goMings, grown chiefly in middle and east Kent, 
 
 but to an increasing extent 
 ^■g- 5^- in other hop-districts. They 
 
 grow to a great height, 
 requiring poles 15 feet 
 high. They dehght in a 
 rocky calcareous soil or a 
 rich friable loam. They 
 thrive only in the most 
 naturally fertUe kinds of 
 soiL 
 
 Second, The white-lines 
 are the favourites of Fam- 
 ham and Canterbury. They 
 require the same descrip- 
 tion of soil as the geldings, 
 are very similar in their 
 appearance and growth, and 
 have nearly the same value 
 in the market. The flower 
 of the white-bines is con- 
 sidered to possess the more 
 delicate flavour, while that of the goldings is thought by some 
 brewers to have more strength. 
 
 These two varieties are most esteemed for the brewing of 
 pale bitter ale. They both reqtiire very long poles, and on 
 the average of years produce smaller crops than the coarser • 
 kind of hop. 
 
 Third, The Jones's stand next in favour with the brewers 
 They will grow on inferior land ; and as they require very 
 short poles, and are pretty good croppers, they are in general 
 favour with many growers in Kent. 
 
 Fourth, The grape has many sub-varieties, and requires 
 longer poles than the Jones's. This variety delights in stiff 
 heavy soils, after thorough drainage, and produces very heavy 
 crops. Hence its prevalence in the Weald. It is commonly 
 used for the ordinary sorts of beer. 
 
 Fifth, The colegate is a smaller variety of hop than the 
 
 Humulus iMpulus — The Common Hop, 
 
 The upper is the male plant and flower ; 
 
 the lower flgure is the female flower. 
 
VARIETIES OF HOPS. 297 
 
 grape, but produces enormous crops in Sussex and the Weald 
 of Kent. It is often surreptitiously passed oflf in the market 
 as goldings ; but it is greatly disliked by the brewers on ac- 
 count of the rankness of its flavour. It is looked on by many 
 as the worst hop that is grown. 
 
 From the kind of soil on which they grow, these two varie- 
 ties are also known by the name of clay hops. Those which 
 are raised in the Weald of Kent and Sussex, should, I sup- 
 pose, be called south clay hops, as those which grow on the 
 stiff clays of Nottinghamshire are known in the market as 
 the north clays. 
 
 From this brief description of the more common varieties 
 of this plant, it vvdll be understood that a great diversity of 
 flavour and quality must prevail among the hops, not only of 
 different districts, but even of the same county. Thus the 
 county of Kent produces hops of various degrees of excellence, 
 the best samples combining in an eminent degree the quali- 
 ties of flavour and strength. The soils of this county rest 
 chiefly on the chalk, but partly also, on its south-west border, 
 on the greensand formation. Its northern part is covered 
 by the tertiary beds of the London basin ; and it is around 
 Bochester and Canterbury, where the clays of these tertiaries 
 and the porous chalks meet, that the best Kent hops are 
 grown. Inferior samples .grow on the clays of the Kentish 
 Weald. 
 
 In Surrey, again, the hops of the neighbourhood of Farn- 
 ham have from time immemorial borne the highest price in 
 the British hop-market. They grow on the marly soils rich 
 in phosphate of lime, which are formed from the rocks of the 
 greensand formation ; and so much does their excellence de- 
 pend upon the natural quality of the soil, that the value of 
 the crop changes sometimes on the mere crossing of a hedge. 
 The change of quality in the soil in this locality is often 
 sharp and sudden, and hence the equally sudden change in 
 the quality of the crops it produces. 
 
 The clay hops of Kent and Sussex are coarse and rank, but 
 those of the small district of Retford in Nottinghamshire, 
 called the north clays, are pre-eminent in rankness. They 
 give a coarse flavour to beer, which is very disagreeable to 
 those who are unaccustomed to it. The stiff clays of the 
 county of Nottingham, on which these hops grow, lie in the 
 
298 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 valley of the Trent, and are formed chiefly from the debris of 
 the new red sandstone, through which the Trent flows, with 
 admixtures from the coal-measures, magnesian limestone, and 
 lias clay brought down by the feeders of the Trent. Prob- 
 ably a more thorough drainage of this district would improve 
 the quality of its hops, to which, indeed, now but a few acres 
 are devoted. 
 
 To those who are accustomed to the mild flavour of the 
 Kent hops, that of the north clays is almost nauseous. But 
 the Kent hops, again, are disrelished by those who have been 
 accustomed to the still milder flavour of the Worcester hops. 
 These excel in this respect the best Kent goldings, and are 
 usually very taking to the eye. In practice, they are found 
 to ripen beer sooner than any other variety of hop. They 
 grow on the red soils of the valleys of the Severn and the 
 Teme, and, in the opinion of beer-drinkers, possess a grateful 
 mildness not to be found in any other hops. Hence, in Lan- 
 cashire, Cheshire, and some other counties, where the taste 
 for the Worcester hops exists, even fine Kent hops would be 
 rejected as unsaleable. A nice Lancashire beer-drinker calls 
 beer hopped with Kent hops porter ale. They do not answer, 
 however, for' the best descriptions of malt-liquor, such as the 
 pale ale, because they do not impart so fully the keeping 
 quality. V 
 
 The red soils of Worcestershire are formed from the debris of 
 the new red sandstone, sifted and sorted by the waters of the 
 Severn. The traveller passes through part of this hop-region 
 on his way from Worcester to Malvern. The red soils of 
 Hereford, on which also hops are largely grown, are derived 
 from the old red sandstone, and in mildness of quality the 
 hops they yield are, I believe, similar to those of Worcester. 
 Rich, open, and friable, these red soils so far resemble those of 
 Kent and Surrey, from which the Canterbury and Famham 
 hops are gathered. The variety of hop grown in this region 
 differs, however, from those of Kent and Surrey. It is sup- 
 posed to be a descendant of the Flemish red-bine. 
 
 That different samples of hops, both home-grown and for- 
 eign, differ greatly in quality even when of the same year's 
 growth, "may be gathered from their market prices. This may 
 range from £2 or £3 per cwt., up to £A or £10, or even more. 
 Thus the soil or locality in which they are grown, and the 
 
ACTIVE CONSTITUENTS OF HOPS. 299 
 
 variety raised, have much influence upon the flavour which 
 the hops will impart to beer. But besides these, the time of 
 picking, the mode of drying and curing, the care bestowed 
 on the bagging, the place in which they are afterwards kept, 
 and the length of time they have been gathered, all affect the 
 finer qualities of the hop-flower. And if to these we add the 
 numerous minute variations which occur in the process of 
 brewing, from time to time, even in the same establishment, 
 it will no longer appear surprising that a very great variety 
 of flavours should be given to beer by the use of liops alone. 
 
 5°. Active ingredients of the Hop. — In so far as such 
 diversities of flavour depend upon the quality of the hop itself 
 — and not upon the quality of the water employed, which 
 much affects the flavour of beer — they are probably due, as in 
 the case of tobacco, to the different proportions in which tho 
 active chemical ingredients of the flower exist in the several 
 samples. These active ingredients, in so far as is yet known, 
 are three in number — a volatile oil, a slightly aromatic resin, 
 and a bitter principle. 
 
 a. The volatile oil. — Wfeen hop -flowers are distilled with 
 water, they yield a volatile oil. This oil has a brownish- 
 yellow colour, a strong smell of hops, and a slightly bitter 
 taste. In this oil of hops a portion of the narcotic influence 
 of the flower resides. It consists of at least two oils — one 
 a kind of turpentine, the other related to valerianic acid, the 
 acid of valerian. 
 
 The hop has long been celebrated for its sleep-giving qual- 
 ities. To the weary and wakeful the hop-pillow has often 
 g^ven refreshing rest, when every other sleep-producer had 
 failed. It is to the escape of the volatile narcotic ingredients 
 above mentioned, in minute quantity from the flowers, that 
 this soporific effect of the hop is most probably to be ascribed. 
 Various medicinal preparations of this plant have been lately 
 introduced. The volatile oil is extracted from the flowers by 
 means of other, petroleum spirit, or bisulphide of carbon, and 
 then the solvent used is cautiously removed by evaporation. 
 A solution of the oil in glycerine has also been prepared for 
 medicinal purposes. 
 
 Upon the same volatile ingredients depends the odour 
 which is perceived in store-rooms where hops are kept, and 
 much of the aroma they impart to beer. It is owing to the 
 
300 THE NAKCOTICS WE INDULGE JN. 
 
 escape of this ingredient, even from the most closely pressed 
 hops, that they deteriorate in quality so much by keeping, as 
 usually to fall one-third in value when upwards of a year old. 
 By boiling in the wort, also, a portion of the same delicate 
 aromatic principle is driven off and lost to the beer. 
 
 b. The aromatic resin. — When dry hop-flowers are beaten, rub- 
 bed, and sifted, a fine yellow dust separates from them, which 
 is equal in weight to about a sixth part of that of the hops. 
 This fine powder is sometimes distinguished by the name of 
 lupulin. Hop-buyers talk of it as the " condition " of the 
 hop. Under the microscope the powder is seen to consist of 
 minute, somewhat transparent, grains or glands of a rounded 
 form, a golden - yellow colour, and a cellular texture. By 
 drying they lose their round form (see fig. 52), and when put 
 
 into water they give out an immense num- 
 '5^ ber of minute globules. The function of 
 
 these organised lupulinic glands, as a part 
 of the plant, is involved in much obscurity. 
 They possess a strong agreeable odour, and 
 a bitter taste. W<ken taken internally, they 
 Dried lupuiin-giand, are aromatic and tonic. They soothe, also, 
 and tranquillise, allay pain, reduce the pulse, 
 and in a slight degree provoke sleep. Alcohol dissolves out 
 from them much reddish-yellow transparent resin, which is 
 slightly aromatic, but when pure is not at all bitter. This is 
 the aromatic resin of the hop-flower, of which it forms one- 
 twelfth part, or 8 per cent by weight. What share this resin 
 has in producing the effects which follow from swallowing 
 the entire grains, is not satisfactorily known. 
 
 c. The litter principle. — Besides the resin of hops, and about, 
 2 per cent of volatile oil, 4 per cent of tannin, and a peculiar 
 bitter principle are also present. This last is the best-knowni 
 constituent of the hop, and gives bitterness to our beers. The 
 tannin helps to clarify the beer. 
 
 But though the specific action of each of the chemical prin- 
 ciples contained in the hop-flower has not been very well 
 ascertained, and although some of them have probably escaped 
 detection, yet the united action of all of them together is well 
 known. * The tinctures and extracts of hops which we use in 
 medicine, and introduce into our beers, contain them all, so 
 that all the virtue of the hop, in whichever of the ingredientSi: 
 
BEER AND ALE. 301 
 
 it resides, is present in them in a greater or less degree. 
 Hence well-hopped beer is aromatic, tonic, soothing, tranquil- 
 lising, and in a slight degree narcotic, sedative, and provoca^ 
 tive of sleep. The hop also aids in clarifying malt-liqnors, 
 arrests the fermentation before all the sugar is converted into 
 alcohol, and thus enables them to be kept without turning 
 sour. 
 
 Ale was the name given to unhopped malt-liquor before 
 the use of hops was introduced. This is alluded to in the 
 passage already quoted from Parkinson, and in the two old 
 lines, — 
 
 " Hops, reformation, ytays, and beer. 
 Came into England all in one year." 
 
 The words of Gerard, also, show the original meaning of 
 the two words. " The manifold virtues in hops do manifestly 
 argue the wholesomeness of leer above ale; for the hops 
 rather make it physicall drinke, to keep the body in health, 
 than an ordinary drinke for the quenching of our thirst." 
 When hops were added, it was called beer by way of distinc- 
 tion ; I suppose, because 'we imported the custom from the 
 Low Countries, where the word beer was still in use.^ Ground- 
 ivy [Nepeta Qlechoma), called also alehoof and tunkoof, was 
 generally employed for preserving ale before the use of hops 
 was known. 
 
 To the general reader it may appear remarkable — perhaps 
 he may even think it a reproach to science — that the chem- 
 istry of a vegetable production in such extensive use as the 
 
 ^ This word is found both in the new and old dialects of the high and low 
 German, Dutch, and Flemish, in the form of bier. In France it is biire, and 
 in Italy birra. In these latter countries it !ias superseded the old word cer- 
 voise, still used in Languedoc ; cervogia, still heard in Italy, — both of which, 
 like the Spanish ceroeza, are from the Latin cervisia, a word used by Pliny for 
 a drink made from malt. 
 
 In Anglo-Saxon it was bear; in new and old Norsk, bior; in Gaelic, beiir; 
 in Breton, ber or bier; and the Britons are said by Tacitus to have made a 
 sort of wine from barley which they called baer. 
 
 But this word for the drink disappeared from England, and ale took its 
 place, till it was brought in again to denote hopped ale, a sense which it did 
 not originally bear. It disappeared also from the Welsh, whose name for beer 
 is cwTw. Bat though it has penetrated into France and Italy, Si js still the 
 only word in use in Scandinavia. This Scandinavian name, which prevailed 
 among us after the Romans left, points, like so many other. relics, to the race 
 which has chiefly predominated in the island since. 
 
302 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 hop should still be so imperfect, our knowledge of its nature 
 and composition, and of the special physiological effects of its 
 several constituents, so unsatisfactory. But the well-read 
 chemist, who knows how wide the field of chemical research 
 has become, how rapidly our knowledge of it as a whole is 
 progressing, and who endeavours in his daily studies to keep 
 up with that progress — he will feel no surprise. He must 
 wish, indeed, to see all such obscurities and difficulties cleared 
 away ; but he will feel more inclined to thank and praise the 
 many ardent and devoted men who in every country ate now 
 labouring in this department, and to encourage them in what 
 they are doing, than to blame or reproach them for being 
 obliged to leave a part of the extensive field for the present 
 uncultivated. 
 
 The hop, as we have seen, is to be placed among the most 
 largely used narcotics, especially in England. It differs, how* 
 ever, from tobacco, and the other favourite narcotics to be 
 hereafter mentioned, in being rarely employed alone except 
 medicinally. It is added to infusions like that of malt, to 
 impart flavour, taste, and narcotic virtues. Used in this way 
 it is unquestionably one of the sources of that pleasing excite- 
 ment, gentle narcotic intoxication, and healthy tonic action 
 which well -hopped beer is known to produce upon those 
 whose constitutions enable them to drink it. Other common 
 vegetable productions will give the bitter flavour to malt- 
 liquors. Horehound, wormwood, gentian, quassia, camomile, 
 fern-leaves of different species, broom-tops, ground-ivy, com- 
 mon gale, the bark of the box-tree, dandelion, chicory, orange- 
 peas, picric acid, chiretta, and many other substances,^ have 
 been employed or recommended in England, to replace oi; 
 supplant the use of the hop. But none of these approach it 
 in imparting those peculiar properties which have given the 
 English bitter beer of the present day its high reputation. It 
 is to be deplored that brewers are allowed to substitute for 
 the delightful aromatic bitter of the hop the clinging and 
 sharp chiretta and quassia. 
 
 It is interesting to observe how men carry with them their 
 early tastes to whatever new climate or region they go. The 
 
 1 The notion that strychnine has ever heen employed for giving bitterness 
 to beer is entirely devoid of foundation. It is a deadly poison, though in 
 small doses acting as a tonic. It is excessively bitter. 
 
COCCULUS iNDicns. 
 
 303 
 
 love of beer and hops has been planted by Englishmen in 
 America. It has accompanied them to their new empires in 
 Australia, New Zealand, and the Cape. In the hot East their 
 home taste remains nnquenched, and the pale ale of England 
 follows them to remotest India. Who can tell to what extent 
 the use of the hop may become naturalised, through their 
 means, in these far-off regions ? Inoculated- into its milder 
 influence, may not the devotees of opium and the intoxicat- 
 ing hemp be induced hereafter to abandon their hereditary 
 drugs, and to substitute the foreign hop in their place ? From 
 such a change in one article of general consumption how great 
 a change in the character and habits of the people might we 
 not anticipate ? 
 
 III. CoccuLus Indicus can scarcely be classed among the 
 • narcotics in which 
 we voluntarily in- '^' 
 
 dulge, but it is cer- 
 tain that it was used 
 to some extent by 
 Etmall brewers and 
 beer - sellers for the 
 adulteration of beor 
 a few years ago. If 
 we may accept the 
 results of the Inland 
 Revenue investiga- 
 tions, the use of this 
 poisonous and inju- 
 rious narcotic bitter 
 has been abandoned : 
 it is to be hoped that 
 it is so. It is the 
 fruit or berry of the 
 Menispermum Coccu- 
 lus (fig. 53), a beau- 
 tiful climbing-plant, 
 which is a native of 
 the Malabar coast and 
 of the Indian Archipelago. It is sometimes called the Levant 
 nut, or the Bacca orientalis. It has some resemblance to the 
 
 Mmispermum Coceuiw— The Cocculus indicus plant. 
 
304 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 bay-berry, and in 1850 was imported into this country to the 
 extent of 2359 bags, of 1 cwt. eacL It is really wonderfdl 
 in how many ways this singular substance is fitted to aid the 
 dishonest brewer in saving both malt and hops. I mention 
 three of its properties most tempting to the beer-adulteraitor. 
 
 If the bruised seeds are digested in water, they yield an 
 extract which, when added to beer, produces the following 
 effects : — 
 
 First, It imparts to it an intensely bitter taste, and can 
 thus be substituted cheaply for about one-third of the usual 
 quantity of hops, without materially affecting the flavour of 
 the beer. 
 
 Secondly, It gives a fulness and richness in the mouth, and 
 a darkness of colour, to weak and inferior liquors. In these 
 respects, a pound of Coeculus indicus is said to be equivalent 
 to a sack (four bushels) of malt. Or, to a thin brewing of 
 beer, a pound of this drug will give an apparent substance 
 equal to what would be produced by an additionaL sack of 
 malt. 
 
 Thirdly, It produces upon those who drink it some of the 
 symptoms of alcoholic intoxication, and thus adds to the 
 apparent strength and inebriating quality of the liquor. Like 
 hops, it also prevents second fermentation in bottled beer, 
 and enables it to keep in warm climates. 
 
 This is a formidable array of tempting qualities. The use 
 of this drug is forbidden by Act of Parliament, under a pen- 
 alty of £200 to the brewer, and of £500 to the druggist who 
 sells it to a brewer. But an extract is prepared and sold. 
 Some writers on brewing give plain directions for using the 
 drug; and the quantity recommended by Morrice to the 
 honest brewer (!) is 3 lb. of Coeculus indicus to every 10 
 quarters of malt. By the dishonest it was said to be used to 
 the extent of 1 lb. to the barrel of 54 gallons, with Calam- 
 us aromaticus and orris-root to flavour it. If 1 lb. really 
 save 4 bushels of malt, the 2359 cwt. imported in 1850, if all 
 employed for this purpose, must have saved to the adulter- 
 ators who used it the enormous quantity of 1,056,000 bushels ! 
 
 It is chiefly the humbler classes upon whom such a fraud 
 as this could be practised. The middle classes in England 
 prefer the thin wine-like ales and bitter beers. The skilled 
 labourer prefers what is rich, full, and substantial in the 
 
COCCULUS INDICUS. 305 
 
 mouth ; and the poor peasant, after his day's toil, likes to find 
 at the bottom of iis single pot what will sensibly affect his 
 head. It is thus chiefly among the working men that the heavy 
 drugged beer of the adulterator is relished and consumed. 
 
 The effects which this substance produces are said, by 
 those who have drunk beer drugged with it, to be more upon 
 " the voluntary muscles than upon the intellectual powers." ' 
 If 80, a man under its influence may be surprised by finding 
 his body helpless while his mind is comparatively clear, and 
 still capable of reasoning and judging with tolerable correct- 
 ness. Others say, however, that its effect is chiefly on the 
 brain, so that its mode of action probably varies in some de- 
 gree with the constitution of the individual who takes it. 
 
 In large doses it is poisonous to all animals, and a well- 
 Icnown use of it is for the stupefying of fish.^ Although, 
 therefore, its special effects upon the human constitution have 
 not been accurately ascertained by scientific physiologists, 
 the frequent use of Cocculus indicus, even in small doses, can 
 scarcely fail sooner or later to injure the health. 
 
 This poisonous quality is derived chiefly from a white crys- 
 talline intensely bitter substance called ^tcrotoxjn, which exists 
 in the inner portion of the berry. This body, unUke most 
 active poisons, is destitute of nitrogen, containing only carbon, 
 hydrogen, and oxygen. It dissolves in 150 parts of cold, and 
 25 of boiling water. It produces vertigo, convulsions, and 
 death. The way in which this poisonous ingredient acts upon 
 the system is still involved in considerable obscurity ; but 
 there cannot be a doubt as to the moral criminality of intro- 
 ducing substances of so dangerous a kind into the common 
 drink of the least protected part of the people. 
 
 IV. Other substitutes for the Hop. — Other narcotic sub- 
 stances more or less powerful are in different countries substi- 
 
 1 Pereira — Materia Medica, 8d edition, p. 2155. 
 
 ' In India, the bruised leaves of PhyUanihus conami, and the capsules of 
 the Xanthophyllum hostile (LnroUET), and on the Himalayas the seeds of the 
 Chaubmoogra, and the fruit of the evergreen Took, or Hydrocarpus, are used 
 for intoxicating fish— (Hooker). The bruised root of the Randia dumetorum 
 has a similar effect— (RoxBUBaH). I am not aware that any of these is ever 
 administered to man. The Indians of South America use bruised Angostura 
 bark to intoxicate fishes— (Hancock) ; and the Peruvians make the same use 
 cf Cinchona bark — (Saunders). 
 
306 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 tuted occasionally for the hop. And, like Cocculus indiais, 
 the most injurious of these substitutes are generally intro- 
 duced into the liquor without the knowledge of the drinker. 
 Thus— 
 
 1°. In South America the bitter stalks of the Schinus molle 
 are mixed with the chica, which is prepared by chewing the 
 sweet pods of the Prosopis algaroba?- What is the action of 
 this bitter substance on the drinker of the chica is not stated. 
 A mixture of black sugar and water, called gcapa, is made by 
 the negroes of Brazil, and although unfermentedj is drunk, 
 on account of its cheapness, with avidity by both men and 
 women, who continue whole days at it, dancing and singing. 
 To give it an intoxicating effect the leaves of the akajee tree 
 are added. The Portuguese make cider, as well as another 
 drink called kooi, of the apple akajee, and also a sherbet of 
 sugar, water, lemons, and nutmegs. Kooi is the pressed 
 juice of the akajee apple, fermented. 
 
 2°. In India, when the raw cane-sugar (jaggery) is fer- 
 mented with a view to the distillation of rum, chips of the 
 diied bark of the Acacia ferruginea or A. leucopMea, are added 
 to the liquor. It is supposed to act like hops in moderating 
 the fermentation, and probably gives a flavour and other 
 peculiar qualities to the rum distilled from it, but it is not 
 known to be added with a view to any narcotic effects. The 
 rum itself is described by Buchanan as being execrable.^ 
 
 3°. In China a kind of beer, called tar-asun, is made from 
 barley or wheat. In brewing this beer, a prepared hop is 
 added to the wort, which both causes fermentation and per- 
 forms at the same time the duties of the hop. Of what this 
 preparation consists my authority does not say.' 
 
 4°. In Africa. — In preparing their hydromel, or mead, the 
 Abyssinians add to the solution of honey a portion of a hark 
 called heetoo. The leaves and fruit of the tree from which 
 this bark is taken are narcotic and poisonous. It is probable, 
 therefore, that the bark, which is described as bitter, astrin- 
 gent, and tonic, may also possess a portion of the same narcotic 
 virtue, and impart it to the mead. 
 
 The leaves of a tree called keesho are. likewise used in 
 
 1 Sea " The Liquors we Ferment," p. 221. 
 
 3 Journey through the Mysore, vol. i. p. 39. 
 
 ' Morewood — On Inebriating Liquors, pp. 120, 175. 
 
SUBSTITUTES FOR HOPS. 
 
 307 
 
 Fig. 51. 
 
 Abyssinia for mixing with mead,i but it is not stated if they 
 possess narcotic properties. This is probably the Kousso or 
 Kupo — Brayera anthelmintica. The dried flowers impart to 
 water an acrid and bitter taste. They are probably infused in 
 beer for the sake of tlieir anthelmintic properties : the Abye- 
 Binians being peculiarly subject to worms. Other travellers 
 speak of a root called taddo as being in common use among 
 Ethiopian tribes, as an addition to the mixture of malted bar- 
 ley and honey of which their favourite drink is made. But 
 nothing is known of the chemical 
 history of these and the other sub- 
 stances. 
 
 5°. In Northern Europe. — The Le- 
 dum palustre (the marsh ledum, or 
 wild rosemary), fig. 54, a heath- 
 plant common in the north of Europe, 
 allied to the Ehododendrons, was 
 formerly used in Sweden and Nortli 
 Germany for giving bitterness and 
 apparent strength to malt - liquors. 
 Its leaves, when infased in the wort, 
 render the beer unusually heady, so 
 as to produce headaches, nausea, and 
 even delirium, when drank to excess. 
 In Germany the use of it for this 
 purpose is now forbidden by law. 
 
 The Ledum latifoUum possesses 
 similar narcotic properties, and, where 
 it occurs in sufiScient abundance, is 
 used instead of, or along with, the 
 L. palustre. 
 
 In North America, both these 
 plants are known by the name of 
 Labrador tea, and are used as substi- 
 tutes for Chinese tea. Both are very 
 astringent ; and, in addition to the tannic acid to which this 
 property is due, probably contain also a narcotic principle 
 not yet examined- To this narcotic principle both the quali- 
 ties which fit these plants to be used in cold climates as a 
 substitute for tea, and those which enable it to impart intoxi- 
 1 Harris's Highlands of Ethiopia. 
 
 Ledum palustre — Tlie Marsh 
 
 Ledum, or Labrador Tea. 
 
 The undermost flower and leaf 
 
 represent those of 
 
 Ledum latijblium—The Labrador 
 
 Tea, or broad-leaved Ledum. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 2 feet. 
 
 Leaves and flowers nearly 
 
 natural sijEe. 
 
308 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 eating properties to beer, are to be ascribed- According to 
 Dr Ricliardson, the narrow-leaved L. pahistre is the better 
 suited of the two for the making of tea.^ Both plants would 
 probably well repay a detailed chemical examination. 
 
 The leaves of yarrow or millefoil (Achillea Millefolium) have 
 the property of producing intoxication. These are also used 
 in the north of Sweden by the Dalecarlians to give headiness 
 to their beer. 
 
 6°. In England, clary {Salvia sclarea) is said to give an in- 
 toxicating quality to beer. Saffron also, the dried stigmas of 
 the Crocus sativus, has a similar effect. It exercises a specific 
 influence on the brain and nerves, and when taken in large 
 doses, causes immoderate mirth and involuntary laughter. 
 Its exhilarating qualities are so remarkable that it has been 
 supposed to be the nepenthes of Homer ; and to denote a meny 
 temper it became a proverb, " Dormivit in saoco croci" — (he 
 has slept in a saffron bag). It has the singular property, 
 also, of counteracting the intoxication produced by alcohoho 
 liquors, as hops to some extent do. This was known to 
 PHny, who says that it allays the fumes of wine and prevents 
 drunkenness. " "It was therefore taken in drink by great 
 wine-bibbers, to enable them to drink largely without intoxi- 
 cation." ^ Its effects, however, are very uncertain, and it is 
 now little used in medicine, and probably not at aU for adul- 
 terating beer. It is still employed, especially in Cornwall, for 
 colouring and flavouring C3,kes. But quassia - chips (the 
 wood of Picrcena excelsa chiefly, but perhaps of two or three 
 different trees), as weU. as the roots and stems of Ophelia 
 chirata, O. angustifolia, and O, elegans, known as chiretta or 
 chirayta, are extensively used in England as substitutes for 
 the bitter of the hop. Both quassia and chiretta appear to 
 be tonic and not poisonous, but, like the buck-bean, they are 
 not aromatic. Chiretta and buck-bean belong to the Gentian 
 order. 
 
 1 See " The Beverages we fiifase," p. 143. 
 
 ' For much more on saffron, see Phillips's History of Cultivated Vegetables, 
 vol. ii. p. 180. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE NAKC0TIC8 WE INDULGE IN. 
 THE POI'PY AND THE LETTUCE. 
 
 The poppy, ancient and modom use of. — Preparation of opinm. — Mode of 
 collecting. — How opium is used. — Elfects of opium. — It sustains the 
 strength. — Delightful reveries produced by. — De Quincey's experience ; 
 that of Dr Madden. — Final results of opium indulgence. — Seductive influ- 
 ence of opium.— Case of Coleridge. — Impotence of the will under its influ- 
 ence. — Difficulty of giving it up. — Bodily and mental tortures in doing so. 
 — Extent to which opium is used. — Produce and consumption in India and 
 China. — Consumption in Great Britain. — Its use as an indulgence in this 
 country. — Drugging of children, and its effects. — Chemical constituents 
 of opium. — Properties of morphine. — Little known of the true action of 
 opium. — Average composition of opium. — Varietioa in its strength. — Pro- 
 posed opium-culture in France. — Influence of the variety of poppy on the 
 proportion of morphine. — Morphine not so poisonous to inferior animals. — 
 Dilution of opium in India and Java.-^Tnfluence of race in modifying the 
 elTects of opium. — The Javanese, the Malay, and the Negro.— Corrosive 
 sublimate eaten with opium. — Effects of opium compared with those of 
 wine. — Is opium necessarily deleterious ? — Dr Eatwell's testimony. — 
 Practical conclusions. — Substitutes for opium: Bull-hoof. — The lettuce, 
 loctncarium and lactucin ; resemblance to opium in properties and physi- 
 ological effects. — Syrian or Steppe rue ; its uses in the East as a narcotic 
 indulgence. 
 
 V. The Poppy. — The use of the common white poppy {Papa- 
 ver somni/erum), fig. 55, as a soother of pain and a giver of 
 sleep, has been familiar from the earliest periods. This is 
 partly shown by the names — poppy in English and papaver 
 in Latin — which are said to have been given to the plant be- 
 
310 
 
 THE NAKCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 Fig. 55. 
 
 cause it was commonly mixed with the food of young chil- 
 dren (pap or papa) to -ease pain and secure sleep. In this 
 country, the chief use of the poppy is as a medicine. 
 
 In the East, however, it is used as an exhilarating narcotic. 
 The Tartars of the Caucasus, who, though 
 professedly Mohammedans, drink wine 
 publicly, make it very heady and inebri- 
 ating by hanging the unripe heads of 
 poppies in the casks while the fermen- 
 tation is going on. A decoction of pop- 
 pies also, called Icokemaar, is sold in the 
 coffee-houses of the Persian cities, where 
 it is drunk scalding hot, and produces 
 amusing effects. As it begins to operate, 
 the drinkers quarrel with and abuse each 
 other, but without coming to blows; and 
 afterwards, as its effect increases, make 
 peace again. One utters high-flown 
 compliments, and another tells stories ; 
 but aU are extremely ridiculous, both in 
 their words and actions — (Taverniee). 
 
 1°. Pkepakation op Opium. — ^But it is 
 the dried or concrete juice of the poppy- 
 head that is generally and extensively 
 employed as a narcotic indulgence. This 
 dried juice is called by the Persians 
 afioun, and by the Arabs afioum, and 
 hence our European name opium. 
 
 This important drug is obtained by 
 making incisions into the capsules or 
 seed-vessels of the poppy plant when 
 they are nearly ripe, allowing the milky 
 juice which exudes to thicken upon the 
 capsules for twenty-four hours, and then 
 scraping it off. In India the incisions are made downwards 
 through the outer skin only : in Asia Minor the incisions are 
 horizontal. For this purpose a small knife, called a Nushtur, 
 is used, which consists of three or four minute blades, fast- 
 ened 'together (fig. 56 2). These knives make as many parallel 
 incisions, which allow the juice freely to escape. 
 
 The appearance of the poppy-fields in Bengal, and the way 
 
 Fapiver ammijenmr- 
 
 Common white Poppy. 
 
 Scale, 1 mch to the foot. 
 
USE OF OPIUM. 
 
 311 
 
 Fig. 56. 
 
 1. Poppy<heads, ahowlng the 
 
 par^lel incisions. 
 
 2. Nushturs, or poppy'kslTes. 
 
 Fig. 57. 
 
 in which the dried juice is collected by the natives, is repre- 
 sented in fig. 57. 
 
 The best opium of commerce is a soft unctuous mass, of 
 a reddish or blackish-brown colour, 
 a waxy lustre, a strong disagreeable 
 odour, and a bitter, acrid, nauseous 
 taste, which remains long in the mouth. 
 It is chiefly collected in Asiatic Tur- 
 key, in Persia, and in India. The 
 opium which comes from Smjrrna is 
 most esteemed in the European mar- 
 kets, while that which is produced in 
 India is the most extensively used in 
 Eastern countries. The greatest yield 
 ,of good opium in our Indian posses- 
 sions is stated to be 41 lb. per imperial 
 acre, and the average to be 20 to 25 lb. 
 
 2°. How rr ig used. — As a narcotic indulgence, opium k 
 used in one or other of three ways. It is swallowed in the 
 solid state in the form of 
 pillrf; or in that of fluid 
 tinctures, such as our com- 
 mon laudanum ; or it is 
 smoked in minute pipes, 
 after the manner of tobacco. 
 The first practice prevails 
 in Mohammedan countries, 
 especially in Turkey and 
 Persia ; the second among 
 Christian nations, when 
 individuals happen to be- 
 come addicted to the prac- 
 tice ; the third in China 
 and the islands of the In- 
 dian Archipelago. In pre- 
 paring it for smoking, the 
 Chinese extract from the 
 Indian opium all that water 
 will dissolve. This is generally from one-half to three-fourths 
 of the whole weight. They then evaporate the dissolved 
 extract to dryness, and make it into little pills. One of these 
 15 
 
 
 -■^"•^Ka^^ 
 
 Indians scraping the dried juice from 
 the poppy -heads. 
 
312 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 they put into a short tiny pipe, often made of silver, inhale 
 a few puffs at a time, or one single long puff, and return 
 the smoke through the nostrils and ears. This they repeat 
 till the necessary dose has been taken (fig. 58). 
 
 At Singapore, the mode of using it is much the same as 
 in China. "The opium-shops," says Captain Wilkes, "are 
 
 Fig. 68. 
 
 Opium-box, pipe, lamp, and needle. 
 
 The needle is put througli two holes on the opposite sides of the pipe, the pill is fixed 
 on the middle of the needle, as seen in the figure, and immediately over the central 
 hole of the pipe-howl. The lamp is then applied, and the vapours sucked in. 
 
 among the most extraordinary sights in Singapore. It is 
 inconceivable with what avidity the smokers seek this nox- 
 ious drug at the shop -windows. They then retire to the 
 interior, where a number of sickly-looking persons, in the 
 last stage of consumption, haggard, and worn down with 
 care, are seen smoking. The drug is sold in very small 
 pieces, and for ten cents enough to fill a pipe once is ob- 
 tained. With it are furnished a pipe, a lamp, and a couch to 
 lie on, if such it may be called. The pipe is of a peculiar con- 
 struction, and is in part of metal, having an interior or cup 
 just large enough to contain a piece the size of a pea. The 
 opium is difficult to ignite, and it requires much management 
 in the smoker to obtain the necessary number of whiffs to 
 produce intoxication in one habituated to its use. The 
 couch is sometimes a rude bench, but more often a mat on 
 the floor, with a small raised bench ; and, in the frequented 
 
EFFECTS OF OPIUM. 313 
 
 shops, is generally occupied by a pair of smokers, who have 
 a lamp between them." ^ 
 
 In Borneo, Sumatra, and Java, the extract is not evapo- 
 rated to dryness ; but, while stiU liquid, it is mixed with 
 finely-chopped tobacco and betel till the whole is absorbed. 
 This is then made up into piUs about the size of a pea. At 
 convivial parties a dish of these peas is brought in along with 
 a lamp, when the host takes the pipe, puts in one of the pel- 
 lets, takes two or three long whiffs, returning the smoke 
 through his nostrils, and, if he be an adept, through his eyes 
 and ears. He then passes the pipe round the company, each 
 of whom does the same with the same pipe ; and so they con- 
 tinue smoking till aU are intoxicated.^ 
 
 3°. Effects of Opium. — Used in any of the three ways I 
 have mentioned, its sensible effects are nearly the same, 
 varying of course with the quantity taken, with the con- 
 stitution of the taker, and with the frequency of its previous 
 use. The essential and primary action of the dnig is upon 
 the nervous system. 
 
 When taken in a moderate dose, the usual results of this 
 action are, that the mind is exhilarated, the ideas flow more 
 quickly, and a pleasurable or comfortable condition of the 
 whole system is experienced, which it is difficult to describe. 
 It thus acts in a similar way to our wines and spirituous 
 liquors, and it is chiefly as a substitute for these that it is 
 used in China. 
 
 It possesses, however, a wonderful power of sustaining the 
 strength, which is not found in alcoholic drinks, and of en- 
 abling mon to undergo fatigue and continued exertion under 
 which thoy would otherwise inevitably sink. Thus the 
 Harkaras, who carry letters and run messages through the 
 provinces of India, when provided only with a small piece of 
 opium, a bag of rice, and a pot to draw water from the wells, 
 perform almost incredible journeys. The Tartar couriers 
 also, who travel for many days and nights continuously, 
 make much use of it. With a few dates or a lump of coarse 
 bread, they traverse the trackless desert, amidst privations 
 and hardships which can only be supported under the in- 
 fluence of the drug — (Fokbes). And hence traveUera in the 
 
 * United States' Exploring Expedition, vol. ii. p. 299. 
 
 * Marsdon's History of Sumatra, p. 238, 
 
314 THE NARCOTICS "WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 Ottoman dominions generally carry opium with, them in the 
 form of lozenges or cakes stamped with the Turkish legend, 
 " Mash Allah," the gift of God — (Gkipfith). Even the horses 
 in the East are sustained by its influence. The Cutchee 
 horseman shares his store of opium with his flagging steed, 
 which thus makes an incredible stretch, though apparently 
 wearied out before — (Buknes). 
 
 The Turkish Theriakis, or opium-eaters, generally begin 
 with doses of from half a grain to two grains a-day, and 
 gradually increase the quantity till it amounts to 120 grains, 
 or sometimes more. The effect shows itself in one. or two 
 hoiu's after it has been taken, and lasts for five or six. It 
 produces a high degree of animation, which the Theriakis 
 represent as the summit of happiness. 
 
 De Quincey took laudanum for the first time to dispel pain, 
 and he thus describes the efiect it had upon him : " But I 
 took it, and in an hour, heavens ! what a revulsion ! what 
 an upheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit 1 
 what an apocalypse of the world within me ! That my pains 
 nad vanished was now a trifle in my eyes. This negative 
 effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those positive 
 effects which had opened before me — in the abyss of divine 
 enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a panacea — a 
 tftapitoKov vrprevBei for all human woes. Here was the secret 
 of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so 
 many ag§s, at once discovered ! Happiness might now be 
 bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat - pocket ; 
 portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a pint-bottle ; 
 and peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by the' 
 mail-coach." 
 
 Dr Madden describes more soberly his 'sensations when 
 under the influence of the drug in one of the coffee-houses at 
 Constantinople. "I commenced with one grain. In the 
 course of an hour and a half it produced no perceptible effect. 
 The coffee-house keeper was very anxious to give me an ad- 
 ditional pill of two grains, but I was contented with half a 
 one ; and in another half-hour, feeling nothing of the expected 
 reverie, I took half a grain more, making in all two grains in 
 the course of two hours. After two hours and a half from the 
 first dose, my spirits became sensibly excited ; the pleasure 
 of the sensation seemed to depend on a universal expansion 
 
SFFECTS OF OPIUM. 316 
 
 of mind and matter. My faculties appeared enlarged ; every- 
 thing I looked at seemed increased in volume ; I had no 
 longer the same pleasure when I closed my eyes which I had 
 whon they were open ; it appeared to me as if it was only 
 external objects which were acted on by the imagination, and 
 magnified into images of pleasure ; in short, it was ' the faint 
 exquisite music of a dream ' in a waking moment. I made 
 my way home as fast as possible, dreading at every step that 
 I should commit some extravagance. In walking, I was 
 hardly sensible of my feet touching the ground ; it seemed as 
 if I slid along the street, impelled by some invisible agent, 
 and that my blood was composed of some ethereal fluid, 
 which rendered my body lighter than air. I got to bed the 
 moment I reached home. The most extraordinary visions of 
 delight filled my brain all night. In the morning I rose pale 
 and dispirited ; my head ached ; my body was so debilitated 
 that I was obliged to remain on the sofa all day, dearly pay- 
 ing for my first essay at opium-eating." ^ 
 
 These after- efiects are the source of the misery of the 
 opium-eater. The exciting influence of the drug is almost 
 invariably followed by a corresponding depression. The 
 Busceptibility to external impressions and the muscular en- 
 ergy are both lessened. A desire for repose ensues, and a 
 tendency to sleep. The mouth and throat also become dry ; 
 the thirst is increased ; hunger diminishes ; and the bowels 
 nsuaUy become torpid. 
 
 When large doses are taken, all the above effects are 
 hastened and heightened in proportion. The period of de- 
 pression comes on sooner ; the prostration of energy increases 
 to actual stupor, with or without dreams ; the pulse becomes 
 foeble, the muscles exceedingly relaxed, and, if enough has 
 been taken, death ensues. 
 
 Of course all these effects are modified by the constitution 
 of the individual, by the length of time he has accustomed 
 himself to take it, and by the circumstances in which he is 
 placed. But upon all persons, and in aU circumstances, its 
 final effects, like those of ardent spirits taken in large and 
 repeated doses, are equally melancholy and degrading. " A 
 total attenuation of body," says Oppenheim, " a vidthered 
 yellow countenance, a lame gait, a bending of the spine, fre- 
 Madden's Travels in Turkey, vol. i. p. 25. 
 
316 THE NAKCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 queutly to such a degree as to assume a circular form, and 
 glassy deep-sunken eyes, betray the opium-eater at the first 
 glance. The digestive organs are in the highest degree dis- 
 turbed ; the sufferer eats scarcely anything, and has hardly 
 one evacuation in a week. His mental and bodily powers are 
 destroyed — he is impotent." 
 
 And then, " when the baneful habit has become confirmed, 
 it is almost impossible to break it off. His torments, when 
 deprived of the stimulant, are as dreadful as his bliss is com- 
 plete when he has taken it. Night brings the torments of 
 hell, day the bliss of paradise ; and, after long indulgence, 
 ho becomes subject to nervous pains, to which opium itself 
 brings no relief. He seldom attains the age of forty, if he 
 have begun the practice early." 
 
 Dr Madden thus describes what he saw of its effects upon 
 the confirmed Theriakis, as they are called, in the coffee- 
 houses of Constantinople : " Their gestures were frightful ; 
 those who were completely under the influence of the opium 
 talked incoherently, their features were flushed, their eyes 
 had an unnatural brilliancy, and the general expression of 
 their countenances was horribly wild. The effect is usually 
 produced in two hours, and lasts four or five ; the dose varies 
 from three grains' to a drachm. I saw one old man take four 
 pills, of six grains each, in the course of two hours : I was 
 told he had been using opium for five-and-twenty years. But 
 this is a very rare example of an opium-eater passing thirty 
 years of age, if he commence the practice early. The debility, 
 both moral and physical, attendant on its excitement is ter- 
 rible. The appetite is soon destroyed ; every fibre in the body 
 trembles ; the nerves of the neck become affected, and the 
 muscles get rigid : several of these I have seen in this place 
 at various times, who had wry necks and contracted fingers ; 
 but still they cannot abandon the custom ; they are miserable 
 till the hour arrives for taking their daily dose ; and when its 
 delightful influence begins, they are all fire and animation. 
 Some of them compose excellent verses, and others address 
 the bystanders in the most eloquent discourses, imagining 
 themselves to be emperors, and to have all the harems in the 
 world at command." 
 
 The seductive influence of opium, and the almost irresisti- 
 ble and domineering power it acquires over the minds of its 
 
SEDUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF OPIUM. 317 
 
 votaries, are not less wonderful than the mental happiness it 
 confers during the exciting stage of its action on the body. 
 Of this power of seduction even over the less delicate and 
 BOBoeptiblo organisation oi our North European races, and of 
 the absolute slavery to which it can reduce even the strongest 
 minds among us, wo have two remarkable examples in the 
 celebrated Coleridge, and in the author of the ' English 
 Opium - Eater.' For many years Coleridge was a slave to 
 opium, and the way in which he became addicted to it is thus 
 described by himself, in a letter dated April 1814 : " I was 
 seduced into the accursed habit ignorantly. I had been 
 almost bedridden for many months with swelling in my knees. 
 In a medical journal I unhappily met with an account of a 
 cure performed in a similar case, by rubbing in laudanum, at 
 the same time taking a given dose internally. It acted like 
 a charm — like a miracle. I recovered the use of my limbs, of 
 my appetite, of my spirits ; and this continued for near a 
 fortnight. At length the unusual stimulus subsided, the 
 complaint returned, the supposed remedy was recurred to — 
 but I cannot go through the dreary history. Sufficient to 
 say, that effects were produced wluch acted on me by terror 
 and cowardice of pain and sudden death," — and Coleridge 
 became the slave of opium. 
 
 Subsequently, while living at the house of a friend in 
 Bristol, ho put himself in the hands of a medical man ; and 
 hero the most melancholy part of his case exhibited itself. 
 For, while he was pretending to be gradually lessening the 
 dose under medical instructions, and while his friends were 
 congratulating themselves that he was absolutely cured, by 
 being brought down to twenty drops a-day, he was all the 
 while buying laudanum secretly, and drinking it in large 
 doses as before ! How his moral sense must have been over- 
 borne, and by how powerful a fascination, before ho could 
 have stooped to a deception so degrading as this ! 
 
 And how extreme his own misery and sense of impotence, 
 when he cotdd write of himself : " There is no hope. God, 
 how wilUngly would I place myself under Dr Fox in his 
 establishment ! for my case is a species of madness, only that 
 it is a derangement, an utter impotence of the volition, and not 
 of the intellectual faculties. You bid me rouse myself. Go 
 bid a man, paralytic in botli arms, to rub them briskly to- 
 
318 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 gether, and that will cpre him. ' Alas ! ' he would reply, 
 ' that I cannot move my arms is my complaint and mv 
 misery.' " 
 
 And even greater misery he paints in another letter written 
 in the same year (1814). " Conceive a poor miserable wretch, 
 who for many years has been attempting to beat off pain 
 by a constant recurrence to a vice that reproduces it. Con- 
 ceive a spirit in heU employed in tracing out for others the 
 road to that heaven from which his crimes exclude him 1 In 
 short, conceive whatever is most wretched, helpless, and 
 hopeless, and you wiH form as tolerable a notion of my state 
 as it is possible for a good man to have." ^ 
 
 Coleridge lived twenty years after the above was written, 
 and conquered the evil habit. But after what struggles and 
 tortures, mental and bodily, who can tell ? De Quincey also, 
 after a seventeen years' use, and an eight years' abuse, of the 
 powers of opium, shook off his slavery. He has left us a 
 graphic and impressive sketch of the terrible trials and temp- 
 tations he had to vrithstand in finally abandoning the drug. 
 " On the 24th of June 1822," he says, " I began my experiment, 
 having previously settled in my own mind that I would not 
 flinch, but ' would stand up to the scratch ' under any possible 
 ' punishment.' About 170 or 180 drops had been my ordinary 
 allowance for many months ; occasionally I had run up as 
 high as 300, and once nearly to 700 : in repeated preludes to 
 my final experiment, I had also gone as low as 100 drops, 
 but had found it impossible to stand it beyond the fourth day, 
 which, by the way, I have always found more difficult to get 
 over than any of the preceding three. I went off under easy 
 sail — 130 drops a-day for three days ; on the fourth I plunged 
 at once to 80. The misery which I now suffered ' took the 
 conceit out of me ' at once ; and for about a month I continued 
 off and on about this mark : then I sunk to 60 ; and the next 
 day to — none at all. This was the first day for nearly ten 
 years that I had existed without opium. I persevered in my 
 abstinence for ninety hours — i. e., upwards of half a week. 
 Then I took — ask me not how much. Say, ye severest, what 
 would you have done ? Then I abstained again ; then took 
 about 25 drops ; then abstained, — and so on." ^ 
 
 1 Cottle's Early EeooUectioDS, vol. 11. p. 185. 
 
 =* Confessions of an English Oplum-Eater, Appendix. 
 
CONSUMPTION OF OPIUM. 319 
 
 Under manifold pains, irritations, and distresses, some of 
 which he has described, he manfully, and for months, perse- 
 vered, and finally achieved his liberty, " I triumphed : but 
 think not, reader, that therefore my sufferings were ended. 
 Nor think of me as of one sitting in a dejected state. Think 
 of me as of one, even when four months had passed, still 
 agitated, writhing, throbbing, palpitating, shattered; and 
 much in the situation of him who has been racked, as I 
 collect the torments of that state from the affecting account 
 of them by William Lithgow, the most innocent sufferer of 
 the times of James I. Meantime, I derived no benefit from 
 any medicine, except one prescribed for me by an Edin- 
 burgh surgeon of great eminence — ammoniated tincture of 
 valerian." 
 
 What a lesson does the experience of these two men read 
 to us ! 
 
 Similar effects are described as resulting from the smoking 
 of opium in China. -It appears to be very much a matter of 
 indifference, therefore, whether the drug be taken in the solid 
 form of pills, in the liquid form of laudanum, or in the more 
 subtle form of heated vapour. The smoke acts more immedi- 
 ately than the other forms of the drug, but its final effects 
 are very much the same, 
 
 4°. Extent to which Opium is used. — It is impossible to 
 arrive at anything like an approximate idea of the quantity 
 of opium consumed by the different nations of the world. 
 Meyen asserts that the quantity consumed by the Malays of 
 the Indian Archipelago, in Cochin-China and Siam, as well as 
 in India and Persia, is so immense that, if we could obtain an 
 exact statement of it, the amount would be quite incredible. 
 In India we know that the revenue derived from home-grown 
 opium is enormous. In 1875 it amounted to more than 8 J 
 millions sterling I Much of the drug represented by this 
 figure is exported to China, but besides this, the quantity 
 consumed in India itself must be immense. The Kajpoots, 
 and other Hindoo tribes, present opivim, at their visits and 
 entertainments, with the same familiarity as the-snuff-box is 
 presented in Europe — (Forbes). And in some districts, as I 
 have already mentioned, it is even administered to the horses. 
 India exports much to the islands of the Indian Archipelago 
 and other places. Malwa opium is grown by natives under 
 
320 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 a system of excise. In Bengal, the Behar, and Benares, opium 
 is a Government monopoly. 
 
 As to China, we know that, in the season 1837-38, it im- 
 ported from India 3,000,000 lb., and the importation had in- 
 creased to 11,500,000 lb. in 185ff. To this importation must 
 also be added the opium which China receives by land from 
 the countries which border it towards the west, and that 
 which is grown in the country itself — a large and increasing 
 amount. In the province of Yunnan poppy-fields are seen 
 everywhere, and every hut has its poppy-garden. The con- 
 sumption of China at the present moment is certainly not less 
 than 14,000,000 or 15,000,000 lb., having a market value of 
 as many pounds sterling. 
 
 The consumption of the United Kingdom is of course trifling 
 when compared with that of India or China ; it is, however, 
 greatly on the increase. Thus the quantity imported into 
 Great Britain was — in 
 
 1839, 41,000 rb. 
 
 1852, 114,000 „ 
 
 1876, 400,303 „ = £394,034. 
 
 The imports in 1876 were — from 
 
 Turkey, 315,624 ft. 
 
 Persia, 51,165 „ 
 
 British India, 13,390 „ 
 
 China, 5,660 „ 
 
 Other countries, 14,464 ,, 
 
 Thus the imports have increased more than three times 
 within the last fifteen years. This implies either the appli- 
 cation of the drug to new purposes, or a greatly increased 
 demand for the uses to which it was formerly applied. 
 
 Much uncertainty exists as to the extent to which the use 
 of opium as a narcotic indulgence, in any of its forms, really 
 prevails among our full-grown healthy adult population, either 
 in town or country. According to De Quincey, opium-eaters 
 were already numerous among us sixty years ago. But 
 those he mentions were either persons of talent and eminence, 
 whom the gnawings of indigestion drove to opium as a stiller 
 of pain, or poverty-stricken operatives in Manchester and 
 other large towns, who of a Saturday evening soothed their 
 cares and stayed their hunger with a grain or two of opium. 
 And although the opinion is hazarded from .time to time that 
 
THE OPIUM ETIL IN ENGLAND. 321 
 
 the practice of opium-eating is extending among the body of 
 the people, and individual cases occur now and then in which 
 it is certain that the drug has been largely used,^ yet statis- 
 tical data are altogether wanting to support the idea that the 
 consumption of opium as a narcotic indulgence is now, or is 
 likely soon to become, a national vice among the inhabitants of 
 any of the three kingdoms. Of course, there are in London and 
 other large cities colonies of opium-eaters or opium-smokers. 
 
 Another form of the opium evil, however, has been shown, 
 upon unquestionable evidence, extensively to prevail. In the 
 largo manufacturing towns of Lancashire it is a common 
 thing for mothers who work in the factories to put out their 
 children to nurse, and it is equally common for the nurses to 
 dose the children with opium for the purpose of keeping them 
 quiet or of setting them to sleep. It was stated by the Kev. 
 Mr Clay, that in the town of Preston alone, in 1843, "up- 
 wards of'sixteen hundred families were in the habit of using 
 Godfrey's Cordial, or some other equally injurious compound;" 
 and that in one of the buriiil clubs in that town, " sixty-four 
 per cent of the members die under five years of age." ^ The 
 obvious conclusion was, that the fatality among the children 
 was connected with the use of the drug. 
 
 A writer in the ' Morning Chronicle ' of the 4th of January 
 1850 thus describes the efiects which this use of opium pro- 
 duces upon the health of the children : " The consequences 
 of this system of drugging are suffusion of the brain, and an 
 extensive train of mesenteric and glandular diseases. The 
 child sinks into a low torpid state, wastes away to a skeleton, 
 except the stomach, producing what is known as pot-belly. 
 One woman said, ' The sleeping stuff made them that they 
 were always dozing, and never cared for food. They pined 
 away. Their heads got big, and they died.' " 
 
 1 A child died, for example, from the effects of opium in September 1853, 
 at BoxwOTth in Cambridgeshire, the mother, because it was unwell, having 
 placed a piece of cmde opium in its mouth to suck. To the announcement of 
 this fact in the newspapers it was added, " that the mother and her family 
 are all opium-eaters, and, though labouring people, spend 4s. a-week on the 
 drug I " In my own frequent visits to the rural districts I have never heard 
 of the use of opium as an indulgence in Scotland, and only in one country 
 porish in the centre of England. 
 
 • First Beport of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Large 
 Towns, 1844. Appendix, pp. 46, 48. 
 
322 THE NABCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 It cannot be denied, therefore, that in one melancholy fonn 
 at least the evil effects of opium are to be seen amongst us. 
 And it is curious that this should be the very form of drug- 
 ging from which the poppy is said to have derived its name. 
 The diffusion of knowledge among the mothers of the factory 
 districts is one of the most likely ways to remove this evil. 
 
 5°. Chemical Constituents op Opium. — In regard to its 
 chemical history, opium is probably the best known of all the 
 complex vegetable extracts or inspissated juices used in 
 medicine. 
 
 How very complicated a substance even the purest opium 
 is, the general reader will infer from the formidable list of 
 peculiar principles which have been found in it. Besides 
 familiar substances, such as gum, mucilage, resin, fat, caout- 
 chouc, volatile oil, &c., it contains morphine, narcotine, co- 
 deine, thebaine, papaverine, with ten other alkaloids, and 
 meconic acid — sixteen peculiar organic compounds, which 
 occur in greater or less quantity in nearly every sample of 
 pure opium ! 
 
 Of all these, the most characteristic is that now almost uni- 
 versally known under the name of morphine or morphia. Of 
 this invaluable medicine the best qualities of opium contain 
 as much as 10 per cent. It is a beautiful colourless crystal- 
 line substance, nearly insoluble in water, but having an ex- 
 ceedingly bitter unpleasant taste, and what are called by 
 chemists allsaline properties. It is powerfully narcotic and 
 poisonous, soothes nervous irritation, stills pain, and when 
 taken in large doses, imparts a remarkable itchiness to the 
 skin. It produces upon the system most of the effects of the 
 natural opium. And there has arisen an actual morphia 
 mania — an insatiable craving for this pure chemical com- 
 pound — the chemical composition of which is fixed, and the 
 physiological effects constant and certain, as a substitute for 
 the crude and uncertain opium in the production of pleasur- 
 able excitement and gratification. 
 
 The fuU and peculiar effect of the natural drug is, however, 
 due to the combined and simultaneous action of several out 
 of the numerous substances it contains. Each of these 
 modifies the effect which would be produced by any one of 
 the others taken singly — as the attraction of each planet 
 modifies the course which would be taken by every one of 
 
ALKALOIDS OF OPIUM. 323 
 
 the others, were it the only one which revolved round the 
 Bun. It is from the result of all these conjoined actions that 
 the singular pleasure of the opium-consumer is derived. 
 
 The amount of opium taken modifies not only the extent 
 of the effects of opium but also their character. A small dose 
 excites the brain, but diminishes- the secretions, except the 
 perspiration, which is much increased. A moderate dose 
 produces tranquillity and sleep, the flow of blood to the brain 
 being lessened ; a strong dose produces stupor and coma by 
 impeding respiration. 
 
 Of the chief alkaloids of opium some are sleep-producing or 
 soporific, while others are almost or quite destitute of this 
 property. Again, some of them are more actively poisonous 
 than others, while others are powerful allayers of pain. 
 According to Rabuteau the chief opium-alkaloids may be 
 grouped thus, tlio most active in each direction being placed 
 first — 
 
 Slepji-produclng. Poisonous. Pain-allaying. 
 
 Morpbine, Morphine, Narceine, 
 
 Narceine, Codeine, Morphine, 
 
 Codeine. Thebaino, Thcbaine, 
 
 Papaverine, Papaverine, 
 
 Narceine, Codeine, 
 Narcotine. 
 
 Thus thebaine is poisonous and pain - allaying, but not 
 soporific. It is especially useful for injecting under the skin, 
 for which morphine-salts are now so largely used. It must 
 be confessed, however, that different experimenters do not 
 perfectly agree as to the physiological actions of the several 
 alkaloids of opium. This is to be explained in part by their 
 experiments having often been made upon the lower animals 
 instead of upon man. 
 
 6°. Average Composition of Opium. — The proportions in 
 which the several active ingredients are present in the opium 
 of commerce varies much in different samples of the drag. 
 The country or locality in which the plant is grown, the 
 variety of poppy which is cultivated, the state of ripeness 
 when the poppy-head is out, the peculiarities of the season 
 during which the sap is collected, the way in which it is 
 dried and afterwards prepared for market — all these circum- 
 stances influence the proportions of its constituents, and con- 
 Beqnently modify the action of the mixed substance upon 
 
324 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 the human system. The Smyrna opium is generally con- 
 sidered the best in the European market ; but even in this 
 the active ingredient morphine varies from 4 to 14 per 
 cent. In a sample from Vermont, U.S., 16 per cent was 
 found with 2 per cent of narcotine. The total amount of 
 alkaloids in good Smyrna opium often rises to 24 per cent. 
 
 Morphine is the most valuable constituent of opium, and its 
 percentage in the samples from different localities, determines 
 very much their relative estimation in the market. Hence 
 the best Indian opium is inferior to the Turkish. It never 
 yields more than 5 per cent of morphine ; but it is richer in 
 the less esteemed ingredient narcotine. The opium of Persia 
 is equally poor in morphine. Quite recently a valuable and 
 powerful emetic has been made from morphine. This sub- 
 stance, called apomorphine, differs from morphine only in cor- 
 taining one proportion of water less. 
 
 These latter facts show that, though opium is chiefly 
 collected and used in warm climates, yet mere warmth of 
 climate, whatever may be its other effects on the white 
 poppy, does not alone cause the juice of its ripening capsules 
 to be rich in morphine. On the contrary, British and German 
 grown opium has been found to contain more morphine than 
 that of commerce, and opium collected in France has yielded 
 as much as 16 to 28 per cent of this ingredient. 
 
 This large yield of morphine possesses in this part of the 
 world more of a scientific than of an economical interest, 
 since both the dearness of labour and the variableness of 
 climate in the British Islands are opposed to the idea of a 
 •profitable cultivation of opium. It may possibly be other- 
 wise in some parts of France, Germany, and, we may add, 
 our Australian colonies. Recent experiments show that the 
 poppy cultivated for its seed may be so treated as to yield a 
 harvest of opium at an expense which need not exceed one- 
 fourth of the market value of the drug obtained. And as the 
 seed, which afterwards ripens uninjured, will pay all the 
 ordinary cost of culture, it is believed by many that in the 
 coUeotion of opium there is the prospect of great future 
 advantage to the agriculture of several countries where the 
 experiment of opium poppy cultivation has been successftilly 
 inaugurated. 
 
 In this plant, as in tobacco, variety as well as locality has 
 
PROPERTIES OP MORPHINE. 325 
 
 an influence on the quantity of the active ingredients con- 
 tained in its sap. Thus opium collected in Germany from the 
 white poppy (variety album) yielded only 7 per cent of mor- 
 phine, while other samples collected from the black poppy 
 (variety nigrum) yielded 16 J per cent. 
 
 It is a singular circumstance in the physiological history 
 of morphine and its compounds, that, though so poisonous to 
 man, it can be swallowed with comparative impunity, and in 
 large doses, by apes, dogs, cats, hares, birds, and other ani- 
 mals. A fiiU dose of morphine for a grown man is one-eighth 
 of a grain ; and of acetate or hydrochlorate of morphine, one- 
 fourth of a grain ; but an ape has been known to swallow 500 
 grains of morphine in a single month. It passes off harmlessly 
 in the urine, which, in the case of the above ape, sometimes con- 
 tained as much as one per cent of morphine — (Flandin). And 
 it has been found that the several alkaloids of opium have 
 not the same poisonous effects upon the lower animals as 
 upon man. Thebaine is the most deadly when given to cats 
 and dogs ; morphine to man. 
 
 It is a curious physiological fact, that even in man the 
 active narcotic ingredients of opium often escape in the 
 secretion of the kidneys. Morphine ha,8 been detected in tho 
 urine, and children have been poisoned by the miUc of nurses 
 who took much laudanum. This character the active con- 
 stituents of opium possess in common with many other nar- 
 cotic principles, such as those of the deadly nightshade, the 
 henbane, the thorn-apple, the intoxicating fungus, and with 
 many other substances used in medicine. 
 
 In India the opium is so much reduced in strength by 
 admixtures of Various kinds before it reaches the retailers in 
 tho bazaars, that it does not possess one -thirtieth of the 
 intoxicating power of the natural drug — (Hooker).* In Java, 
 where it is a government monopoly, it is sold to Chinese 
 dealers, who are bound to dilute it with tobacco and betel in 
 a prescribed proportion, which varies with the quality of the 
 opium, and to sell it thus reduced at a fixed price. Thus 
 prepared for consumption, it is known by tlie name of tandou, 
 and is extensively used. The opium-houses are only allowed 
 to be open in the day-time, that accidents from quarrelling 
 may be as much as possible prevented. 
 
 I Himalayan .foiimals, vol. i. p. 86. 
 
326 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 7°. Influence of Race and Constitution. — This precau- 
 tion is the more necessary in Java, because of the peculiarly 
 exciting influence which opium exercises over the Javanese, 
 the Malays, and the negro races. 
 
 Although both Coleridge and De Quincey have given such 
 glowing descriptions of the action of opium in their individual 
 oases, yet the British opium-eater in general is by no means 
 subject to the extraordinary excitement either of body or of 
 mind which these writers describe. The common effect, 
 according to Dr Christison, " is merely to remove torpor and 
 sluggishness, and to make the opium-consumer, in the eyes 
 of his friends, an active and conversable man." '■ 
 
 But, as we have seen, the general effects of the drug in 
 Turkey and Persia, as related by travellers, are very different. 
 And they are still more exciting in the Indian Archipelago, 
 and among some of the African races. 
 
 "The Javanese," says Lord. Macartney, "under an extra- 
 ordinary dose of opium, became fiantic as well as desperate. 
 They acquire an artificial courage ; and, when suffering from 
 misfortune and disappointment, they not only stab the ob- 
 jects of their hate, but sally forth to attack in like manner 
 every person they meet, till self-preservation renders it neces- 
 sary to destroy them." They shout, as they run. Amok, 
 amok I which means, " kill, kill ; " and hence the phrase, 
 running amuck. Captain Beeckman was told of a Javanese 
 who ran amuck in the streets of Batavia, and . had killed 
 several people, when he was met by a soldier, who ran him 
 through with his pike. But such was the desperation of the 
 infuriated man, that he pressed himself forward on the pike, 
 until he got ne^r enough to stab hia adversary with a dagger, 
 when both expired together. 
 
 On the Malays the effects of opium are described as being 
 nearly the same both in kind and in degree. In reading of 
 them, one is reminded of the excitement which formerly pre- 
 vailed in a less fatal form at Donnybrook and other Irish 
 fairs, when an unusual dose of poteen had been administered 
 to the hoys. 
 
 The influence of race, as it affects the physiological action 
 either of substances introduced into the stomach, or of ideas 
 presented to the mind, is the same in kind as the influence ot 
 1 Treatise on Poisons, p. 721. 
 
CORROSIVE SUBLIMATE WITH OPIUM. 327 
 
 individual constitution. It is only greater in degree, and 
 startles na sometimes because of the extent to which it ap- 
 pears exaggerated. The influence of constitution is recog- 
 nised and considered in every dose of medicine we take or 
 administer, and in the way in which good or evil tidings are 
 communicated to our friends. We more rarely allow for dif- 
 ferences of race in dealing with foreign nations, or in criticis- 
 ing their behaviour and actions under given circumstances. 
 
 In the Malays and Javanese we have the excitable tem- 
 perament, accompanied by the unrestrained outward forms of 
 expression which are characteristic of Eastern nations. What 
 affects us Anglo-Saxons lightly or slowly, touches them in- 
 stantly, and penetrates deep. The emotions which, when 
 awakened, we are accustomed to restrain and hide, they openly 
 and vividly display, and by indulgence heighten often to an 
 overpowering degree. The negro tribes partake of a similar 
 organisation. Their susceptibility affects all their relations 
 both to living and dead things. Opium operates upon diflfor- 
 ent individuals among them in different ways, as it does upon 
 the different individuals of l]uropean races ; but upon all of 
 them it produces those more marked and striking effects 
 which, among ourselves, we only see in rare instances, and in 
 persons of uncommonly nervous temperament. 
 
 A singular illustration of the effect of mixed substances 
 upon the human constitution, when in a state of disease, is 
 presented in the use of a mixture of opium with corrosivo 
 sublimate by the confirmed opium-eaters of the East. The 
 drug, in its usual form, gradually loses its effect upon the 
 habitual consumer, so that the dose must be increased from 
 time to time, if the influence of the drug is to be maintained. 
 But at length even this resource fails the inveterate opium- 
 eaters of Constantinople, and no increase of dose will procure for 
 them the desired enjoyment, or even relieve them from bodily 
 pain. In this emergency, they have recourse to the poisonous 
 corrosive subhmate. Mixing at first a minute quantity of this 
 substance with their daily dose of opium, they increase it by 
 degrees, till they reach the limit of ten grains a-day, beyond 
 which it is usually unsafe to pass. This mixtmre acts upon 
 their long-tortured frames, when neither of the ingredients, 
 taken alone, will either soothe or exhilarate. But the use of 
 tlie new medicine only protracts a little longer the artificial 
 
328 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 enjoyment, which has become a necessary of life, finally bring- 
 ing to a more miserable termination the career of the debili- 
 tated and distorted Theriaki. 
 
 8°. Opidm compared with Wine. — I have said that in 
 moderate doses opium acts, in a similar way to our wines and 
 spirituous liquors, and that it is as a substitute for these that 
 the Chinese use it. By this I do not mean that its physiolo- 
 gical effects are precisely the same, although the main pur- 
 pose for which both are used by many — that of dispelling care 
 — may be the same. On the contrary, there are many points 
 of difference in the effects which alcoholic drinks and opium 
 respectively produce. 
 
 The English Opium-Eater thus enumerates some of the 
 points by which, according to his experience, their several 
 actions are distinguished : " Wine robs a man of his self- 
 possession ; opium greatly invigorates it. Wine unsettles . 
 and clouds the judgment, and gives a preternatural bright- 
 ness and a vivid exaltation to the contempts and the admira- 
 tions, the loves and the hatreds, of the drinker : opium, on 
 the contrary, communicates serenity and equipoise to all the 
 faculties, active or passive ; ?ind with respect to the temper 
 and moral feelings in general, it gives simply that sort of vital 
 warmth which is approved by the judgment, and which would 
 probably always accompany a bodily constitution of primeval 
 or antediluvian health. ... To sum up aU in one word, 
 a man who is inebriated, or tending to inebriation, is, and 
 feels that he is, in a condition which calls up into supremacy 
 the merely human — too often the brutal — ^part of his nature : 
 but the opium-eater (I speak of him who is not suffering fi-om 
 any disease, or other remote effects of opium) feels that the 
 diviner part of his nature is paramount ; that is, the moral 
 affections are in a state of cloudless serenity ; and over all is 
 the great light of the majestic intellect." 
 
 This language of the Opium-Eater must be read with that 
 amount of allowance which we naturally concede to poetical 
 writers, who aim at effect in the language they select, and 
 are not afraid of the startling and uncommon. 
 
 9°. Is Opium necessarily deleterious ? — We have been in 
 the habit, in this country, of regarding the use of opium in 
 the way of indulgence as an unmitigated evil. And although 
 to accede to the highly-coloured eulogium of Mr De Quincey 
 
IS OPIUM INJURIOUS? 320 
 
 would be to rush to the opposite extreme, yet it may perhaps 
 be conceded that our attention has been generally too much 
 directed to the most dismal features of the practice, and that 
 we may have judged too hastily as to its more general effects. 
 Thus Dr Bumos, long resident in Cutch and at the Court of 
 Scinde, says, that " in general the natives do not suffer much 
 {torn the use of opium :" and that it " does not seem to do 
 Btroy the powers of the body, nor to enervate the mind, to 
 the degree that might be imagined." And as to the Chinese, 
 Dr Maopherson observes, that " although the habit of smok- 
 ing opium is universal among rich and poor, yet they are a 
 powerful, muscular, and athletic people, and the lower orders 
 more intelligent, and far superior in mental acquirements, to 
 those of corresponding rank in our own country." 
 
 Among those also who have seen much of the use of opium 
 in Eastern countries, there are some who, so far from pro- 
 nouncing the practice to be an unmitigated evil, actually 
 prefer its general use to that of alcoholic drinks. Thus Dr 
 Eatwell wrote — 
 
 " The question to be determined is no<- what are the effects 
 <if opium used in excess, but what are its effects on the moral 
 and physical constitution of the mass of individuals who use • 
 it habitually, and in moderation, either as a stimulant to sus- 
 tain the frame under fatigue, or as a restorative and sedative 
 after labour, bodily or mental ? Having passed three years 
 in China, I can afifinn thus far, that the effects of the abuse of 
 the drug do not come very frequently under observation, and 
 that when cases do occur, the habit is frequently found to 
 have been induced by the presence of some painful chronic 
 disease, to escape from the sufferings of which the patient has 
 fled to this resoiu-ce. That tliis is not always the case, how- 
 over, I am perfectly ready to admit ; and there are doubtless 
 many who indulge in the habit to a pernicious extent, led by 
 the same morbid influences which induce men to become 
 drunkards in even the most civilised countries ; but these 
 cases do not, at all events, come before the public eye. As 
 regards the effects of the habitual use of the drug on the 7nass 
 of the people, I must affirm that no injurious results are 
 visible. The people generally are a muscular and well-formed 
 race, the labouring portion being capable of great and pro- 
 longed exertion under a fierce sun, in an unhealthy climate. 
 
330 THE NARCOTICS WB INDULGE IN. 
 
 Their disposition is cheerfal and peaceable, and quarrels and 
 brawls are rarely heard even amongst the lower orders ; whilst 
 in general intelligence they rank deservedly high amongst 
 orientals. 
 
 " I conclude, therefore, with observing, that the proofs are 
 still wanting' to show that the moderate use of opium pro- 
 duces more pernicious effects upon the constitution tiian the 
 moderate use of spirituous liquors ; whilst at the same time 
 it is certain that the consequences of the abuse of the.former 
 are less appalling in their effects upon the victim, and less 
 disastrous to society at large, than the consequences of the 
 abuse of the latter." ^ 
 
 That the effects of opium-eating and opium-smoking in 
 China are not so melancholy as we have been accustomed to 
 suppose, and that, on the whole, they are not worse than 
 those which are produced among ourselves by fermented 
 liquors — this is the substance of Dr EatweH's testimony ; and 
 so far it is both interesting and satisfactory. But his lan- 
 guage is not laudatory like that of De Quincey. He palliates 
 the vicious indulgence, but says nothing .which should re- 
 commend the practice to his readers. The medical mission- 
 aries to China inform us that confirmed opium-consumers use 
 daily from thirty to two hundred grains of the pure extract, 
 which is equal to twice as much of the crude opium.^ But 
 were such cases very numerous, they ought to come more 
 frequently under the public eye than, from the testimony of 
 Dr Eatwell, appears to be the case. 
 
 10°. Practical Conclusions. — The true state of the ques- 
 tion in its practical bearings upon ourselves may be summed 
 up as follows : — 
 
 First, It is certain that opium, like spirituous liquors, pro- 
 duces most melancholy body-and-soul-destroying effects upon 
 those who give themselves up to its use as a narcotic indul- 
 gence. If day brings them the bliss of heaven, night brings 
 with it the torments of hell. 
 
 Secondly, It is certain also that some can continue for years 
 to use it in small doses as a narcotic indulgence, without be- 
 coming slaves to it, or without appearing to be sensibly affected 
 by it in their general health. 
 
 1 Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. xi. p. 864. 
 
 2 Ten grains cost 22 cash, about one penny. 
 
THE LETTUCE. 331 
 
 Thirdly, But it is of all indulgences the most wonder- 
 fully seductive, and is therefore a most dangerous substance 
 to become familiar with. The infatuation sometimes reaches 
 such a point that the certainty of death, and of all the fearful 
 infirmities which in this case precede death, have no influence 
 on the victim. He coldly answers those who warn him of 
 his danger that the opium happiness is beyond compare — 
 (Pocqueville). 
 
 Fourthly, That to give up the indulgence produces tortures 
 of mind and body which make cowards and recreants of the 
 most resolute. To this fact, the testimony of Coleridge and 
 De Quincey has been already quoted. 
 
 Am I then — is the practical question each of my readers 
 will put to himself — am / possessed of moral and physical 
 courage, such as will enable me to resist the fascinations of 
 tliis insidious drug, to give it to, or to withhold it from, myself, 
 as may be most for my good ? Do those around me, and who 
 may be influenced by my example, possess equal self-control ? 
 The wisest, I believe, wUl hesitate to answer these questions 
 in the affirmative, and, for themselves and those they love, 
 will most anxiously shun the great risk. 
 
 VI. Substitutes for Opium. — Substitutes for opium have 
 been sought for and used in different countries. 
 
 1°. Bull-hoof. — In Jamaica, the Muracvja ocellata, or bull- 
 hoof, has been called Dutchman's laudanum, because certain 
 parts of the plant are supposed to possess the same virtues as 
 the poppy. The flowers are principally employed, and when 
 infused or mixed in the state of powder with wine or spirits, 
 they are regarded as a safe and effectual narcotic — (Brown). 
 
 2°. The Lettuce. — In Europe, the different species of the 
 lettuce (Lactuca) are capable, to a certain extent, of supply- 
 ing the place of the poppy. The juice of these plants, 
 when collected and dried, has considerable resemblance to 
 opium. 
 
 If the stem of the common lettuce, when it is coming into 
 flower, be wounded with a knife, a milky juice exudes. In 
 the open air this juice gradually assumes a brown colour, and 
 dries into a friable mass. The smeU of this dried juice is 
 strongly narcotic, recalling that of opium. It has a slightly 
 pungent taste, lint, like opiutn, leaves a permanent bitter in 
 
332 THE NAEGOTICS WK INDULGE IN.- 
 
 the mouth. It acts upon the brain after the manner of opium, 
 and induces sleep. 
 
 To this crude extract the name of Lactucarium has been 
 given by its discoverer, Professor Duncan of Edinburgh, who 
 was followed by many physicians in its use as a sedative. 
 Like opium, it dissolves in water to the extent of about 
 one-half, and in this soluble portion the narcotic virtue 
 resides. The principal active ingredient is supposed to be a 
 peculiar substance named lactucin, of which the crude extract 
 contains about one-fourth of its weight. It contains other 
 active ingredients, however — the chemical nature and physi- 
 ological influence of which have not as yet been rigorously 
 investigated. 
 
 The lactucarium is one of those narcotics in which many of 
 us unconsciously indulge. The eater of green lettuce as a 
 salad takes a portion of it in the juice of the leaves he swal- 
 lows ; and many of my readers, after this is pointed out to 
 them, will discover that their heads are not unaffected after 
 indulging copiously in a lettuce salad. Eaten at night, the 
 lettuce causes sleep ; eaten during the day, it soothes and 
 calms and allays the tendency to nervous irritability. Galen 
 found no better remedy for the wakefulness of his old age. 
 And yet the lover of lettuce would probably take it very 
 much amiss if he were told that he ate his green leaves, partly 
 at least, for the same reason as the Turk or Chinaman t-akes 
 his whifif from the tiny opium-pipe — that, in short, he was 
 little better than an opium-eater, and his purveyor than the 
 opium-smugglers on the coast of China. 
 
 3°. Syrian Rue. — The seeds of the Peganum Harmala, the 
 Syrian or Steppe rue, a plant abundant in the Crimea, are 
 used by the Turks as a spice, and as a red dye. But they 
 are also eaten as a narcotic indulgence, in the place of opium 
 and hemp. I do not know to what extent this practice now 
 prevails ; but, according to Belonius, the Turkish emperor 
 Solyman kept himself intoxicated by the use of the seeds ot 
 Syrian rue. 
 
 The active virtues of this seed appear to reside in its husk, 
 which contains about 4 per cent of two alkaloids called 
 respectively Harmine and Harmaline. To these substances 
 the physiological action of Syrian rue may probably be 
 attributed. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 INDIAN UEMP. 
 
 The common European the name as the Indian hemp. — Its narcotic rosin more 
 abundant in warm climates. — Mode of coUectiog the resin,— The Churrus 
 or Kirs, Ouqjnh, Bang, and alcoholic extract. — Forms in which the hemp 
 is used. — Tlie Hasohisch of Turkey. — Antiquity and exieni of its use. — 
 The Nepenthes of Homer, an Egyptian drug.— The toinbekl of India. — 
 Origin of the word " assassin. "—Use of hemp in Africa and America. — 
 Effects of hemp on the system. — Sometimes produces catalepsy. — Experi- 
 ence of M. Moreau. — Excitability produced by it. — Errors of perception. — 
 Its effects vary with the individual and with the race ; influence on orien- 
 tals greater, on Europeans less. — Experience of M. de Saulcy. — Chemistry 
 of the hemp plant ; its volatile oil. — The natural resin and resinous extract 
 probably contain several substances. — Hemp compared with opium ; dif- 
 ferences in their comparative effects. — Extent to which hemp is used. — 
 Hemp in Afghanistan. 
 
 VII. Indian Hemp. — Little is popularly and practically known 
 in nortliern Europe of tho use of hemp as a narcotic indul- 
 gence ; yet in the East it is as familiar to the sensual volup- 
 tuary as the opium treated of in the preceding chapter. 
 
 Our common European hemp {Cannabis sativa), tig. 59, so 
 extensively cultivated for its fibre, is the same plant with the 
 Indian hemp, which from the remotest times has been cele- 
 brated among Eastern nations for its narcotic virtues. The 
 plant came to Europe from Persia, and is supposed by many 
 to be a native of India ; but, like tobacco and the potato, it 
 has a wonderful power of adapting itself to differences in soil 
 and climate. Hence it is now cultivated, not merely on the 
 
334 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 Fig. 59. 
 
 plains of Persia, India, and Arabia, but in Africa, from its 
 northern to its soutliem extremities ; in America, all over its 
 north-eastern states and provinces, 
 and on the flats of Brazil ; and in 
 Europe, in almost every kingdom and 
 country. In northern Eussia it is an 
 important article of culture, even as 
 far north as Archangel, and from that 
 region our manufacturers have been 
 accustomed to receive large supplies 
 of its valuble fibre. 
 
 In the sap of this plant — probably 
 in all countries — there exists a pe.cu- 
 liar resinous substance, in which the 
 esteemed narcotic virtue resides. In 
 northern climates, the proportion of 
 this resin in the several parts of the 
 plant is so small as to have escaped 
 general observation. The 'whole 
 plant, indeed, has a peculiar smell, 
 even when grown in Europe, which, 
 though not unpleasant to every one, 
 often gives headache and giddiness 
 to persons who remain long in a hemp- 
 field. This probably arises from an 
 escape into the air of a small quantity 
 of a volatile narcotic principle. 
 
 But in the warmer regions of tlio 
 East, the resinous substance ia so 
 abundant as to exude naturally, and 
 cawmMi aoHvct-The cultivated in Sensible quantity, from the flowers, 
 Scale, haifSto a foot. ^^^ *^« ^^aves, and from the young 
 stems of the hemp plant. We have 
 already seen that climate modifies considerably the propor- 
 tions of the active ingredients contained in the dried leaf of 
 tobacco, and in the dried juice of the poppy. The iemp plant 
 exhibits a still more striking illustration of the influence of 
 climate upon the chemical changes which take place in the 
 interior of living vegetables. It grows well, and produces 
 abundance of excellent fibre in the north, but no sensible pro- 
 portion of narcotic resin. It grows stUl better, and more 
 
INDIAN IIEMP. 335 
 
 magnificently, in tropical regions ; but there its fibre is un- 
 heeded, while for the resin it spontaneously yields it is prized 
 and cultivated. 
 
 1°. JIoDE OF Collecting the Eesin and Plant. — In India 
 the rosinous exudation of the hemp plant is collected in vari- 
 ous ways. In Nepaul it is gathered by the hand in the same 
 way as opium. This variety is very pure, and much prized. 
 It is called momeea, or waxen churrus. It remains soft, even 
 after continued drying ; has a fragrant narcotio odour, which 
 becomes strong and aromatic on heating. Its taste is slightly 
 hot, bitterish, and acrid, yet balsamic. In Central India, men 
 covered with leather aprons run backwards and forwards 
 through the hemp-fields, beating the plants violently. By 
 this means the resin is detached and adheres to the leather. 
 This is scraped ofij and is the ordinary churrus of Cabul. It 
 does not bring so high a price as the momeea. In other 
 places the leather aprons are dispensed with, and the resin 
 is collected on the naked skins of the coolies. In Persia, it 
 is collected by pressing the resinous plant on coarse cloths, 
 and afterwards scraping the resin from these, and melting it in 
 a little warm water. The churrus, or " kirs," of Herat is con- 
 sidered one of the best and most powerful varieties of the drug. 
 
 The plant itself is often collected and dried for the sake of 
 the resin it contains. The whole plant gathered when in 
 flower, and dried without the removal of the resin, is caUed 
 gunjah. In this form it is sold in the markets of Calcutta in 
 bundles about three inches in diameter, and containing each 
 twenty-four plants. The larger leaves and seed-capsules 
 separated from the stalks are called hang, subjee, or sidliee. 
 This form is less esteemed than the gunjah.* The tops and 
 tender parts of the plant, the flowers, and oven the pistils of 
 the flowers, are separated, and when dried alone are very 
 powerful, and much esteemed. The seeds, I believe, are 
 never used as a narcotic indulgence. In some medical works 
 thoy are spoken of as oramp-stiUing and pain-removing ; but if 
 they really possess these virtues, it must be in a very inferior 
 degree ; and they probably reside in the husk,* and not in 
 the body of the seed itself. 
 
 1 Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. i, p. 490. 
 
 ' As in the case with the Syrian rue, Peganum Barmala, described at the 
 close of the preceding chapter. 
 16 
 
336 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 When boiled in alcohol, the gunjah yields as much as one- 
 fifth of its weight of resinous extract, and hence this method 
 of preparing the drug in a pure state has been recommended 
 as the most efficient and economical. I am not aware, how- 
 ever, that it is anywhere adopted in the East, 
 
 2°. Forms in which Hemp is used. — Among the ancient 
 Saracens and the modem Arabs, in some parts of Turkey, and 
 generally throughout Syria, the preparations of hemp in com- 
 mon use were, and are still, known by the names of haschisch, 
 hashash, or husheesh.. The most common form of haschisch, 
 and that which is the basis of all others, is prepared by boil- 
 ing the leaves and flowers of the hemp with water to which a 
 certain quantity of liresh butter has been added, evaporating 
 the decoction to the thickness of a syrup, and then straining 
 it through cloth. The butter thus becomes charged with the 
 active resinous principle of the plant, and acquires a green- 
 ish colour. This preparation retains its properties for many 
 years, only becoming a little rancid. Its taste, however, is 
 very disagreeable, and hence it is seldom taken alone, but is 
 mixed. with confections and aromatics — camphor, cloves, nut- 
 megs, mace, and not unfrequently ambergris and musk — so 
 as to form a sort of electuary. The confection used among 
 the Moors is called el mogen, and is sold at an enormous price, 
 Dawamese is the name given by the Arabs to that which they 
 most conunonly use. This is frequently mingled, however, 
 with other substances of reputed aphrodisiac virtues, to enable 
 it to administer more eifectually to the sensual gratifications^ 
 which are the grand object of life among many of the orientals. 
 
 The Turks give the names of hadschy malach and madjoun' 
 to the compositions they use for purposes of excitement. 
 According to Dr . Madden, the madjoun of Constantinople is 
 composed of the pistils of the flowers of the hemp plant 
 ground to powder, and mixed in honey with powdered cloves, 
 nutmegs, and saffron. 
 
 Thus the Indian hemp and its products are used in one or 
 other of four difierent forms : — 
 
 First, The whole plant dried and known by the name of 
 gunjah ; or the larger leaves and capsules dried and known 
 as bang, subjee, or sidhee ; or the tops and tender parts of 
 the plants collected after they have been in flower, and which 
 in some places are called haschisch ; or the dried flowers, 
 
ANCIENT USE OF HEMP. 337 
 
 called in Morocco kief, a pipe of which, scarcely the size of an 
 English pipe, is sufiBcient to intoxicate ; or the dried pistils 
 of the flower as they enter into the composition of the mad- 
 jotin of the Turks. These several parts of the dried plant, 
 when newly gathered, have a rapid and energetic action. 
 Their efficacy diminishes, however, by keeping. 
 
 Secondly, The resin which naturally exudes from the leaves 
 and flowers, and is, when collected by the hand, called mo- 
 meea ; or the same beaten off with sticks, and sold by the 
 name of churrus. 
 
 Thirdly, The extract obtained by the use of butter, which, 
 when mixed with spices, forms the dawamese of the Arabs, 
 and is the foundation of the haschisch of many Eastern coun- 
 tries and districts. 
 
 Fourthly, The extract obtained by means of alcohol from 
 the gunjah. This is said to be very active, but I am not 
 aware of its being in use in the East. 
 
 The dried plant is smoked and sometimes chewed. Five 
 or ten grains reduced to powder are smoked from a common 
 pipe along with ordinary tobacco, or from a water pipe 
 \narghiU), with a variety of tobacco called tombeki.^ The 
 resin and resinous extract are generally swallowed in the 
 form of pills or boluses. 
 
 3°. Antiquity and Extent of its Use. — In one or other of 
 the forms above mentioned the hemp plant appears to have 
 been used from very remote times. The ancient Scythians 
 are said by Herodotus to have excited themselves by "in- 
 haling its vapour." Homer makes Helen administer to 
 Telemaohus, in the house of Menelaus, a potion prepared 
 from the nepenthes, which made him forget his sorrows. 
 This plant had been given to her by a woman of Egyptian 
 Thebes ; and Diodorus Siculus states that the Egyptians laid 
 much stress on this circumstance, arguing that Homer must 
 have lived among them, since tbe women of Thebes were 
 . actually noted for possessing a secret by which they could 
 dissipate anger or melancholy. This secret is supposed to 
 
 1 Tho tombeki is said by some writers to be a peculiarly strong variety of 
 tobacco, while others consider it to be the leaf of a species of Lobelia. U is 
 smoked in a narghile, and is exceedingly narcotic ; so much so that it is usu- 
 ally steeped in water for a few hours, to weaken it before it is used, and the 
 pipe is chaiged with it while it is still wet. 
 
338 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IK. 
 
 liave been a knowledge of the qualities of liemp. Under the 
 name of heng it is also mentioned in the ' Arabian Nights,' 
 translated by Lane, as the narcotic used by Haroun al 
 Easohid and other heroes of the tales. 
 
 It is curious how common and familiar words sometimes 
 connect themselves with things and customs of which we know 
 absolutely nothing. The word assassin — a foreign importa- 
 tion now long naturaUsed among us — is of this kind. M. 
 Sylvester de Saoy, the well-known orientalist, says that this 
 word was derived from the Arabic name of hemp. It was 
 originally used in Syria to designate the followers of " the 
 old man of the mountain," who were called Haschischins, 
 because among them the haschisch was in frequent use, 
 especially during the performance of certain of their myste- 
 rious rites. Others say that, during the wars of the Cru- 
 saders, certain of the Saracen army, intoxicated with the 
 drug, were in the habit of rushing into the camps of the 
 Christians and committing great havoc, being themselves 
 totally regardless of death ; that these men were known by 
 the name of hashasheens, and that thence came our word 
 "assassin." The oriental term was probably in use long 
 before the time of the Crusades, though the English form 
 and use of the word may have been introduced into Europe 
 at that period. 
 
 Nor is the use of hemp less extended than it is ancient. 
 In the plains of India it is consumed in every form, and on 
 the slopes of the Himalayas it is cultivated for smoking, as 
 high up as the valleys of Sikkim. In Persia, in the east of 
 Europe, and in Mohammedan countries, it is in extensive 
 use. In Northern Africa it is largely employed by the 
 Moors. In central and tropical Africa it is almost every- 
 where known as a powerful medicine and a desired indul- 
 gence. In Southern Africa the Hottentots use it under the 
 name of dacha, for purposes of intoxication ; and when some 
 Bushmen were in London, they smoked the dried plant in 
 short pipes made of the tusks or teeth of animals. And 
 what is more astonishing, when we consider the broad seas 
 which intervene, even the native Indians of Brazil know 
 its value, and delight in its use ; so that over the hotter 
 parts of the globe generally, wherever the plant produces 
 in abundance its peculiar narcotic principle, its virtues may 
 
EFFECTS OF HEMP. 339 
 
 bo Baid to be known, and more or lees extensively made 
 Tiee of.* 
 
 4°. Effects op Hemp on the System. — This wide use of the 
 plant implies that the effects of hemp upon the system are 
 generally very agreeable. In India it is spoken of as the 
 inoreaser of pleasure, the exciter of desire, the cementer of 
 friendship, the laughter-mover, and the causer of the reeling 
 gait — all epithets indicative of its peculiar effects. Linnaeus 
 describes its power as "narcotica, phantastica, dementens, 
 anodyna et repellens ; " while in the words of Endhcher, 
 "EmoUitum exhilarat animum, impotentibus desideriis tris- 
 tem, stultam laetitiam provocat, et jucundissima somniorura 
 conciliat phantasmata." Livingstone describes it as "pro- 
 ducing a kind of frenzy ; and Sobituane's soldiers, on coming 
 in sight of their enemies, sat down and smoked it in order 
 that they might make an effective onslaught. It produces 
 different effects on different persons. Some view everything 
 as if looking through the wide end of a telescope, and others, 
 in passing over a straw, lift up their feet as if about to cross 
 the triink of a tree." * 
 
 a. The effects of the churrus or natural resin have been 
 carefully studied in India by Dr O'Shaughnessy. He states 
 that when taken in moderation it produces increase of appe- 
 tite and groat mental cheerfulness, while in excess it causes 
 a peculiar kind of delirium and catalepsy. This last effect is 
 very remarkable, and we quota his description of the results 
 of one of his experiments with what is considered a large 
 dose for an Indian patient : — 
 
 "At 2 P.M. a grain of the resin of hemp was given to a 
 rheumatic patient ; at 4 p.m. he was very talkative, sang, 
 called loudly for an extra supply of food, and declared him- 
 self in perfect health. At 6 p.m. he was asleep. At 8 
 P.M. he was found insensible, but breathing with perfect 
 regularity. His pulse and skin were natural, and the pupils 
 freely contracted on the approach of light. Happening by 
 chance to lift up the patient's arm, the professional reader 
 will judge of my astonishment when I found it remained in 
 the posture in which I placed it. It required but a very 
 brief examination of the limbs to find that by the influence of 
 
 * See Map of the Distribution of the Narcotics, p. 265. 
 ' Miasionaiy Travels, p. 640. 
 
340 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 this narcotic the patient had been thrown into the strangest 
 and most extraordinary of all nervous conditions, which so 
 few have seen, and the existence of which so many still dis- 
 credit — the genuine catalepsy of the nosologist. "We raised 
 him to a sitting posture, and placed his arms and limbs in 
 every imaginable attitude. A waxen figure could not be 
 more pliant or more stationary in each position, no matter 
 how contrary to the natural influence of gravity on the 
 part! To all impressions he was meanwhile almost in- 
 sensible." 
 
 This extraordinary influence he subsequently found to be 
 exercised by the hemp extract upon other animals as well 
 as upon man. After a time it passes off entirely, leaving the 
 patient altogether uninjured. 
 
 In this effect of the hemp in India we see a counterpart of 
 many of the wonderful feats performed by the fakeers and 
 other religious devotees of that country. It indicates prob- 
 ably the true means also by which they are enabled to pro- 
 duce them. 
 
 How much power a little knowledge gives to the dishonest 
 and designing of every country, over the ignorant and un 
 suspecting masses I 
 
 h. Again, the effects of the Jiasekisch of the Arabians, which 
 probably differ little from those of hemp taken in any of its 
 forms, have been described to us from his own personal ex- 
 perience by a French physician, M. Moreau. When taken 
 in small doses, its effect, he says, is simply to produce a 
 moderate exhilaration of spirits, or at most a tendency to un- 
 seasonable laughter. Taken in doses sufficient to induce the 
 fantasia, as its more remarkable effects are called in the 
 Levant, its first influence is the same as when taken in a 
 small dose ; but this is followed by an intense feeling of 
 happiness, which attends all the operations of the mind. 
 The sun shines upon every thought that passes through the 
 brain, and every movement of the body is a source of enjoy- 
 ment. M. Moreau made many experiments with it upon his 
 own person — appears indeed to have fallen into the habit of 
 using it even after his return to France — and he describes 
 and reasons upon its effects as follow : — 
 
 " It is really happiness which is produced by the hasohisch; 
 and by this I mean an enjoyment entirely moral, and by no 
 
EFFECTS OF HASCHISCH. 341 
 
 means sensual, as might be suppoaed. Tliis is a very curious 
 circumstance, and some remarkable inferences might be drawn 
 from it. . . . For the haschisch-eater is happy, not like 
 the gourmand, or the famished man when satisfying his ap- 
 petite, or the voluptuary in the gratification of his amative 
 desires — but like him who hears tidings which fill him with 
 joy, or like the miser counting his treasures, the gambler who 
 is successful at play, or the ambitious man who is ibtoxicated 
 with success." 
 
 This glowing description of the effects of the haschisch, 
 though given by one who had often used it, is on that very 
 account, like the pictures of the opium-eater, open to sus- 
 picion. We feel as if it were intended as a kind of excuse 
 or justification of the indulgence on the part of the writer. 
 
 When first it begins to act, the peculiar effects of the 
 haschisch may be considerably diminished, or altogether 
 checked, by a firm exertion of the will, "just as we master 
 the passion of anger by a strong voluntary effort." By de- 
 grees, however, the power of controlling at will and directing 
 the thoughts diminishes, tiU finally all power of fixing the 
 attention is lost, and the mind becomes the sport of every 
 idea which either arises within itself, or is forced upon it 
 from without. 
 
 " We Tjecome the sport of impressions of every kind. The 
 course of our ideas may be broken by the slightest cause. 
 We are turned, so to speak, by every wind. By a word or a 
 gesture, our thoughts may be successively directed to a mul- 
 titude of different subjects with a rapidity and lucidity which 
 are truly marvellous. The mind becomes possessed with a 
 feeling of pride, corresponding to the exaltation of its factd- 
 ties, which it is conscious have increased in energy and 
 power. The slightest impulse carries it along. Hence those 
 who make use of the haschisch in the East, when they wish 
 to give themselves up to the intoxication of the fantasia, 
 withdraw themselves carefully from everything which could 
 give to tlieir delirium a tendency to melancholy, or excite 
 anything but feelings of pleasurable enjoyment. They profit 
 by all the means which the dissolute manners of the East 
 place at their disposaL It is in the midst of the harem, sur- 
 rounded by their women, under the charm of music and of 
 lascivious dances performed by the almeh, that they enjoy 
 
342 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 the intoxicating dawamese ; and, with the aid of superstition, 
 they find themselves almost transported to the scene of the 
 numberless marvels which the Prophet has collected in his 
 paradise." 
 
 The errors of perception, in regard to time and place, to 
 which the patient is liable during the period of fantasia, are 
 remarkable. Minutes seem hours, and hours are prolonged 
 into years, till at last aU idea of time seems obliterated, and 
 the past and the present are confounded together. Every 
 notion, in this cmious condition, seems to partake of a certain 
 degree of exaggeration. One evening M. Moreau was travers- 
 ing the passage of the opera when under the influence of a 
 moderate dose of haschisch. He had made but a few steps 
 when it seemed to him as if he had been there for two or 
 three hours ; and as he advanced the passage seemed in- 
 terminable, its extremity receding as he pressed forward. 
 
 The effect produced by hemp in its different forms varies, 
 like that of opium, both in kind and in degree, with the race 
 of men who use it, and with the individual to whom it is ad- 
 ministered. Upon orientals, its general effect is of an agree- 
 able and cheerful character, exciting them to dance, laugh, 
 and sing, and to commit various extravagances — acting as 
 an aphrodisiac, and increasing the appetite for food. Some, 
 however, it renders excitable and quarrelsome, and ' disposes 
 to acts of violence. It is from the extravagant behaviour of 
 individuals of this latter temperament that the use and mean- 
 ing of our word assassin have most probably arisen. It is 
 from such effects of this substance also that we obtain a solu- 
 tion of the extravagances and barbarous cruelties which we 
 read of as practised occasionally by Eastern despots. 
 
 Yet, even among orientals, according to Dr Moreau, there 
 are some on whom the drug produces no effect whatever — 
 upon whom, at least, doses are powerless which are usually 
 followed by well-marked phenomena. As is the case with 
 opium, long use also makes larger doses necessary. To 
 some even a drachm of the churrus becomes a moderate dose, 
 though sufficient to operate upon twenty ordinary men. 
 
 Upon Europeans generally, at least in Europe, its effects 
 have been found to be considerably less in degree than upon 
 orientals. "In India, Dr O'Shaughnessy had seen marked 
 effects from half a grain of the extract, or even less, and had 
 
EFFECTS OF HASCHISCH. 343 
 
 been accustomed to consider one grain and a half a large 
 dose ; in England he had given ten or twelve or more grains 
 to produce the desired eflfect." ^ In kind, also, its effects npon 
 Europeans differ somewhat from those produced upon Asiatics. 
 It has never been known, for example, to produce that re- 
 markable cataleptic state, described in a previous page as 
 having been observed in India even from a comparatively small 
 dose of the hemp extract ; nor, so far as I am aware, has it 
 ever obtained a footing in any part of Europe as a narcotic 
 indulgence. 
 
 It requires, indeed, a long and gradual training to its use 
 before its boasted effects can be fully experienced, and tliis, 
 fortunately, is not attempted yet in Europe. While in Jeru- 
 salem, M. de Saulcy, with the view of passing pleasantly a 
 tedious evening, indulged himself in a dose of haschisch, 
 which, npon his uninitiated constitution, produced only un- 
 pleasant results. He thus speaks of it — 
 
 "The experiment to which we had recourse for passing our 
 time, turned out so utterly disagreeable that I may safely say 
 not one of us will ever be tempted to try it again. The 
 haschisch is an abominable poison, which the dregs of the 
 population alone drink and smoke in the East, and which we 
 wore silly enough to take in too large a dose on the eve of 
 New-Year's Day. We fancied we were going to have an even- 
 ing of enjoyment, but we nearly died through our imprudence. 
 As I had taken a larger dose of this pernicious drug than 
 my companions, I remained almost insensible for more than 
 twenty-four hours ; after which I found myself completely 
 broken down, with nervous spasms, and incoherent dreams, 
 which seemed to have endm-ed a hundred years at least." * 
 
 5°. Chemical Constituents op the Indian Hemp. — The 
 volatile oil and the resin of hemp are the only two substances 
 which chemists have yet extracted from this remarkable 
 plant. 
 
 a. The volatile oil. — When distilled with water, the dried 
 leaves and flowers, like those of the hop, yield a volatile oil, 
 which is lighter than water. It is a hydrocarbon (Cj Hj,,), 
 and goes under the name of Cannabene. It is associated wili 
 Email quantities of a white crystaUine substance. Cannabene 
 
 1 Pereira— Materia Medica, p. 1242. 
 
 • Journey round the Dead Sea, by F. de Saulcy, toI. i. p. 140. 
 
344 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN, 
 
 has a powerful intoxicating action, but is less active than the 
 natural resin. 
 
 h. The natural resin. — The whole hemp plant is impreg- 
 nated, especially in warm climates, with a resinous substance, 
 in which its most active virtues reside. When collected as it 
 naturally exudes, this resin forms the churrus of India. It is 
 extracted when the leaves are boiled with butter to form the 
 basis of the haschisch, or when the dried plant is treated with 
 alcohol to obtain the hemp extract. It is soft, dissolves 
 readily both in alcohol and ether, and is separated from these 
 liquids in the form of a white powder when the solutions are 
 mixed with water. It has a warm, bitterish, acrid, somewhat 
 balsamic taste, and a pecuHar odour, especially when heated. 
 The exact composition of hemp-resin has not been ascertained. 
 It has been stated to contain nicotine, the active principle of 
 tobacco, but it is probably a mixture of several substances 
 possessed of different properties and relations to animal life. 
 The remarkably complex composition of opium justifies such 
 an opinion. And the analogy of the same substance makes 
 it probable that the produce of the plant will differ in differ- 
 ent localities and countries — so' that the churrus of India, and 
 the haschisch of Syria, may produce very different effects on 
 the same constitution. 
 
 6°. Hemp compared with Opium. — The extract of hemp 
 differs considerably from opium, not only in its sensible 
 properties, but in its effects upon the system. It does not 
 lessen but rather excites the appetite. It does not occasion 
 nausea, dryness of the tongue, constipation, or lessening of 
 the secretions, and is not usually followed by that melancholy 
 state of depression to which the opium-eater is subject. It 
 differs also in causing dilatation of the pupil, and sometimes 
 catalepsy, in BtiUing pain less than opium does, in less con- 
 stantly producing sleep, in the peculiar inebriating quality it 
 possesses, in the phantaamata it awakens, and in its aphro- 
 disiac effects. It operates likewise in a smaller dose, and 
 does not produce that apathy to external impressions by 
 which opium is characterised. On the contrary, to the intel- 
 lectual activity imparted by opium it adds a corresponding 
 sensitiveness and activity of all the feelings, and of the senses 
 both internal and external. From the effects of opium a man 
 must be roused by shaking and bodily movement. Those of 
 
HEMP IN INDIA. 345 
 
 hasohisch are allayed by gentle soothing, and bodily stillness. 
 This drug seems, in fact, to be to the oriental a source Of ex- 
 quisite and peculiar enjoyment, which unfits him for the ordi- 
 nary affairs of this rough life,-and with which, happily, we are, 
 in this part of the world, still altogether unacquainted. 
 
 It is impossible to form any estimate of the quantity of 
 hemp, of hemp-resin, or of the artificial extract which is now 
 used in different parts of the world for purposes of indulgence. 
 It must, however, be very large, since the plant is so em- 
 ployed in one form or another by probably not less than two 
 or three hundred millions of the human race ! Eecent statis- 
 tics of the exports of hemp-resin from Afghanistan alone, 
 indicate the immense quantities of this narcotic which are 
 consumed in the East. There was sent in the year 1876 
 not less than ^686,000 worth through the Khyber Pass into 
 British India. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE NAKCOTICS \VB INDULGE IN. 
 
 THE BETEL-NUT AND THE PEPPERW0KT3. 
 
 The betel-nut and betel-palm ; plantations of, in the East ; extensive growth in 
 Sumatra. — How this nut is used, and prepared. — Fondness for the betel in 
 India. — Sensible effects of betel-chewing ; its narcotic effects; counteracts 
 opium. — Constituents of the betel-nut ; its astringent principle. — Con- 
 sumption of betel. — Substitutes for betel. — Catechu and gambir extract ; 
 extending consumption of the latter. — The pepperworts. — Betel-pepper or 
 pawn — Beauty of the plant, and its importanco as an agricultural product. 
 — Mode of cultivation. — ^Effects of the betel-pepper. — The intoxicating 
 long-pepper or ava. — Chemistry of the pepperworts. ^Piperin; its nse 
 against fevers. — Grains of Paradise, or malagneta pepper ; their use as a 
 spice in Africa and in England — Use in adulterating beer and spirituous 
 liquors. 
 
 VIII. Betel-nut. — The Areca or Betel-nut, or Pinang, is the 
 seed of the Areca Catechu, one of the most graceful species of 
 j)alm (iig. 60). On the slopes of the Khasia Mountains in the 
 Himalaya, above the flat Bheels, where palms are numerous, 
 "the cultivated areca raises its graceful head and feathery 
 crown, like an arrow shot down from heaven, in luxuriance and 
 beauty above the verdant slopes" — (Dr Hooker). Almost' 
 everywhere in India it is extensively cultivated. It is 
 very abundant in north Bengal and the lower slopes of the 
 mountains of Nepaul. In Ceylon, throughout Malabar, and 
 higher up the coast, it is seen in vast plantations. The pro- 
 duce of these plantations is of great importance. As every 
 one chews betel, the consumption of areca nuts in India is 
 
PKEPARATION OK THE BETEL-NUT. 
 
 347 
 
 -rtft^N 
 
 incredibly great.^ It forms, therefore, a most important article 
 of tia£Go. 
 
 In the Sunda Islands the areca palm grows wild. In the 
 Philippines, the labourer is paid in betel rolls, as he is with 
 coca-leaves in some parts 
 of Peru ; and the betel-nut ^' 
 
 is one of the most valuable 
 articles of produce in Su- 
 matra. Whole ship-loads ■ 
 are yearly sent off iifom the 
 latter island to Malacca, 
 Siam, and Cochin - China. 
 The total export was, a few 
 years ago, estimated at 
 80,000 or 90,000 piculs 
 (each 133^ lb. English), the 
 greater part of which went 
 to China.* 
 
 1°. How THE Betel-nut 
 IS USED. — The betel-nut is 
 about the size of a cherry, 
 slightly pear-shaped, very 
 hard, and externally not un- 
 like a nutmeg of inferior 
 quality. It is chewed along 
 with the leaf of the betel- 
 pepper and a little quick- 
 lime, and a supply of each 
 of these is often carried by the betel-ohewer in a box, provided 
 with compartments for the purpose. In describing his visit to 
 the Sultan of Sooloo, Captain Wilkes says : " On the left hand 
 of the Sultan sat his two sons, on the right his councillors, 
 while immediately behind him sat the carrier of his betel-nut 
 casket. The casket was made of filigree silver, about the size 
 of a small tea-caddy, of oblong shape, and rounded at the top. 
 It had three divisions — one for the nut, another for the leaf, and 
 a third for the lime. Next to this official was the pipe-bearer, 
 who did not appear to be held in equal estimation." * 
 
 » Se6 Year-'book of Pharmacy, 1874, p. 88. 
 
 ' Ten to twelve millions of pounds. 
 
 ' United States' Exploring Expedition (London edition), ii. 277. 
 
 Areca Catechu — The Betel-nut Palm. 
 
 Height, 80 feet. 
 
 Fruit, hau the natunl size. 
 
348 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 In preparing the betel for chewing in India, the nut is cut 
 into long narrow pieces, and rolled up in leaves of the betel- 
 pepper, previously dusted on one side with moist chunam 
 (the quicklime of calcined shells). In Lu9on, one of the 
 Philippines, Meyen found in every comer of the house a little 
 box or dish in which are kept the betel roUa [buyos), prepared 
 for the day's consumption ; and a buyo is there oifered to 
 every one who enters, just as a pinch of snuff or a pipe is with 
 us. In Malacca not only betel-pepper and lime but also gambir 
 contribute to the buyos. Their taste is burning and astrin- 
 gent. " Travellers, and those who work in the open air, carry 
 the buyos for the day in little boxes or bags, as the Peruvians 
 do their coca. The preparation of the betel falls on the 
 female members of the family, who, during the forenoon, may 
 generally be seen lying on the ground and making buyos. 
 The consumption of these is very great. Every one who can 
 afford it puts a fresh buyo in his mouth every hour, which he 
 can chew and suck for half an hour at least." ^ Persons who 
 have lost their teeth have the ingredients ground up into a 
 paste, so as to render chewing unnecessary. 
 
 The fondness for the betel in these Eastern countries 
 amounts to something like a passion. It is spoken of with 
 enthusiasm. Many would rather forego both meat and drink 
 than their favourite betel — (BLmiE). The Tagali maidens 
 regard it as a proof of the uprightness of the intentions of a 
 lover, and of the strength of his affection, if he take the buyo 
 from his mouth — (Meyen). The betel-nut is to the Eastern 
 Archipelago what the coca is to eastern Peru. Areca Dick- 
 soni, found wild in Malabar, furnishes an inferior betel for 
 the poorer classes. 
 
 2°. Effects of the Betel-nut. — The visible effects of the 
 betel are, that it promotes the flow of the sahva, and lessens 
 the perspiration from the skin. It tinges the saliva red ; so 
 that when spit out, it falls on the earth like blood. It gives 
 a red colour to the mouth, teeth, and lips, which, though at 
 first sight disgusting to Europeans, is by the natives con- 
 sidered ornamental. It imparts also an agreeable odour to 
 the breath, and is supposed to festen the teeth, cleanse the 
 gums, and cool the mouth. The juice is usually, but not 
 always, swallowed. 
 
 1 Meyen— Geography of Plants (Ray Society), p. S52. 
 
CONSTITUENTS OF THE BETEL-NUT, 349 
 
 Its effects as a narcotic have not been so clearly detailed. 
 To persons not accustomed to it, the nut is powerfiilly astrin- 
 gent in the mouth and throat, and the quicklime often removes 
 the skin, and deadens for a time the sense of taste. But it 
 causes giddiness when chewed to any extent. On those who 
 are accustomed to use it, however, the betel produces weak 
 but continuous and sustained exhilarating effects. And that 
 these are of a most agreeable kind, may be inferred &om the 
 very extende<l area over which the chewing of betel prevails 
 among the Asiatic nations. In the damp and pestilent re- 
 gions of India, also, where the natives live upon a spare and 
 miserable diet, it is really very conducive to health. Part of 
 its healthful influence in fever-breeding districts is probably to 
 be ascribed to the pepper-leaf which is chewed along with the 
 betel-nut. 
 
 Its alleged effect in rousing persons who are under the 
 influence of opium, as tea counteracts that of spirituous 
 liquors, is somewhat remarkable. During the visit of Captain 
 Wilkes to the Sultan of Sooloo, he had the opportunity of 
 seeing the betel used for this purpose. The Sultan's son, 
 shortly after taking a few whiffs from the opium-pipe, was 
 entirely overcome, and became stupid and listless. When 
 but partially recovered from the stupor, he called for his betel- 
 nut, to revive him ly its exciting ^ects. This was carefully 
 chewed by his attendant to a proper consistency, moulded 
 into a ball, and then slipped into his mouth. 
 
 3°. Constituents op the Betel -nut. — The chemistry of 
 the botel-nut is quite obscure. It is very astringent, and 
 abounds in a peculiar species of tannin, which is extracted 
 in India by boiling the nut in water, and is brought to this 
 country under the name of catechu. In the moist, relaxing 
 climates of the East, this strongly astringent substance acts 
 beneficially upon the system. To it are probably to be 
 ascribed some of the good effects experienced by Perron, who 
 states that he " preserved his health during a long and difB- 
 cult voyage, by the habitual use of betel; while his com- 
 panions who did not use it died mostly of dysentery." 
 
 But tlie ordinary and understood action of a merely astrin- 
 gent substance does not account for the giddiness caused by 
 the betel-nut in a young ohewer, nor for the gentle intoxica- 
 tion it produces in all. These properties seem to imply the 
 
350 THE NAKCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 presence in the nut of some narcotic ingredient which is as 
 yet unknown. From the circumstance of no such substance* 
 having been yet discovered in the nut, some writers are 
 inclined, to ascribe the intoxicating influence of the buyos 
 altogether to the pepper-leaf in which the nut is enclosed. 
 Upon this point, however, we must suspend our judgment 
 until the chemist has had an opportunity of submitting both 
 nut and leaf to a rigorous chemical examination. My own 
 opinion is, that the coveted effect upon the system is the 
 result of the combined influence — first, of the constituents of 
 the nut ; second, of those of the fresh pepper ; and, third, of 
 substances which are produced or evolved in the mouth in 
 consequence of the chemical action of the lime and of the 
 saliva upon the ingredients of both nut and leaf. Upon 
 all this, light will no doubt be thrown before long time 
 elapses. 
 
 4°. CoNSUMPrioN OP Betel. — We have no means of estimat- 
 ing the absolute quantity of this nut which is consumed yearly 
 by the Asiatic nadons, but it must be very great. It is 
 chewed by probably not less than fifty millions of men ! If 
 we allow to each chewer ten pounds' weight a-year, which is 
 less than half an ounce a-day, this would give the enormous 
 consumption of five hundred millions of pounds' weight every 
 year ! Only tobacco, among the narcotics in common use, is 
 used in larger quantity than this. 
 
 The small quantity of the betel-nut imported into this 
 country is mainly converted into tooth-paste, or into char- 
 coal for tooth-powder, probably from some imaginary idea 
 that it is superior for this purpose to other kinds of char- 
 coal. Areca nuts in powder have been used as a vermifuge 
 in veterinary practice. 
 
 IX. Substitutes fob Betel. — As substitutes for the betel- 
 nut, astringent extracts are coming into extensive use in the 
 East. Thus— 
 
 a. The catechu, which is extracted, as above described, by 
 boiling the areca nut, is extensively chewed in India, in place 
 of the nut itself. It is there called cashu, and is known in 
 this country by the older name of Terra Japonica. 
 
 In the north of India, towards the foot of the Himalayas, 
 a similar catechu is extracted by boiling tlie wood of th© 
 
THE BETEL-PEPPEK. 361 
 
 Mimota Catechu, which grows wild there and in Ava. This 
 is chewed in the same way as the areca catechu. 
 
 6. The gambir extract — which greatly resembles the Teiva 
 Japonica, but has a sweetish taste, and is stiU more astrin- 
 gent — is another substitute for the nut. The Uncaria gamhir 
 is a shrub six or seven feet in height, the leaves and shoots of 
 which, by boiling with water, yield the gambir extract. In 
 the island of Sumatra, in Java, and the other Dutch colonies, 
 in India, Malacca, Singapore, and many other localities, large 
 plantations of these shrubs exist. The leaves are gathered 
 from two to four times a-year, and are boiled with water for 
 five or six hours in iron kettles. The decanted liquor is then 
 thickened by further boiling, and poured into moulds, when 
 it hardens. This extract is of a blackish-brown colour, has at 
 first a sweetish taste and a pleasant aromatic flavour, which 
 afterwards becomes astringent and bitter. It is chewed by 
 the Malays in Sumatra, and in the Dutch colonies generally, 
 in place of, or along with, the betel-nut ; and the use of it is 
 said to be rapidily extending throughout India. 
 
 Very salutary virtues are ascribed to the gambir extract, 
 and it is said especially to assist digestion. It is no doubt 
 a mixed substance, containing several chemical ingredients. 
 It has not, however, been chemically investigated ; so that 
 what it contains in addition to the astringent principle, or 
 whether it possesses any narcotic virtues, we have as yet 
 no means of knowing. The quality, and probably the com- 
 position, varies in different' localities. But as the plant be- 
 longs to the same natural order as cofiee and cinchona, it 
 probably contains like them an active alkaloid. The most 
 esteemed samples are those from Penang and the coast of 
 BengaL 
 
 In 1833 the quantity of this substance produced on the 
 island of Penang alone amounted to 70,000 piculs, and in 
 Singapore to 20,000— or together, to 10,000,000 lb.— (Meyen). 
 In 1874 no less than 16,728 tons of gambir were imported 
 into England, chiefly for tanning and dyeing. 
 
 X. The Pepperwokts. — Various species of pepper are 
 known to be possessed of narcotic properties, and several of 
 these are in constant and most extensive use in tropical 
 countries. The pepperworts are for the most part climbing 
 
352 THE KAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 plants, and where they grow wild, frequently strangle the 
 tree they embrace. 
 
 1°. The Betel-peppek or Pawn. — The leaf of the betel- 
 pepper [ChavicM betle and C. Siriboa), fig. 61, is always chewed 
 along with the betel -nut, as above de- 
 scribed. The almost universal use of the 
 betel-nut makes the culture of this pepper 
 one of great importance in the East, espe- 
 cially in the neighbourhood of large towns. 
 Every person who possesses a little bit of 
 land usually grows the leaves for his own 
 consumption ; and it may often be seen 
 clinging round the stems of the beautiful 
 betel-palms which overshadow their dweU- 
 aoH«.*ea«-Ti.e Betel- ™gs. But in the towns, incredible quan- 
 leaf, or Betel-pepper, tities are every day sold' in the markets, 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 3 inches. ■, ., p ,i ■■ ,i <• r i. 
 
 and piles ot the leaves, three or tour leet 
 high, are carried about in baskets. The plantations of betel- 
 pepper are laid out like our bean-fields, but the plants stand 
 eighteen inches apart, and their large beautiful heart-shaped 
 leaves give the whole field a bright green colour, such as 
 belongs to few other plants. They Require much water, and 
 are allowed to climb on poles like hops for the first eighteen 
 months. They are then detached, and are directed round fast- 
 growing young trees, which have meanwhile been planted 
 between them. The leaves may be gathered in the third or 
 fourth year, and the plants bear for six or seven years, after 
 which they die and must be replaced — (Meyen). 
 
 In northern India, and towards the Himalayas, the plant, 
 though in almost equal demand, cannot be cultivated in the 
 open fields, and is therefore raised under cover where the 
 atmosphere is sufBciently moist. Dr Hooker, when travelling 
 on the banks of the Mahanuddee, towards the foot of the Him- 
 alayas, observed some curious low sheds erected for the 
 growth of pawn or betel-pepper. These sheds were 20 to 
 60 yards long, 8 or 12 broad, and scarcely 4 feet high. They 
 were of bamboo, wattled all round, and over the top. Inside 
 the sheds slender upright rods were placed a few feet apart, 
 up which the pepper plants climbed, and speedily filled the 
 place with their deep green glossy foliage. The native enters 
 every morning and carefully cleans the plants. Great atten- 
 
INTOXICATING PEPPER. 353 
 
 tion ifl paid to tliem, as they would not live twenty-foitr hours 
 if exposed to the open air ; but the cultivation is, never- 
 thelosB, very profitable. This mode of culture extensively 
 prevails. 
 
 I have already described the eifects of the betel-chewing in 
 generaL What portion of these effects is due to the pepper- 
 leaf in which the nut is wrapped up, has not been experi- 
 mentally ascertained. But as otlior varieties of pepper, 
 which are used alone, are known to possess narcotic pro- 
 perties, some are inclined to ascribe the greater part of tho 
 peculiar influence of betel-chewing to this pepper-leaf. I do 
 not coincide with this opinion. As I have already explained, 
 the observed effects are, in the present state of our know- 
 ledge, to be ascribed rather to the conjoined influence of tho 
 constitutents of both nut and leaf, and to the chemical action 
 of tho quicklime used along with them, and of the saliva 
 upon both. 
 
 2°. The Intoxicatinq Long-peppeh. — The narcotic effects 
 of tho Ava, or Piper methysticum (fig. 62), are more certain 
 and more celebrated. 
 
 This plant has a thick, woody, rugged, aromatic wood- 
 stalk, which, when reduced to a pulp and then steeped in 
 water, forms an intoxicating beverage.^ This is in extensive 
 use among the South Sea Islanders, both as a medicine and 
 as an inebriating indulgence. It possesses a recognised 
 narcotic influence, which is derived from some ingredient 
 contained in the root. The same ingredient probably exists 
 in the leaves, which are chewed along with the betel-nut 
 instead of those of the betel-pepper. 
 
 The roots and thickest parts of the stems of long-pepper, 
 cut into small pieces and dried, form a considerable article dT 
 commerce all over India, under the name of Pipula moola ; ^ 
 but I am not aware if they are used for narcotic or intoxicat- 
 ing purposes. 
 
 The half-dozen species of pepper or pepperworts which 
 Lave been examined chemically, appear to contain an 
 aromatic oil allied to turpentine, and two active bases or 
 alkaloids. One of these latter is a beautifully crystaUine 
 substance called piperine ; the other, known as chavicine, 
 
 > See "The Liquors we Fennent." 
 ' Pereira — Materia Medica, p. 1260. 
 
354 THE NAKCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 does not crystallise. Piperine has but little taste when 
 pare, and acts mainly as an irritant of the sensory nerves : 
 
 Fig. 62. 
 
 Piper methysticum — ^The Ava Pepper slirub. * 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 3 feet. 
 Leaf, 1 inch to 2 inches. Outline of leaf, natural size. 
 Part of stem and root, showing section, natural size. 
 
 chavicine, on the contrary, has a very fiery taste. All the 
 three constituents mentioned — the oil, the chavicine, and the 
 piperine — exercise a beneficial action in cases of intermittent 
 fever ; and to this action we are safe, I think, in ascribing a 
 portion at least of their salutary influence in tropical regions. 
 While in betel-chewing the astringent principle of the nut 
 checks the tendency to internal relaxation, the fever-chas- 
 ing principles of the pepper-leaf preserve the health amid 
 the steaming vapours which the hot sun draws forth from 
 swamps and jungles and irrigated paddy-fields. 
 
 3'. Grains op Paradise. — Guinea grains or Malagueta 
 pepper are the seeds, not of a pepperwort, but of a species of 
 Cardamom (Amomum Melegueta), a plant belonging to the 
 Ginger order. They are imported from the coast of Guinea, 
 where they are used by the natives as a spice for seasoning 
 
USE OF GRAINS OS' PAEADISK 355 
 
 their food, and are held in great esteem. The seeds are 
 Bmall and angular, and consist of a glossy dark-brown husk, 
 enclosing a perfectly white kernel, which has a hot, pungent, 
 peppery taste. In Africa they are considered to be exceed- 
 ingly wholesome. No less than fourteen species of this 
 genus Amomum yield aromatic finiits in use as flavourers or 
 stimulants in diflferent countries — China, Siam, Sierra Leone, 
 Java, &c. Cardamoms are the fruit of a closely aUied plant, 
 Eletlaria Cardamomum, and are imported from Madras, Mala- 
 bar, &c. The medieval spice, Qalangal, was identified in 1870 
 as the i-oot of Alpinia officinarum, a plant belonging, like 
 Eletlaria and Amomum, to the Ginger order. 
 
 Grains of paradise were also very anciently in use as a 
 spice in English cookery. The ancient fee-favour of the city 
 of Norwich is twenty-four herring-pies, each containing five 
 herrings, to be carried to Court by the lord of the manor of 
 Carleton. In 1629 these pics wore described as being 
 seasoned with half a pound of ginger, half a pound of pepper, 
 a quarter of a pound of cinnamon, one ounce of cloves, one 
 ounce of long-pepper, half an ounce of grains of paradise, 
 and half an ounce of galangals. I am not aware that they 
 are now in use anywhere in England for the seasoning of 
 food, though the fruits and seeds of many of the species of 
 Amomum are employed as drugs. 
 
 About 40,000 lb. of this seed were for a long time imported 
 yearly into England ; and we cannot leam that the quantity 
 has lessened of late. With the exception of what is used 
 in veterinary medicine, all this is said to be employed for 
 the purpose of flavouring cordials or of imparting a fictitious 
 appearance of strength to malt and spirituous liquors. By 56 
 Geo. III. c. 58, " no brewer or dealer in beer shall- have in 
 his possession or use gi-ains of paradise, under a penalty of 
 £200 for each offence ; and no druggist shall sell the sub- 
 stance to a brewer under a penalty of £500 for each offence." 
 Nevertheless, it is both sold and used, principally along with 
 capsicum and juniper-berries, to give a hot strong flavoirr to 
 London gin ; and along with several bitters, to give a relish 
 and warmth to country beer. In passing through Stafford- 
 shire some time ago, I was assured by a person connected 
 with a large maimfactory, that he had himself seen, in a drug- 
 gist's sliop, as much as 10 lb. of grains of paradise sold 
 
856 THK KAKCOTIGS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 to a single customer, for putting into beer. In September 
 1854, six retail brewers of Bilston, Staffordshire, were fined 
 £50 each at the Wolverhampton petty sessions for having in 
 their possession and using grains of paradise. 
 . The effect of hot substances like this in giving to liquors 
 the appearance of strength is illustrated by the qualities of a 
 drink prepared in some of the Turkish provinces. A greatly 
 esteemed liquor is there made by digesting mint and pimento 
 in water. This liquor possesses so much of what is taken for 
 alcoholic strength, that the person who drinks it for the first 
 time supposes he has swallowed " the most ardent alcohoL" 
 No wonder the iron smelters and -puddlers of Staffordshire 
 drink beer three whole days out of the fortnight, if their thirst 
 be provoked by grains of paradise, so that the more they drink 
 the thirstier liiey become I It is satisfactory to think, how- 
 ever, that though a provoker to drunkenness, this adulteration 
 is not known to be poisonous in itself. Cardamoms have 
 been found to contain a considerable quantity of a pungent 
 essential oiL 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDtJLGE IN. 
 
 COCA. 
 
 Ooca, the narcotic of the Andes : description of the plant ; mode of cnltira- 
 tion. — Ancient use of the coca-leaf. — Its necessity to the Indian of Peru ; 
 how he uses it. — Its lemarkable effects. — Melancholy temperament of the 
 Indian. — Testimony of Von Tsohudi and of Dr Weddell. — Greneral effects 
 of the coca-leaf. — Intolerable craving of the confirmed " coquero." — Evil 
 effects of the coca -leaf. — Testimony of Poppig and other travellers. — 
 Opinions of old Spanish writers. — Indian reverence for the phint. — Its 
 characteristic effects, — ^Lessens the necessity for ordinary food. — Preveats 
 difficulty of breathing in ascending hills. — Experience and testimony of 
 Von Tsohudi, — Its introduction into Europe recommended. — Chemical 
 history of the coca-leaf. — The odoriferous reain. — The bitter principle. — 
 The tannic acid. — How the coca-leaf acts. — ^Difficulties as to its action. — 
 How it resembles tea, the hop, hemp, and opium. — Like opium, it sustains 
 and inclines to retirement. — Consumption of coca. — Probable extent and 
 money value of the yearly growth of ooca. 
 
 Coca, the narcotic of the Andes, is not less interesting than 
 the narcotics of the East, either in its social or in its phys- 
 iological relations. It is little known in Europe — its use as 
 an indulgence being in a great measure confined to the native 
 Indians of Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil 
 
 The Erythroxylon Coca is a bush which attains the height 
 of six or eight feet, and resembles the black thorn in its smaU. 
 white flowers and bright green leaves (fig. 63). It is a native 
 of the tropical valleys which occur on the eastern slope of the 
 Andes, in Bolivia and Peru, and it still grows wild in many 
 parts of these countries. That which is used by the people, 
 
358 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 however, is cliiefly tlie produce of cultivation. In the in- 
 habited parts of the above valleys it forms an important 
 agricultural crop. Like our common thorn, it is raised in 
 
 Fig, 63. 
 
 Erythroxyhn Coca — Tlie Coca-leaf plant, 
 ticale, 1 incli to 3 feet. 
 Coca-leaf, natural size, showing the upper and under sides of the leaf. The under sida 
 exhibits the remarkable arched line on each Bide of the midrib by which this leaf is 
 distinguished. 
 
 seed-beds, from which it is planted out into regularly arranged 
 coca-plantations. The steep sides of the valleys, as high up 
 as 8000 feet above the level of the sea, where the mean tem- 
 fierature is from 64° to 68° Fahr., are often covered with these 
 plantations of coca. They are arranged in torraces rising 
 
ANCIENT USE OF COCA, 359 
 
 abovo one another, as in the vineyards of Tuscany and tho 
 Holy Land. A iiioiet air and shade for the young plants are 
 secured by sowing maize between the rows, or arbours of 
 palm-trees are constmcted as a shade. The province of 
 Yongas is tho principal seat of this cultivation in Eastern 
 Bolivia. In three years the bushes come into fhll bearing, 
 and in favourable localities yield three, and, where irrigation 
 is used, even four crops of leaves in a year. The leaves are 
 about the size of those of the cherry-tree ; and when ripe 
 enough to break on being bent, they are collected by tho 
 women and children, and dried in the sun. A hundred plants 
 yield an arroba, 26 lb., at a crop. The total produce aver- 
 ages about 800 lb. of dry leaves per English acre. It is some- 
 times one-half more, but often also very much less. When 
 nearly dry they emit an odour similar to that of new-made hay, 
 in which much melilot or sweet-scented vemal grass is con- 
 tained ; hence they occasion headaches among new-comers, 
 as haymaking does with delicate persons among ourselves. 
 
 These sun-dried leaves form the coca of commerce. When 
 of good quality they are of a pale-green colour. Dampness 
 causes them to become dark-coloured, in which state they are 
 loss esteemed, and tlieir smell less agreeable. If they heat 
 through dampness, they become altogether useless. Their 
 taste is not unpleasant ; it is slightly bitter and ai'omatic, 
 and resembles that of green tea of inferior quality. It be- 
 comes more piquant and agreeable when a sprinkling of 
 qiiicklime or plant-ashes is chewed along with them. The 
 alkaline ashes of the Chenopodium Quinoa are commonly used 
 for this purpose. 
 
 1°. Ancient use of the Coca-leaf. — The use of this plant 
 among the Indians of South America dates from very remote 
 periods. When the Spanish conquerors overcame the native 
 races of the hilly country of Peru, they found extensive plan- 
 tations of a herb called coca * (see Map). And they observed 
 among these races the singular custom of chewing the leaves 
 of this plant during frequent short periods of repose, espe- 
 cially set apart for the purpose. So general, indeed, was the 
 use of this plant, and so common the demand for it, that it 
 
 ' The word Coca is deriTeJ from the Aymara (Indian) word Khoka, signify- 
 ing " plant," in the same way as In Paraguay the indigenous tta-plant is called 
 Yrrha, " Vie plant " par excellence. 
 17 
 
360 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 formed tlie ■asual money, or medium of exchange, in Pern.-' 
 The practice of iising this plant Avas even then ancient among 
 the Indian races, and its origin was lost in the mists of remote 
 antiquity. After the introduction of gold and silver money it 
 became the principal article of traflSc. Its cultivation was a 
 care of the native governments during the reign of the Incas, 
 
 and it continues equally prevalent to the present day. The 
 beloved leaf is still to the Indian of the mountains the delight, 
 the support, and in some measure the necessity, of his life. 
 He is never seen vrithout the leathern pouch (his chuspd) 
 to contain his coca-leaves, and his little gourd-bottle to hold 
 
 1 As tobacco does now among the Damaras, Ovampo, and other tribes of 
 South- Western Africa, visited by Mr Galton. — See his Tropical South Africa, 
 p. 206. 
 
MODERN USE OF COCA. 361 
 
 powdered unslacked lime — or, if he is a Bolivian, the alkaline 
 aHhcB of the quinoa, of the musa root, or of certain other 
 plants. 
 
 When preparing to acuUtcar, or chew, he first makes him- 
 self as comfortable as circumstances will permit. He lays 
 down his burden, if he has one ; he seats himself, and putting 
 his chuspa between his knees, he pulls out, one by one, the 
 leaves which are to form his new balL The attention he 
 gives to this operation is worthy of remark. The satisfaction 
 with which ho dips his hand into the midst of the leaves of 
 a full chuspa, and the regret with which he looks upon his 
 little bag when it is nearly empty — these littlo things prove 
 that to the Indian the custom is a source of real happiness, 
 and not the mere consequence of a want — (Weddell). Al- 
 ways three, and sometimes four times a-day, he rests from 
 his mining or other labour, or pauses in his journey, and lays 
 down his burden, to chew in quiot the beloved leaf. 
 
 When riding, or walking, or labouring, the leaves have 
 littlo effect. As with opium and hemp, stillness and repose 
 are indispensable to his full enjoyment of the feeling of luxury 
 it produces. In the shade of a tree he stretches himself at ease, 
 and from time to time puts into his mouth a few leaves rolled 
 into a ball (an aculKco), and after each new supply a little 
 unslacked lime on the end of a slip of wood moistened and 
 dipped into his lime-flask. This brings out the tr^e taste of 
 the leaf, and causes a copious flow of greenish-coloured saliva, 
 whicli is partly rejected and partly swallowed. Wlicn the 
 ball ceases to emit juice it is thrown away, and a new supply 
 is taken. 
 
 Tiio interval of enjoyment conceded to the labouring Indian 
 lasts from fifteen minutes to half an hour, and is generally 
 wound up by the smoking of a paper cigar. Repeated three 
 or four times a-day, his average consumption of coca is an 
 ounce or an ounce and a half in the twenty-four hours, and on 
 holidays double that quantity. The owners of mines .and 
 plantations have long found it for their interest to allow a 
 suspension of labour three times a-day for the chaccar, as it 
 is called ; and the Indian speedily quits an employer who 
 endeavours to stint or deprive him of these periods of indul- 
 genc.e. During these periods his phlegm is something marvel- 
 lous. No degree of urgency or entreaty on the part of tha 
 
362 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 master or employer will move him ; while the confirmed 
 coquero, when under the influence of the leaf, is heedless of 
 the thunderstorm which threatens to drown him where he lies, 
 of the roar of approaching wild beasts, or of the smoking fire 
 which creeps along the grass, and is about to suffocate or 
 scorch him in his lair. 
 
 The Indians of the Peruvian Andes are subject to fits of 
 melancholy, or are generally perhaps of a gloomy tempera- 
 ment. "In their domestic relations," says Von Tschudi, 
 " the Indians are unsocial and gloomy. Husband, wife, and 
 children live together with but little appearance of affection. 
 The children seem to approach their parents timidly, and 
 whole days sometimes elapse without the interchange of a 
 word of kindness between them. When not engaged in out- 
 door work, the Indian sits gloomily in his hut, chewing coca, 
 and brooding silently over his own thoughts." ^ 
 
 Dr Weddell, who travelled in Bolivia, bears a similar 
 testimony in regard to the appearance and manners of 
 these people. " It is difiScult," he says, " to have lived for 
 any time among these men without being struck by the 
 expression of concentrated melancholy which can be read 
 upon their features, and which seems to speak of an undefined 
 but constant suffering. This physiognomy is, above all, 
 remarkable among the Aymaras, whose character is also 
 more taciturn than that of the Quichuas, who inhabit along 
 with them the table-lands of the Andes." ^ 
 
 It does not appear, however, that the coca adds to the 
 gloom of the unhappy Indian ; on the contrary, he takes it 
 to relieve himself for the time from the peciiliarities of his 
 temperament. Silence and abstraction are necessary to the 
 enjoyment, but the use of it makes him cheerful ; and it is to 
 the unhappy, often oppressed, and always poor Peruvian, the 
 source of his highest pleasures. It has come down to him as 
 a relic of the ancient enjoyments of his people, and during 
 the fantasy it produces, he participates in scenes and pleas- 
 ures from which in common life he is altogether excluded. 
 Dr Weddell very sensibly remarks, that, as a relic of the past, 
 he attaches " superstitious ideas to the coca, which must 
 triple, in his imagination, the benefits he receives from it," 
 
 1 Travels in Peru, 1838 to 1842, p. 450. London, 1847. 
 
 s Wodilell- Voyage dans le Nord de la Bolivie, p. 61. Paris, 1853. 
 
EFFECTS OF COCA. 363 
 
 and that its Talue to him is further enhanced by its being the 
 "sole and only distraction which breaks the incomparable 
 monotony of his existence." 
 
 2°. General effects of the Coca-leaf. — The coca-leaf 
 acts differently according to the way in which it is used. 
 When infused and drunk like tea, it produces a gentle excite- 
 ment, followed by wakefulness ; and, if taken strong, retards 
 the approach of hunger, prevents the usual breathlessness 
 in climbing hills, and, in large doses, dilates the pupil and 
 renders the eye intolerant of light. It is seldom used in this 
 way, however, but is commonly chewed in the form of a ball or 
 quid, which is turned over and over in the mouth as is done 
 with tobacco. In this way its action is more gradual and 
 prolonged than when the infusion only is taken. It is also 
 very different in its character, because the constant chewing, 
 the continued action of the saliva, and the influence of the 
 lime or ashes chewed along with it, extract from the leaf 
 certain other active constituents which water alone does not 
 dissolve when it is infused after the manner of tea. 
 
 The cultivation and use of the coca have extended from the 
 slopes of the Andes eastward, to different parts of Brazil, and 
 to the river of the Amazons. But here it is used somewhat 
 differently. The leaves are dried and reduced to powder in a 
 wooden mortar along with the ash of the leaves of Ceeropia 
 peltata, and in this mixed state are preserved for use. From 
 time to time a portion of this greenish-grey powder is intro- 
 duced into the mouth, especially when it is desired to over- 
 come hunger or drowsiness. It augments the secretion of 
 saliva, produces a sensation of fulness and warmth in the 
 mouth, stills hunger, and increases bodily activity. 
 
 We have no detailed account, by an actual chewer of the 
 leaf, of the special effects which it produces ; but these must 
 be very seducing — for, though long since stigmatised, and 
 still very generally considered as a degrading, purely Indian, 
 and therefore despicable vice, many white Peruvians at Lima 
 and elsewhere retire daily at stated times to chew the coca. 
 Even Eiu-opeans in different parts of the country have fallen 
 into the habit. A confirmed chewer of coca is called a " co- 
 quero," and he is said to become occasionally more thoroughly 
 a slave to the leaf than the inveterate drunkard is to spiritu- 
 ous liquors. 
 
364: THE NAIiCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 Sometimes the coquero is overtaken by a craving which he 
 cannot resist, and he betakes himself for days together to the 
 silence of the woods, and there indulges unrestrained in the 
 use of the weed. Young men of the best families in Peru 
 become sometimes addicted to this extreme degree of excess, 
 and are then considered as lost. Forsaking cities and the 
 company of civilised men, and living chiefly in woods or in 
 Indian villages, they give themselves up to a savage and 
 solitary life. Hence the term, a white coquero, has there 
 something of the same evil sense as irreclaimable druidtard 
 has with us. 
 
 The chewing of coca gives "a bad breath (abominable, 
 according to Weddell), pale lips and gums, greenish and 
 stumpy teeth, and an tigly black mark at the angles of the 
 mouth. The inveterate coquero is known at the first glance. 
 His unsteady gait, his yellow skin, his dim and sunken eyes 
 encircled by a purple ring, his quivering lips, and his general 
 apathy, aU bear evidence of the baneful effects of the coca- 
 juice when taken in excess." — (Von Tschudi.) 
 
 Its first evil effect is to weaken the digestion ; it then 
 gradually induces a disease locally named the opilacion. 
 Biliary affections, with all the painful symptoms which attend 
 them in tropical climates, and, above all, costiveness, are fi:e- 
 quent and severe. The appetite becomes exceedingly uncer- 
 tain, till at length the dislike to all nourishment is succeeded 
 by an inordinate appetite for animal food. Then dropsical 
 swellings and boils come on ; and the patient, if he can get 
 it, flies to brandy for relief, and thus drags out a few miser- 
 able years, till death relieves him.^ 
 
 These descriptions are sufficiently repulsive, but they ex- 
 hibit only the dark side of the picture. A similar representa- 
 tion could be truthfully made of the evil effects of wine or 
 beer in too numerous cases, without thereby implying that 
 these liquors ought either to be wholly forbidden, or of our 
 own accord entirely given up. Where coca was most in use, 
 Dr Weddell states that he met with none of the extreme 
 cases mentioned by Poppig. The chewing of the leaf, he 
 says, produces ill effects sometimes upon Europeans who 
 have not contracted the habit in their youth. And in two or 
 
 ^ Poppig — Eeise in Chile, Peru und auf dem Amazon Strom, 1827 to 1832, 
 chap. iv. 
 
INDIAN HEGAED FOE COCA. 365 
 
 three cases whicli came under his observation, he ascribed to 
 the abuse of it the production of a " peculiar aberration of the 
 intellectual faculties characterised by hallucinations." Von 
 Tschudi also, as the sum of his inquiries, says : " Setting 
 aside all extravagant and visionary notions on the subject, 
 I am clearly of opinion that the moderate use of coca is not 
 merely iimoxious, but that it may even be Tcry conducive 
 to health. In support of this conclusion, I may refer to the 
 numerous examples of longevity among Indians vrho, almost 
 from the age of boyhood, have been in the habit of masti- 
 cating coca three times arday. Cases are not unfrequent of 
 Indians attaining the great age of 130 years ; and these men, 
 at the ordinary rate of consumption, must in the course of 
 their lives have chewed not less than 2700 lb. of the leaf, 
 and yet have retained perfect health. Even the Indian 
 coquero, who takes it in excess, reaches the age of fifty 
 years. It is consumed both more abundantly, however, and 
 with less baneful results, in the higher Andes than in the 
 lower and warmer regions." 
 
 It is certain that the Peruvian Indians have always as- 
 cribed to it the most extraordinary virtues. Clusius, vsriting 
 in 1605, says that when he asked tlie Indians why they 
 always had the coca in their niouths, the answer was, that, 
 when using it, neither hunger nor thirst annoyed them, 
 while their strength and vigour were confirmed; and Dr 
 Unanui, in the title of his Dissei-tation on the plant (Lima, 
 1794), speaks of it as " La fiimosa planta del Peru nombrada 
 coca." 
 
 At the present day the Indians still regard it as something 
 sacred and mysterious. -This impression they have probably 
 inherited as a fragment of their ancient religion, for in all 
 the ceremonies, whether warHke or rehgious, of the time of 
 the Incas, the coca was introduced. It was used by the 
 priests either for producing smoke at the great oiferings to 
 the gods, for throwing in handfiils upon the sacrifice, or as 
 the sacrifice itself. 
 
 "During divine worship the priests chewed coca-leaves, 
 and unless they were suppHed with them, it was believed 
 that the favour of the gods could not be propitiated. It was 
 also deemed necessary that -the suppHcator for divine grace 
 should approach the priests with an acuUico in his mouth. 
 
366 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 It was believed that any business undertaken without the 
 benediction of coca-leaves could not prosper, and to the shrub 
 itself worship was rendered. During an interval of more 
 than three hundred years Christianity has not been able 
 to subdue this deep-rooted idolatry, for everywhere we find 
 traces of belief in the mysterious powers of this plant. The 
 excavators in the mines of Cerro de Pasco throw chewed coca 
 on hard veins of metal, in the belief that it softens the ore 
 and renders it more easy to work. The origin of this custom 
 is easily explained, when it is recollected that in the time of 
 the Inoas it was believed that the cozas — the deities of metals 
 — rendered the mountains impenetrable if they were not 
 propitiated by the odour of coca. The Indians, even at the 
 present time, put coca-leaves into the mouths of dead per- 
 sons, to secure to them a favourable reception on their en- 
 trance into another world ; and when a Peruvian Indian on a 
 journey falls in with a mummy, he, with timid reverence, 
 presents to it some cocarleaves as his pious offering." — (Von 
 
 TsCHUDi). 
 
 3'. Characteristic effects of the Coca-leap. — Even those 
 Europeans who are best acquainted with the Indian races, 
 and have seen most of the action of this plant upon them, 
 do not deny that, in addition to the ordinary properties of a 
 weak narcotic, the coca -leases possess two extraordinary 
 qualities not known to coexist in any other substance. 
 These are — ■ 
 
 First, That when chewed they lessen the desire, and ap- 
 parently the necessity also, for ordinary food. They not 
 only enable the chewer, as brandy and opium do, to put 
 forth a greater nervous energy for a short time, but actually, 
 with the same amount of food, perseveringly to undergo more 
 laborious fatigue or longer-continued labour. With a feeble 
 ration of dried maize, or barley crushed into flour, the Indian, 
 if duly supplied with coca, toils under heavy burdens, day 
 after day, up the steep slopes of the mountain-passes ; or 
 digs for years in the subterranean mines, insensible to 
 weariness, to cold, or to hunger. He believes, indeed, that 
 it may be made a substitute for food altogether ; and an 
 instance given by Von Tschudi seems almost to justify this 
 opinion. 
 
 " A cholo of Huari, named Hatan Huamang, was employed 
 
LESSENS THE DESIRE FOR FOOD, 367 
 
 by mo in very laborious digging. During the five days and 
 nights ho was in my service he never tasted any food, and 
 took only two hours' sleep each night. But at intervals of 
 two and a half or three hours he regularly chewed about half 
 an ounce of coca-leaves, and he kept an acullico continually 
 in his mouth, I was constantly beside him, and therefore I 
 liad the opportunity ofclosely observing him. The work for 
 which I engaged him being finished, he accompanied me on 
 a two days' journey of twenty-three leagues across the level 
 lieights. Though on foot, he kept up with the pace of my 
 mule, and halted only for tho chaccar. On leaving mo, he 
 declared h"e would willingly engage himself again for the 
 same amount of work, and that he would go through it with- 
 out food, if I would but allow him a sufficient supply of coca. 
 The village priest assured me that this man was sixty-two 
 years of age, and that he had never known him to be ill in 
 his life." 
 
 How this remarkable effect of the coca is to be accounted 
 for, in accordance with received notions on the subject of 
 animal nutrition, it is not easy to see. Dr Weddell, who is 
 loss decided in his praise of the virtues of the leaf, says that 
 tho facts in favour of the opinion that it is capable of sup- 
 porting the strength, in the absence of all other nourishment, 
 have been advanced by so many persons worthy of credit, 
 that we must push our scepticism very far if we are to doubt 
 them. He asserts, however, that, as commonly used, coca 
 docs not satisfy the appetite. The Indians who accompanied 
 him in his tour, though they chewed all day, yet at night 
 ate like hungry men, and sometimes at a single meal swal- 
 lowed as much as would serve him two days. The power of 
 enabling them to support abstinence, therefore, is all he is 
 willing, from his limited experience, to concede to the plant. 
 It produces, he says, a peculiar excitement, slow and sus- 
 tained ; not, like that of tea and coffee, exercised chiefly on 
 the brain, but diffused generally over the nervous system. 
 
 The least we can concede to the plant, therefore, seems to 
 be, that it enables the body to feed upon itself, so to speak, 
 for a length of time, without the hunger-pains and weakness 
 which usually accompany the prolonged abstinence from ordi- 
 nary food. 
 
 Second, The other extraordinary property of the leaf is that. 
 
368 THE NAKCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 r 
 
 either when chewed or when taken in the form of infusion, 
 like tea, it prevents the occurrence of that difficulty of res- 
 piration which is usually felt in ascending the long and steep 
 slopes of the Cordillera and the Puna. 
 
 " When I was in the Puna," says Von Tschudi, " at the 
 height of 14,000 feet above the level of the sea, I drank 
 always, before going out to hunt, a strong infiision of coca- 
 leaves. I could then, during the whole day, cliinb the 
 heights and follow the swift -footed wild animals, without 
 experiencing any greater difficulty of breathing than I should 
 have felt in similar rapid movements on the coast. More- 
 over, I did not suffer from the symptoms of cerebral excite- 
 ment or uneasiness which other travellers have experienced* 
 The reason perhaps is, that I only drank the decoction on the 
 cold Puna, where the nervous system is far less susceptible 
 than in the climate of the forests beneath. However, I 
 always felt a sense of great satiety after taking the coca in- 
 fusion, and I did not feel a desire for my next meal until 
 after the time at which I usually took it." 
 
 The reason of this action of the leaf is not less difficult 
 to make out than that of its alleged strength-sustaining 
 capabUities. 
 
 When the Spanish conquerors took possession of Peru, 
 the Indians and all their customs were treated by them 
 with equal contempt ; but everything connected with their 
 religion was especially denounced by the Spanish priests. 
 Hence the use of coca was condemned and forbidden. 
 
 A council of the Church denounced it in 1567 as a " worth- 
 less substance, fitted for the misuse and superstition of the 
 Indians;" and a royal decree, in 1569, condemned the idea 
 that coca gives strength, as an " illusion of the devil." But 
 these fulminations were of no avail. The Peruvians still 
 clung to their esteemed national leaf; and the owners of 
 mines and plantations, discovering its efficacy in enabling 
 their slaves to perform the heavy tasks they imposed upon 
 them, soon became its warm defenders. Even churchmen at 
 last came to regard it with indulgence, and, stranger still, to 
 recommend its introduction into Europe. 
 
 One of the warmest advocates of the plant was the Jesuit 
 Don Antonio Julian, who, in a work entitled, 'Perla de 
 America,' laments that coca is not introduced into Europe 
 
CONSTITUENTS OP COCA. 369 
 
 instead of tea and coffee. " It is," he observes, " melancholy 
 to reflect that the poor of Europe cannot obtain this preserva- 
 tive against hunger and thirst, and that our working people 
 are not supported by this strengthening plant in their long- 
 continued labours." 
 
 Dr Don Pedro Nolasco Crespo, again, in a treatise pub- 
 lished in 1793, insisted upon the advantages which might be 
 derived from the introduction of the plant into the European 
 navies. Von Tsohudi has also recommended it as fitted " to 
 afford a nutritious refreshment to seamen in the exercise of 
 their laborious duties, and to counteract the unwholesome 
 effect of salt provisions." And lastly, Professor Schlechten- 
 dal, after commending coca as tonic, soothing, and nutritive 
 — as preventing weakness of the stomach, and the affections, 
 colic and hypochondria, to which such weakness gives rise, 
 — adds that, " without doubt, the leaves might be usefully 
 employed in Europe." 
 
 With all this testimony in its favour, we may, I think, 
 dismiss those, fears of the coca-leaf which old Spanish pre- 
 judices awakened, and which representations like those of 
 POppig have tended to perpetuate in England. It has lately 
 been tried in England and the Continent with a measure of 
 success. But in our climate, and after so long a sea-voyage, 
 its effects seem weaker than in its native country. 
 
 4°. Chemical History of the Coca-leaf. — It is known to 
 contain at least three different constituents, upon the joint 
 action of all of which the observed effects of the leaf prob- 
 ably depend. These are — an odoriferous resinous substance, 
 a bitter principle, and a species of tannic acid. 
 
 First, The odoriferous resin. — As they reach this country, 
 the leaves are coated with a resinous or waxy substance, 
 which is only in a limited degree soluble in water, but which 
 ether readily dissolves. When digested in ether for the pur- 
 pose of extracting this substance, a beautiful dark-green solu- 
 tion is obtained, which, on being evaporated in the open air, 
 leaves a brownish resin, possessed of a powerful, peculiar, and 
 penetrating odour. When exposed for a length of time to 
 the air, this resinous matter diminishes in quantity, and gra- 
 dually loses the whole of its smell, leaving a fusible, nearly 
 inodorous, matter behind. Ether therefore extracts at least 
 two substances from the leaf, one of which is very volatile, 
 
370 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 and has a powerful odour. It is probable that in this volatile 
 substance the narcotic qualities of the leaf reside. And this 
 is consistent with the fact, that the leaves gradually lose 
 their smeU and virtue, and, after twelve months, are gener- 
 ally considered worthless ; and with the assertion of those 
 who live in the coca country, that only among them are the 
 real virtues of the leaf ever experienced by the consumer. 
 It is usual to make up the leaves into hard packages, covered 
 with fresh hides, which shrink and compress the whole as 
 they dry. But notwithstanding this close packing, resem- 
 bling that of hard-pressed hop-pockets, they insensibly give 
 off their volatile ingredients as hops do, and by transport 
 and keeping continually diminish in value and estimation. 
 Tlie volatile resinous matter extracted by ether is therefore 
 one of the most important ingredients of the coca -leaf — 
 (Johnston) . 
 
 Second, The hitter principle. — We have seen in a preceding 
 chapter ^ that tea and coffee, besides the volatile ingredients 
 to which their aroma is owing, contain a white, bitter, crystal- 
 lisable substance known by the name of iheine ; and that to this 
 theine the remarkable properties of these beverages are partly 
 to be ascribed. Coca also contains a crystalline bitter prin- 
 ciple, which alcohol is capable of dissolving out of the leaves. 
 This substance is a base or alkaloid, and is called cocaine. 
 In many particulars and in its physiological action upon the 
 system it resembles atropine, the alkaloid of deadly nightshade. 
 It can scarcely bo doubted that the effect of the leaf upon the 
 cooa-chevver is due in part to the presence of this coca bitter. 
 
 Third, Besides these two s\ibstances, the coca-leaf contains 
 also a tannic acid, which, like the tannic acid of tea, gives a 
 deep brownish-green colour with what are called per salts ^ of 
 iron. 
 
 The pix)portions in which these several known ingredients 
 occur in tlie leaf have not been exactly determined. 
 
 5°. How THE CocA-LEAV ACTS. — It wiU strike the reader 
 that even this imperfect knowledge of the chemistry of the 
 plant shows a singular analogy between the coca-leaf, the hop- 
 flower, and the tea-leaf of China. All contain a volatile, 
 aroma-giving ingredient ; in all a bitter principle exists ; and 
 
 ' See "The Beverages we Infuse," p. 127. 
 
 2 These are compounds of the red or per-OToAe of iron ■nitli acids. 
 
USES OF COCA. 371 
 
 from all of them a tannic acid can be extracted. Yet if, with 
 tliis small amount of chemical knowledge — aided even by 
 what we know of the action of tea and the hop — we attempt 
 to explain the remarkable effects produced by the coca-leaf, 
 we utterly fail. 
 
 How the mere chewing of one or two ounces of these leaves 
 in a day, partly rejecting and partly swallowing the saliva,^ 
 but wholly rejecting the chewed leaf — how this supports the 
 strength, or can materially nourish the body in the ordinary 
 acceptation of the term, we cannot understand. It cannot 
 give much to the body ; it must therefore act simply in pre- 
 venting or greatly diminishing the ordinary and natural waste 
 of the tissues which usually accompanies bodily exertion. 
 As wine and tea act upon the nervous system of the aged, so 
 aa to restrain the natural waste to a quantity which the now 
 weakened digestion can readily replace, and thus maintain 
 the weight of the body undiminished, — so it is, probably, with 
 coca. In the young and middle-aged it lessens the waste of 
 the tissues, and thus enables a smaller supply of food to sus- 
 tain the weight and strength of the body. But it mnst not 
 be forgotten that if we lessen the natural waste of the body 
 or lessen the daily ration of food, wo lessen the sources of 
 power in the body. To keep up the heat and activity of the 
 body, fuel, that is, food which has been assimilated, must be 
 consumed or burnt. 
 
 The coca -leaf resembles that of hemp, in the narcotic 
 quality of dilating the pupil, which opium does not possess. 
 But, on the other hand, it resembles opium in the new strength 
 it imparts to the worn and weary body. The Turkish courier, 
 or the Cutchee horseman, under the influence of opium, re- 
 minds us of the Peruvian miner or muleteer who has plenty 
 of coca. In spite of fatigue and exhaustion, both compel 
 their failing limbs to new exertion, and, nnconscious of new 
 pain, accomplish most wonderful labours. And in the prone- 
 ness of the coca-eater to a solitary hfe, we recognise an influ- 
 ence of this herb similar to that which opium exercises upon 
 those who have experienced its highest enjojrments. It is 
 alone and in retirement that the Eastern opium-eater finds his 
 
 1 Dr Weddell states that the saliva is never rq'ecled; and being a later 
 authority than Von Tschudi, whom I have followed in the text, he is probably 
 correct. 
 
372 THE NAECOTIOS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 greatest pleasure. And in our own less sunny climate the 
 same inclination appears to exist. " Markets 'and theatres," 
 says De Quincey, "are not the appropriate haunts of the 
 opium-eater when in the divinest state incident to his enjoy- 
 ment. In that state crowds become an oppression to him, 
 music even too sensual and gross. He naturally seeks soli- 
 tude and silence as indispensable conditions of those trances 
 or profoundest reveries, which are the crown and consumma- 
 tion of what opium can do for human nature. At that time I 
 often fell into these reveries on taking opium ; and more than 
 once it has happened to me on a summer night, when I have 
 been at an open window, in a room jfrom which I could over- 
 look the sea at a mile below me, and could command a view 
 
 of the great town of L at about the same distance, that 
 
 I have sat from sunset to sunrise, motionless and without 
 wishing to move." 
 
 This description recalls exactly the picture of the confirmed 
 coquero reclining for hours beneath his sheltering tree, 
 absorbed, abstracted, and heedless of all external things. 
 Whether his apathy and phlegm ever approached to that of 
 the coquero, the English Opium-eater does not inform ns. 
 
 6°. Consumption of Coca-leaf. — ^We have no accurate data 
 from which to form an estimate of the actual weight of coca- 
 leaf collected and consumed in Bolivia and Peru. Poppig 
 estimates the money value of the yearly produce to be about 
 4,500,000 Prussian dollars, which, at Is. a pound, the price 
 it yields to the grower, would make the annual produce 
 nearly 15,000,000 lb. This approximation is sufficient to 
 . show us its importance to the higher regions of South 
 America, in an agricultural and commercial, as weU as in a 
 social point of view. 
 
 Dr Weddell, again, who has recently travelled in Bolivia, 
 informs us that the province of Yongas, in Bolivia, in which 
 the coca is much cultivated, alone produces 9,600,000 Spanish 
 pounds. The total produce, therefore, is probably much 
 beyond the 15,000,000 deduced from the statement of Poppig. 
 
 The importance of the plant is shown also by another fact 
 mentioned by the same traveller — that the revenue of the 
 state of Bolivia, in 1850, amounted to 10,500,000 francs, of 
 which 900,000, or one-twelfth of the whole, was derived from 
 the tax on coca. Had he told us the amount of the tax per 
 
CONSUMPTION OF COCA. 373 
 
 pound, wo should have been able to approximate more nearly 
 to the total produce of the state of Bolivia. 
 
 ^Vhen we consider that eastward from Bolivia and Peru, 
 the culture and use of coca have extended into parts of 
 Brazil, and to the banks of the Amazon, it will not appear 
 exaggerated if we estimate the actual- growth and consump- 
 tion of the dried coca-leaf at 30,000,000 lb. a-year. At 
 Is. a pound, this is worth £1,500,000 sterling ; and at the 
 average produce of 800 lb. an acre, it implies the use of 
 37,000 acres of good and carefully cultivated land for the 
 growth of this plant We may estimate also that the chewing 
 of coca is more or less indulged in among'about 10,000,000 
 of the human race. 
 
CHAPTER XXL 
 
 THE N^VECOTICS WE INDULGE IX 
 
 THE THORN-APPLES, THE SIBERIAN FUNGUS, AND THE 
 MINOR NARCOTICS. 
 
 The red thorn-apple : its use among the Indians of Peru ; its remarkable 
 effects ; taken hy the Indian priests ; frenzy induced by it ; used in the 
 temples of the Andes and of Greece ; Delphic oracles inspired by it ; sin- 
 gular coincidence in priestly deceptions. — ^The common thorn-apple : its 
 use in Europe for criminal purposes ; in Russia, for giving headiness to 
 beer ; in India, to ardent spirits.— How it is employed by the poisoners of 
 India. — Spectral illusions occasioned by the use of it. — Narcotic qualities 
 of the leaves. — Chemical history of the thorn-apples. — The poisonous 
 daturine and the empyreumatic oil ; their joint influence in smoking. — The 
 Siberian fungus ; liow collected and iised ; its intoxicating effects ; delu- 
 sions created by it ; its active principle escapes in the urine ; may be again 
 used repeatedly, and by different persons ; Siberian custom. — The common 
 pufF-hall ; narcotic qualities of its smoke when burning. — Chemistry of the 
 poisonous fungi ; they contain amanitine. — Empyreumatic oil of the burn- 
 ing puff-ball. — The minor narcotics : The emetic holly, the narcotic of 
 Florida ; how it is used. — The deadly nightshade ; its remarkable effects : 
 destruction of a Norwegian army in Scotland. — The common henbane. — 
 The bearded darnel gives headiness to beer, and poisons bread. — Sweet 
 gale ; its nse for giving bitterness to beer. — Heather-beer of the Picts and 
 Danes. — The rhododendrons, poisonous and. narcotic. — The Azalea pontica 
 gives its peculiar qualities to the Euxine or Trebizond honey. — The andro- 
 medas and kalmias of North America act as narcotics, — Narcotic effects of 
 sweet odours on some constitutions. 
 
 XII. The Thorn-apples. — The history of the thorn-apples as 
 familiar narcotics is no less interesting, and their effects upon 
 the system not less remarkable, than those of any of the sub- 
 
TIIOBN-API'LES. 
 
 375 
 
 Htaiiccs I havo hitherto described. Two species at least are 
 known to be employed in diflferent parts of the world. 
 
 1 \ The Red Thorn-apple of Peru {Datura sanffuinea), fig. 
 64, is in use among the Indians of the Andes, by some tribes 
 of whom the cooa-leaf, ... „, 
 
 already described, is prin- 
 cipally consumed. It grows 
 on the less steep slopes 
 of the Andean valleys, and 
 is called by the natives 
 Bovachero, or Yerba de 
 huaca. The fruit of the 
 plant is the part employ- 
 ed, and from it the Indians 
 prepare a strong narcotic 
 drink, which they call 
 Tonga. By the use of 
 this drink they believe 
 that they arc brought into 
 communication with the 
 spirits of their forefathers. 
 Von Tschudi had nn op- 
 portunity of observing an 
 Indian under the influence 
 of this drug, and he thus 
 describes its effects : — 
 " Shortly after having 
 swallowed the beverage, ho fell into a heavy stupor. He sat 
 with his eyes vacantly fixed on the ground, his mouth con- 
 vulsively closed, and his nostrils dilated. In the course of 
 about a quarter of an hour his eye's began to roll, foam issued 
 from his half-opened lips, and his whole body was agitated 
 by frightful convulsions. These violent symptoms having 
 subsided, a profound sleep of several hours succeeded. In 
 the evening, when I saw him again, he was relating to a 
 circle of attentive listeners the particulars of his vision, during 
 which he alleged he had held communication with the spirits 
 of his forefathers. He appeared very weak and exhausted." ^ 
 
 In former times, the Indian priests, when they pretended to 
 transport themselves into the presence of their deities, drank 
 
 1 Von Tschudi— Travels in Peru, p. 269. 
 
 DaHra nanguinea—The Red Thom.apple. 
 acolCf 1 inch to 9 inches. 
 
376 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 the juice of this thom-apple, in order to excite themselves to 
 a state of ecstasy. And although the establishment of Chris- 
 tianity has weaned the Indians from their idolatry, it has 
 not yet banished their old superstitions. They stiU believe 
 that they can hold communication with the spirits of their 
 ancestors, and that they can obtain from them a clue to the 
 treasures concealed in the hicacas, or graves : hence the In- 
 dian name of the thorn-apple, Huaca-caohu — grave-plant — or 
 Yerba de huaca. 
 
 When the decoction is taken very strong, it brings on 
 attacks of furious excitement. The whole plant is narcotic, 
 but it is in the seeds that the greatest virtue resides. These 
 are said by some authors to have been used also by the priests 
 of the Delphic temple in ancient Greece to produce those 
 frenzied ravings which were then called prophecies. Such a 
 practice certainly obtained in the Temple of the Sun at Soga- 
 mossa — (Lindley). This Sogamossa is near Bogota, in the 
 Andes of iNew Granada. 
 
 It is sufficiently strange to see how similar modes and 
 means of imposition were made use of by the priests of 
 nearly every false religion in ancient times, for the purpose 
 of deluding their credulous countrymen. But it is truly 
 remarkable that among the mountains of Greece, in the 
 palmiest days of that classic country, the same observed 
 effects, of the sa3ne wild plant, should have been employed 
 by the priests of Apollo to deceive the intellectual Greeks, 
 as at the same time were daily used by the priests of the 
 sun. to deceive the rude and credulous Indians among the 
 far-distant mountains of the Andes. The pretended second- 
 sight, and the other marvels told of the old seers of the Scot- 
 tish Highlands, may owe their origin to nothing more noble 
 or mysterious than a draught of thom-apple, night-shade, 
 or belladonna tea. And it is highly probable that the 
 Witches' Drink was flavoured with the thom-apple, and 
 that the victims who, in all sincerity, came before the mag- 
 istrates, and declared themselves to have had communication 
 with the Evil One, had, under the influence of this nar- 
 cotic, seen visions which they could not distinguish from 
 real experience. 
 
 2". The Common Thorn-apple (Datura Stramonium) has 
 been long known even in Europe to possess narcotic pro- 
 
COMMON THORN-APPLE. 377 
 
 pertics. In Germany and France the seeds are said to be 
 frequently made use of for the perpetration of crime, ^ In 
 liussia thoy are added to beer to make it heady and intoxi- 
 cating — a practice which formerly prevailed also in China, 
 but has been now long forbidden — (Gmelin). In Upper 
 India, the mountain villagers of Sirinagur, and other pro- 
 vinces, employ the same seeds to add to the intoxicating 
 qualities of their common spirituous liquors. In Lower 
 India, the poisoners, who all belong to the caste of Pasie, or 
 dealers in toddy, make use of the seeds of the datura in 
 pljdng their odious craft. They go about singly or in gangs, 
 haunting the traveller's resting-places, where they drop half 
 a rupee weight of seeds, pounded or whole, into his food. 
 This produces an intoxication of twenty hours' duration, 
 during which he is robbed, and left either to recover or to 
 sink under the stupefying effects of the narcotic. The seed 
 is gathered at any time, place, or age of the plant, without 
 apparent influence upon its efficacy — (Dr Hooker).* Three 
 East Indian species of Datura are said to be in use as nar- 
 cotics — namely, D. Mekt, D.fastuosa, and D. alba. 
 
 Dr Sigmond quotes Beverley's History of Jamaica for an 
 account of the eiFects of Datura Stramonium. " This plant," 
 says Beverley, " was gathered very young for a boiled salad 
 by some of the soldiers sent thither (Jamaica) to quell the 
 rebellion of Bacon, and some of them ate plentifullj' of it ; 
 the effect of which was a very pleasant comedy, for they 
 turned natural fools upon it for several days. One would 
 blow up a feather in the air, another would dart straws at it 
 with much ftiry; another, stark naked, was sitting up in a 
 comer like a monkey, grinning and making mouths at them ; 
 a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer 
 in their faces with a countenance more antio than any in a 
 Dutch doll. In this frantic condition they were confined, 
 lest in their folly they should destroy themselves. A thou- 
 sand simple tricks they played, and after eleven days re- 
 turned to themselves again, not remembering anything that 
 had passed." 
 
 In this country xne seeds are rarely nsed, except nnder the 
 direction of a medical man, or when they happen to be swal- 
 
 1 Christison On Poisons, p. 841. 
 * Himalayan Journals, vol. i. p. 66. 
 
378 THE NAKCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 lowed by mistake ; and it is singular that when an overdose 
 does happen thus to be taken, especially if it is by a child, 
 the delirium it occasions is often accompanied by spectral 
 illusions more or less wild. A little girl who had taken a 
 drachm and a half of the seeds became furiously delirious in 
 two hours, saw spectral illusions, and so continued during 
 the night, with intervals of lethargic sleep. Next morning 
 she fell fast asleep, and after some hours awoke quite well — 
 (Fowler). The symptoms of this case very closely resemble 
 the reputed effects of the seeds of the red datura on the 
 Indians of New Granada. They remind us of the supposed 
 meetings with their ancestors, which, under the influence 
 of the infusion, the Indians esteem themselves privileged 
 to hold. 
 
 The narcotic property is not confined to the seeds, but is 
 probably possessed by the whole plant. Alarming narcotic 
 effects have been produced by applying the leaves to an ex- 
 tensive burn, where, from the removal of the skin, the ingre- 
 dients of the leaf were capable of being absorbed into the 
 system of the patient. In this country the dried leaves and 
 plant both of D. Stramonium and D. tatula are frequently 
 smoked by persons affected with certain forms of spas- 
 modic asthma. For this use they are sometimes made up 
 into cigarettes, and sold 6y the druggists for smoking in 
 the same way as tobacco, though the smoke is generally 
 swallowed. 
 
 All the species of thorn-apple, so far as they have hitherto 
 been examined, contain a solid, white, crystalline, poisonous 
 compound or alkaloid, to which the name of daturine has 
 been^ given. The taste of this substance is at first bitterish, 
 it then becomes acrid, and recalls the taste of tobacco. 
 When taken internally, it strongly dilates the pupil, and 
 in its general action npon the system very much resembles 
 the poisonous principles contained in the well-known common 
 henbane [Hyoscyamus niger) and in the deadly nightshade 
 [Atropa belladonna). Indeed it is now thought that atropine 
 and daturine are identical. 1000 parts of dried datura seeds 
 contain 4 parts of this active alkaloid. It is to the action 
 of this ingredient that the singular effects produced by the 
 seeds, as above described, are believed to be chiefly due. 
 
 But when the thorn-apple, leaf and stem, are smoked, an 
 
INTOXICATING FUNGUS. 370 
 
 empyreuinatio oil is produced similar to that which is yielded 
 by tobacco-leaves when burning in the pipe of the smoker.^ 
 Like that of tobacco, also, this empyreumatic oil is very 
 poisonous. The narcotic, soothing, and spasm-stilling eflfeots 
 of the smoke of the thorn-apple, are partly due to the pres- 
 ence of the vapours of this oil. The poisonous daturine of 
 the stramonium leaf may also rise in vapour and mingle with 
 the smoke, as the poisonous nicotine does with the smoke of 
 burning tobacco (p. 283) ; while other poisonous vapours may 
 be produced by its combustion. If so, then, as in the case of 
 tobacco, the full effect experienced by smoking the datura 
 is made up of the joint influence of the mixed vapours of the 
 daturine and of the empyreumatic oil which the smoke con- 
 tains. The presence of these powerfully narcotic and poison- 
 ous principles explains why, as experience has proved, the 
 smoking of the thorn-apple is by no means unattended with 
 danger. The custom of swallowing the smoke causes more 
 of the poisonous ingredients to be absorbed into the system 
 than is usually the case in the smoking of tobacco. 
 
 XIII. The SiiiKRiAN or Intoxicatino Fungls {Amanita 
 muscaria, Agaricus muscariun) is to the native of Kamtschatka 
 what opium and hemp are to the eastern Asiatics, coca to 
 the Peruvian, and tobacco to the European and North Ame- 
 rican races. The natural 'craving for narcotic indulgences 
 has in Siberia found its gratification in a humble toadstool. 
 
 This fungus (fig. 65) has a close resemblance to some of 
 the edible fungi, and is common in birch-woods in some parts 
 of Great Britain. In colour it varies from a bright scarlet to 
 a pale umber ; the cap is clothed with scattered warts. It 
 grows very abundantly in some parts of Kamtschatka, and 
 hence its use in that country. It is either collected during 
 the hot months, and hung up to dry in the air, or it is left 
 in the ground to ripen and dry, and is afterwards gathered. 
 The latter are more narcotic than those which are artificially, 
 dried. 
 
 W'lion steeped in the .expressed, juice of the native whortle- 
 
 bfiry {Vaccinium uUginosum), or used with the infusion of 
 
 Epilohium angustifolium, this fungus imparts to these liquids 
 
 the intoxicating properties of strong wine. Eaten fresh in 
 
 ' Seo the chapter on Tobacco, p. 282. 
 
380 
 
 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 Fig. 65. 
 
 Agaricus muscarius — Siberian or 
 Intoxicating Fungus. 
 
 soups and sauces, it exhibits a less powerful intoxicating 
 quality. But the most common way of using it is to roll it 
 up like a bolus, and to swallow it 
 whole without chewing. If chewed, 
 it is said to disorder the -stomach. 
 
 One large or two small fangi are 
 a common dose to produce a pleas- 
 ant intoxication for a whole day. 
 If water be drunk after it, the nar- 
 cotic action is increased. The 
 desired effect comes on in the 
 course of an hour or two after the 
 dose is taken. Cheerfulness is 
 first produced, then the face be- 
 comes flushed, giddiness and drunk- 
 enness follow in the same way as 
 from wine or spirits, involuntary 
 words and actions succeed, and 
 sometimes the final effect is an 
 entire loss of consciousness. In 
 some it provokes to remarkable 
 activity, and stimulates to bodily exertion. It is said that 
 the Ostiaks of Siberia take the fungus to fit them to commit 
 premeditated assassination. It goads to suicide or brutal 
 exhibitions of passion. Langsdbrff relates that a man intox- 
 icated with it was able to carry a sack weighing 120 lb. a 
 distance of 15 versts. In too large doses it induces violent 
 spasms. Upon some individuals it produces effects which are 
 very ludicrous. A talkative person cannot keep silence or 
 secrets. One fond of music is perpetually singing ; and if a 
 person under its influence wishes to step over a straw or small 
 stick, he takes a stride or a jump sufficient to clear the trunk 
 of a tree. 
 
 The haschisch produces similar erroneous impressions as 
 . to size and distance as the one last mentioned. And it is 
 singular that the erroneous perceptions to which these drugs 
 gave rise temporarily — and in the case of haschisch, with a 
 half consciousness of their deceptive character — exist per- 
 manently in many lunatics. The reader may also have 
 met with descriptions of old women who were proved to 
 be witches by their being unable to step over a straw ! 
 
EFFECTS OF THE INTOXICATING FUNGUS. 381 
 
 But the most singular effect of the amanita is the property 
 it imparts to the fluid excretions. It has been known from 
 time immemorial to the inhabitants of Siberia that the fiingus 
 gives to the urine an intoxicating quality. This continues 
 for a considerable time after taking it, so that a man who is 
 moderately ■ intoxicated the one day, and has slept himself 
 sober by the next morning, will, by drinking — as is the 
 cuBtom — a tea-cup of his own urine, become more completely 
 intoxicated than before. It is not uncommon, therefore, for 
 confirmed drunkards in that country to preserve their urine 
 as a precious liquor in case of a scarcity of the fungus. This 
 intoxicating property of the fluid is capable of being propa- 
 gated, so to speak ; for every one who partakes of it is simi- 
 larly affected. Dr Langsdoi-ff says, that if a second person 
 takes the urine of the first, a third that of the second, and so 
 on, intoxication may be propagated through five individuals. 
 Thus, with a very few amanitse, a party of drunkards may 
 keep up their debauch for a week. 
 
 We have already soon that morphia, the active principle 
 of opium, passes through the body into the milk and other 
 liquid excretions. The same is the case also with the active 
 principles of cinchona-bark, of hemlock, of belladonna, aconite, 
 &c. The Siberian fungus is said to contain two peculiar con- 
 ^stituents — one a base or alkaloid called amanitine, the other 
 an acid, muscaric acid. It is probable that the base is the 
 active intoxicating constituent, the acid being probably 
 formed from it. 
 
 It has long been observed that poisonous fiingi in general, 
 when eaten, produce narcotic among their other effects. It 
 has also been popularly known in this country that the smoke 
 of the burning puff-ball, a fungus in itself often wholesome and 
 eatable, has the property of stupefying bees, and it has fre- 
 quently been used for that purpose when a hive was to be 
 robbed. But it has recently been tried upon higher orders of 
 animals, and similar effects have been found to be produced 
 upon them also. When the fumes of the burning fungus are 
 slowly inhaled, all the ordinary symptoms of intoxication 
 gradually appear. These are followed first by drowsmess, 
 and then by perfect insensibility to pain, like that which 
 follows the use of chloroform ; and if the inhalation be con- 
 tinued, this is Ruoceeded by convulsions, occasionally by vom- 
 
382 THE NAKCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 iting, and after some time by death. Wliile recovering from 
 its action, an animal is sometimes perfectly conscious, while 
 it is still insensible to pain.^ 
 
 The chemistry of this tribe of plants is stiU very obscure. 
 Two active principles, muscarine and amanitine, however, have 
 been recognised in the fly agaric and in one or two other 
 fungi possessed of poisonous properties. When distilled 
 with water, they yield a volatile acrid principle which has 
 been little examined. It may be to the conjoined influence 
 of the volatile acrid substance, and the two alkaloids just 
 named, upon the system, that the singular effects of the 
 Siberian fungus are to be ascribed. 
 
 The usually harmless puff-ball has not yet been shown to 
 contain any narcotic ingredient resembling the amanitine of 
 the poisonous species ; but it and several other species are 
 not always equally innocuous — varying conditions of soil, ma- 
 turity, and climate, influencing the composition and activity 
 of the fungi to a great extent. The narcotic effects produced 
 by the smoke of the puff-baU when burning, must at present 
 be ascribed to the empyreumatio oil, which, like tobacco and 
 the thorn-apples, it yields when burned. This mingles with 
 the smoke, and along with the smoke is drawn into the lungs 
 and there absorbed. 
 
 XIV. The Minor Narcotics. — Besides the narcotics 
 already mentioned, which may be regarded as national indul- 
 gences, and are used by large bodies of men, there are several 
 which possess so much of a local or historical interest, as to 
 make them not unworthy of a brief consideration. I class 
 these together under the name of Minor Narcotics. 
 
 1°. The Emetic Holly [Ihx vomitoria) is the narcotic of 
 the Indians of Florida. An infusion or decoction of the leaves 
 is drunk before the opening of their councils, and on other 
 important occasions. That their heads may be clear when 
 grave questions are about to be discussed, they are said to 
 fast throe whole days, drinking meanwhile the infusion of 
 this plant. This infusion is sometimes spoken of as the black 
 drink, probably from its colour. 
 
 In moderate doses it acts upon the kidneys and increases 
 the perspiration. Taken more largely, it moves the bowels 
 1 Medical Times, June 11, 1853 ; and Chemist, July 1S53. 
 
NIGHTSHADE AND HENBANE. 383 
 
 and causoB vomiting. Used in the proper manner, it also 
 induces a state of exciteniont and frenzy ; so that among the 
 Sominoles it serves the same purposes as opium does in the 
 East 
 
 The chemical history of tliis plant is quite unknown. Aa 
 a holly {Ilex), however, it is botanically related to the plant 
 ■which yields the Paraguay tea.^ It probably contains an 
 active principle, therefore, which has an analogy to the theine 
 of the tea-leaf. 
 
 2°. The Deadly Nightshade. — The black berries of the 
 deadly nightshade or dwale [Atropa belladonna), by their 
 beautiful brightness, sometimes tempt the young to eat them 
 by mistake. They are powerfully narcotic, and among their 
 earliest symptoms induce the appearance of the most besotted 
 drunkenness. The dried leaves, or an infusion of the leaves, 
 acts in a similar manner. Even a small dose causes an ex- 
 travagant delirium, which is usually of an agreeable kind. 
 This is sometimes accompanied by excessive and uncontrol- 
 lable laughter, sometimes by incessant talking, but occasion- 
 ally by a complete loss of voice. The state of mind some- 
 times resembles somnambulism, as in the case of a tailor who 
 for fifteen hours was speechless and insensible to external 
 objects, and yet went through all the operations of his trade 
 with great vivacity, and moved his lips as if in conversation 
 — (Christison). 
 
 This narcotic is never now used among us except as a 
 medicine. It possesses an historical interest, however, from 
 the circumstance, related on the authority of Buchanan the 
 historian, " That the destruction of the Danish army, com- 
 manded by Sweno, king of Norway, when he invaded Scot- 
 land, was owing to the intoxicating qualities of the berries of 
 this plant, which the Scots mixed with the drink they were 
 obliged to furnish to the invaders. For while the Danish 
 soldiers lay under its soporific influence the Scotch fell upon 
 them, and destroyed so many, that there were scarcely sufiB- 
 cient left to carry the king on board of the only ship that 
 returned to Norway." ^ 
 
 3°. Common Henhane. — The roots of black henbane {Hyos- 
 cyamua nijer) are strongly narcotic and inebriating. Three 
 
 ' See "The Beverages we Infuse." 
 * Morehouse — On Intoxicating Liquors, p. 104. 
 18 
 
384 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 Fig. 60. 
 
 grains of the dried watery extract of this root are about equal 
 to one of opium, but it is not so certain in its effects. I am 
 not aware that it has ever been used as a narcotic indulgence. 
 4°. The Bearded Daknel. — Of the home-grown narcotics, 
 natives of our island, the bearded darnel {Lolium temulenium), 
 fig. 66, commonly called sturdy or ryle, creeps occasionally 
 into our fermented liquors and our 
 bread. This grass grows in many 
 places as an abundant weed in the 
 corn-iields of some of our more slov- 
 enly farmers. When ripe, it is cut 
 down and thrashed with the com 
 among which it grows ; and when 
 the grain is afterwards imperfectly 
 cleaned, these seeds remain among 
 it. They have been long considered 
 to possess narcotic and singular- 
 ly intoxicating properties. A/Vlien 
 malted along with barley, which, 
 when the grain is ill cleaned, some- 
 times unintentionally happens, they 
 impart their intoxicating quality to 
 the beer, and render it unusually 
 and even dangerously heady. When 
 ground up with wheat and made 
 into bread, they produce a similar 
 effect, especially if the bread be eaten hot. Many instances 
 are on record in which effects of this kind, sometimes amus- 
 ing and sometimes alarming, have been produced by the 
 imintentional consumption of darneled bread or beer. 
 
 A case occurred on Christmas-day (1853) at Eoscrea, in 
 Ireland, where several families, containing not less than thirty 
 persons, were poisoned by eating darnel-flour in their whole- 
 meal bread. They were attacked by giddiness, staggering, 
 violent tremors similar to those experienced in the delirium 
 tremens produced by intoxicating liquors, impaired vision, 
 coldness of the skin and extremities, partial paralysis, and in 
 some cases vomiting. By the use of emetics and stimulants 
 all recovered, though greatly prostrated in strength. 
 
 The narcotic principle in these seeds has not yet been dis- 
 covered. It is even doubtful whether the narcotic effects of 
 
 Lolium temtilentum — Bearded 
 
 Darnel or Byle. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 1 foot. 
 
 Seeds, natural size. 
 
SWEET GALE. 385 
 
 darnel are due to some natural constituent of this fruit or 
 grain, or to an active alkaloid produced in the grain by the 
 attacks of a fungus allied to that causing ergot of rye. When 
 distilled with water they yield a light and a heavy volatile 
 oil ; but that the narcotic virtue resides in these oils, has 
 not yet been shown. No volatile alkali, like the nicotine of 
 tobacco (p. 283), has been detected in the water and oils which 
 distil over. 
 
 5°. Sweet Gale. — Though now, I believe, out of use in 
 this country, the sweet gale [Myrica Gale) is another native 
 narcotic, of which the qualities appear to have been familiar 
 to the ancient inhabitants of our islands. All the Northern 
 nations are said to have used this plant in former times to 
 give bitterness and apparent strength to their fermented 
 liquors. In Sweden this practice still prevails ; and as far 
 back as 1440, King Christopher confirmed an old law, which 
 inflicted a fine upon those who collected this plant before the 
 proper season, or from another person's land.^ 
 
 A tradition prevails in Ireland that the Danes knew how to 
 make beer out of heather ; and Boethius has preserved an 
 early Scotch tradition of a similar kind. " In the deserts and 
 moors of Scotland," he says, " there grows an herb named 
 1 leather, very nutritive to beasts, birds, and especially to bees. 
 In the month of June it produces a flower of purple hue as 
 sweet as honey. Of this flower tlie Piots made a delicious 
 and wholesome liquor. The manner of making it has per- 
 ished with their extermination, as they never showed the 
 craft of making it except to their own blood." ^ It is just 
 possible that the grain of truth contained in this tradition 
 may be, that the Y\ois flavoured their barley-worts with twigs 
 of flowering heather ; or that, like other Northern nations, 
 they used the narcotic gale, which grows among the heather, 
 to give a bitter flavour and a more intoxicating quality to the 
 liquor they made from them. 
 
 6°. The Ehododendrons form a well-known group of plants, 
 in which much narcotic virtue resides. The flowers of the 
 
 » Beckvrith'a History of Inventions (Bohn's edition), vol. ii. p. 385. 
 
 * A more precise tradition, current in Teviotdale, has been preserved in 
 Tjeyden's Remains, p. 320, and in Mr Christmas's very curious book, The 
 Cradle of the Twin Giants (vol. ii. p. 198), to which I am indebted for the 
 uliove extract from Boethius. 
 
386 
 
 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 Fig. 67. 
 
 Rhododendron arboreum are eaten as a narcotic by the hill- 
 people of India. The rusty-coloured leaves of the B. cam- 
 panulatum are used as snuff by the natives of India, and the 
 brown dust which adheres to the petioles of the kalmias and 
 rhododendrons is used for a similar purpose in the United 
 States of North America — (Decandolle). R. chrysanthemum, 
 a Siberian bush, is one of the most active of narcotics. 
 
 The Azalea pontica (fig. 67), a kindred shrub, which grows 
 abundantly on the borders of the Black Sea, and hangs out 
 
 its tempting flowers in the season 
 of honey-making, is said to be the 
 source of the narcotic quaUty for 
 which the Trebizond honey is 
 famous. The effects of the Euxine 
 honey, according to Pallas, resem- 
 ble those produced by the beard- 
 ed darnel, and occur where no true 
 rhododendrons grow. The na- 
 tives, he adds, are well aware of 
 the poisonous qualities of this 
 azalea. Goats, which browse on 
 its leaves before the pastures be- 
 come green, feel its influence, and 
 both cattle and sheep are some- 
 times killed by it. The extraor- 
 dinary effects which the honey, 
 extracted from the flowers of this 
 azalea, produced npon the soldiers 
 of Xenophon,^ bear ample testi- 
 mony to their narcotic qualities. 
 
 I might notice many other 
 plants which, though not employ- 
 ed as indulgences, have yet been 
 oflowertunolTliJies""*" frequently observed in common 
 life to exliibit narcotic effects. 
 Thus, among heath-plants, the Andromeda polifolia, a small 
 shrub found wild in the bogs of northern Europe and America, 
 is an acrid narcotic, and proves fatal to sheep. Similar pro- 
 perties have been observed in the United States in the Andro- 
 meda mariana, which is there called kill-lamb, or stagger- 
 ^ 1 See "The Sweets we Extract." 
 
 AzaUa pontica — The Armenian Azalea. 
 
 Scale for plant in flower, with the 
 
 leaves unexpanded, 1 inch to 5 
 
MINOR NARCOTICS. 387 
 
 bnsh, because it is Bupposed to be poisonous to Iambs and 
 calves, producing a disease called the staggers. 
 
 In the same country the leaves of the Kalmia latifolia are 
 poisonous to many animals, and are reputed to be narcotic, 
 but their action is feeble. Bigelow states that the flesh of 
 pheasants which have fed on the young shoots is poisonous 
 to man ; and cases of severe illness are on record that have 
 been ascribed to this cause alone. This property reminds us 
 of those active ingredients of opium and the Siberian fungus 
 which can pass unchanged through the milk and other liquid 
 excretions of persons who consume them. 
 
 About New York and in Long Island the Kalmia angustifolia 
 is believed to kill sheep, and is knovni by the names of sheep- 
 laurel, sheep-poison, lamb-laurel, and lamb-kill. The flowers 
 of the kalmia exude a sweet honey-like juice, which is said 
 when swallowed to bring on a mental intoxication, both for- 
 midable in its symptoms and long in duration — (Torrey). 
 In this it appears closely to resemble the Armenian azalea. 
 
 Finally, I may remark that, according to Dr Bird, the 
 odour of vanilla intoxicates the labourer who gathers it. 
 Even the perfumes of the rose, the pink, and other common 
 sweet-smelling flowers, act on some persons as narcotic poi- 
 sons — (Orfila).'^ And the vapours arising from large quanti- 
 ties of saffron are said to produce similar effects — headache, 
 apoplexy, and sometimes death. So much does the constitu- 
 tion of the individual exalt and increase the physiological 
 action of substances which, to the mass of mankind, are not 
 only harmless, but really sources of refined pleasure and 
 enjoyment. 
 
 1 That camphor is capable of doing so in a high degree, is sho\Tn hy what 
 has ncently taken place in Canada West, The ' Toronto Colonist' says : " We 
 are infonned that no less than eight persons have been admitted into the lun- 
 atic asylum in a state of insanity, occasioned by consuming quantities of cam- 
 phor to prevent cholera. Some of them carried it about in their pockets, and 
 kept from time to time eating small quantities of it. Others took it dissolved 
 in brandy. In all ca3es where it was taken in any quantity, it produced 
 iDBanity.'' 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE NAECOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 Extended use of narcotic indulgences. — Numbers of men among whom they 
 are consumed. — The use of them to he restrained chiefly by moral means.— 
 Their agricultural and commercial importance. — Total annual production 
 and value. — Their wonderful properties, and interest to the physiologist. — 
 Analogy between diseased states of mind, natural and artificial. — Do all 
 our feelings arise from physical causes ? — Special properties of the different 
 narcotics. — Defective state of our knowledge. — National influence of nar- 
 cotics. — They react upon the constitution and character. — Coincidences in 
 Asiatic and American customs. — Ancient connection between the con- 
 tinents. — General summary. 
 
 I CANNOT dismiss the subject of tlie narcotics of common life, 
 without drawing the attention of my readers to a few of the 
 more interesting considerations which the facts above enume- 
 rated suggest to us. 
 
 1°. Their extended Use. — And the first reflection which 
 occurs, as we cast a backward glance over the whole subject, 
 is the almost universal use of narcotic indulgences. Siberia 
 has its fungus ; Turkey, India, and China, their opium ; 
 Persia, India, and Turkey, with all Africa from Morocco to 
 the Cape of Good Hope, and even the Indians of Brazil, have 
 their hemp and haschisch ; India, China, and the Eastern 
 Archipelago, their betel-nut and betel-pepper ; the Polynesian 
 islands their daily ava ; Peru and Bolivia their long -used 
 coca ; New Granada and the Himalayas their red and com- 
 mon thorn-apples ; Asia and America,, and all the world, we 
 
UNIVERSAL USE OF NARCOTICS. 389 
 
 may say, their tobacco ; the Florida Indians their emetic 
 holly ; Northern Europe and America their ledums and sweet 
 galo ; the EngUshman and German their hop ; and the French- 
 man and Spaniard their lettuce. In Murcia whole families may 
 be seen to go into the gardens, and, sitting on the ground, dine 
 on a profusion of raw lettuce. No nation so ancient but has 
 had its narcotic soother from the most distant times ; none so 
 remote and isolated but has found within its own borders a 
 pain- allay er and narcotic care-dispeller of native growth ; 
 none so savage which instinct has not led to seek for, and 
 successfully to employ, this form of physiological indulgence. 
 The craving for such indulgence, and the habit of gratify- 
 ing it, are little less universal than the desire for and the 
 practice of consuming the necessary materials of our common 
 food. 
 
 Thus it may be estimated that the several narcotics are 
 used — 
 
 Tobacco, 
 
 among 
 
 800 
 
 millions of men. 
 
 Opium, 
 
 »» 
 
 400 
 
 ,, >j 
 
 Hemp, 
 
 ,, 
 
 200 to 300 
 
 )i f, 
 
 Betel, 
 
 ,, 
 
 100 
 
 yt ■ f, 
 
 Coca, 
 
 ,1 
 
 10 
 
 J> ,1 
 
 It should be recollected that two narcotics, as tobacco 
 and opium, are loth in use by the same people in many 
 instances. A tendency which is so evidently a part of our 
 general human nature, is not to be suppressed or extin- 
 guished by any form of mere physical, fiscal, or statutory 
 restraint. It may sometimes be discouraged or repressed 
 by such means, but even this lesser result is not always 
 attainable. This was proved by the failure of the Spaniards, 
 in their attempts to check the consumption of coca in Peru 
 — of kings and priests to prohibit the spread of smoking in 
 Europe and Western Asia — and more recently by the simi- 
 lar failiu-e bf the imperial crusade against the use of opium 
 in China. An empire may be overthrown by inconsiderate 
 statutory intermeddling with the natural instincts, the old 
 habits, or the growing customs of a people, while the in- 
 stincts and habits themselves are only strengthened and 
 confirmed. 
 
 Wliilo he laments, therefore, the excesses to which some 
 are led in the use of narcotic Bubstaiices, the enlightened 
 
390 THE NARCOTICS WK INDULGE IN. 
 
 philanthropist will look to moral rather than to physical 
 or fiscal means as most likely to repress them. The minds 
 of the people who use them must he enlightened. They 
 must be taught to understand what will promote in the 
 greatest degree both their bodily health and their permanent 
 mental comfort. And what will operate more than all, they 
 must be trained up to self-control and self-restraint, and to 
 the habit of reining in their natural desires for this or that 
 form of gratification. This, unhappily, mere intellectual cul- 
 ture will never do. 
 
 It is, indeed, not less melancholy than it is remarkable, 
 that some of the most striking known instances — of the 
 abuse of opium, for example— have occurred among men of 
 great mental powers, and of more than ordinary intellectual 
 attainments. The reader of the preceding pages will recol- 
 lect the total paralysis of the bodily and mental energies 
 which befell our great Coleridge while he was a slave to 
 opium ; and how the English Opium-Eater, as well as many 
 others, found mere intellectual power unable to contend vnth 
 the excited instinctive cravings of their bodily constitutions, 
 when by long indulgence they had become diseased. Ex- 
 amples like these ought to impress upon every one a Chris- 
 tian sense of his own weakness, and incline him. voluntarily 
 to turn aside from the temptations which such men were 
 unable to resist.^ 
 
 2°. Theie Agricultural and Commercial Importance. — 
 Then in regard to these narcotic substances, it may be 
 questioned whether many more people are employed in 
 raising the common necessaries of life, than in cultivating 
 and preparing these apparently unnecessary indulgences. 
 Certainly no other crops, except corn, and perhaps cotton, 
 represent more commercial capital, employ more shipping 
 and other means of transport, are the subject of a more 
 extended and unfailing traflSc, and the source of greater 
 commercial wealth. The correctness of this may be judged 
 of by the following estimates of the annual produce and 
 value of a few of the narcotics I have mentioned : — • 
 
 ' It ia comparatively easy to avoid acquiring habits, but it is very difficult 
 to overcome such as are already formed. It Tvas stated some j-ears ago at a 
 temperance meeting in London, that of 600,000 persons in the United States 
 wlio had taken the pledge, .450,000 had broken it ! 
 
THEIR COMMERCIAL AND DOMESTIC IMPORTANCE. 391 
 
 
 Prodaco 
 per acre. 
 
 Total produce 
 In lb. 
 
 Acres em- 
 ployed. 
 
 Value 
 per lb. 
 
 Total value 
 In pounds 
 sterling. 
 
 Tobocco, 
 Opium, 
 Hops, . 
 Coca, . 
 
 800 lb. 
 
 20 „ 
 
 660 „ 
 
 800 „ 
 
 4,620,000,000 
 
 25,000,000 
 
 823,000,000 
 
 30,000,000 
 
 5,650,000 
 
 1,250,000 
 
 490,000 
 
 37,000 
 
 2d. 
 
 20s. 
 
 Is. 
 
 Is. 
 
 £37,667.000 
 
 26,000,000 
 
 16,150,000 
 
 1,SOO,000 
 
 4,898,000,000 
 
 7,427,000 
 
 £80,317,000 
 
 Besides these, there are consumed in the East 500,000,000 
 pounds of betel, and 20,000,000 pounds of catechu and gam- 
 bit extract. 
 
 Of course, all these estimates are to a great extent con- 
 jectural, but they are sufiSciently near the truth to show 
 how important an influence the narcotic appetite exer- 
 cises upon the nu-al labours and commercial intercourse of 
 mankind. 
 
 Its influence on domestic economy becomes equally appa- 
 rent when we consider how large a proportion of the weekly 
 earnings is often among ourselves expended in gratifying 
 this appetite. But in India, where, on an average, not more 
 than sixpence a-head is yearly spent by the whole population 
 in the purchase of clothing,* narcotic indulgences form the 
 second great necessary of common life. 
 
 3°. Their wonderful action upon the system is not less 
 worthy of attention. The haschisch, besides the more usual 
 intoxicating effect by which it makes the patient, like the 
 infatuated lover, see 
 
 " Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt," 
 brings on that remarkable, rare, and inexplicable condition of 
 the living body, which is distinguished by the name of cata- 
 lepsy. The limbs of the patient may be moved at will by 
 the bystander ; but in opposition to the law of gravity, and 
 apparently without an effort on the part of the patient, they 
 remain for an indefinite period in any position in which they 
 may be placed. The thorn-apple calls up spectral iUusions 
 before the deceived eye, and enables the forlorn and down- 
 trodden Indian to hold refreshing converse with the spirits of 
 
 > Bombay Gazette. 
 
392 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 his rich and powerful ancestors. The Siberian fungus gives 
 insensibility to pain, while consciousness stiU remains ; and, 
 in common with the haschisch, it creates the singular de- 
 lusion that a straw is too formidable an obstacle to be 
 stepped over. The common puff-ball deprives the patient of 
 speech, motion, and sensibility to pain, while he remains 
 alive to all that passes around him. It thus realises, and 
 proves to be possible, that nightmare of our dreams, in 
 which we imagine ourselves stretched on the funeral bier, 
 sensible to the weeping of real, and the secret satisfaction of 
 pretended friends ; aware of the last screw being fixed in the 
 coffin, and the last sod clapped down above us in the grave- 
 yard, and are yet unable to move a lip for our own deliver- 
 ance ! And then how melancholy the idiotic laughter pro- 
 duced by the deadly nightshade — :S0 like that which, in rare 
 and mournful cases, is seen on the old and withered features 
 of one who, in the vigour of his manhood, charmed the world 
 by the brilliancy of his genius, or astonished it by the majesty 
 of his intellectual powers ! How singular, in fine, that in- 
 fluence of Cocculus indicus, which leaves the mind clear and 
 strong after the limbs have become feeble and the gait totter- 
 ing, as if the whole man were deadly drunk ! 
 
 In aU these effects the physiologist finds matter of most 
 attractive, most interesting, most useful, and yet most pro- 
 found and mysterious study. By what kind of action upon 
 the system does the active ingredient of hemp produce the 
 diseased condition we call catalepsy ; or that of the thorn- 
 apple, the condition in which men see visions and dream 
 dreams ; or that of the fungus, the fearful state of the most 
 fearful nightmares ; or that of the nightshade, the melan- 
 choly drivelling of the long-strained and worn-out intellectual 
 faculties ? How interesting such questions, yet how impos- 
 sible, in the present state of our knowledge, to answer them 
 completely ! 
 
 And yet towards the understanding of these remarkable 
 phases of the human mind chemistry has already brought us 
 far on our way. There are many modes of proving that oxi- 
 dation within the body is reduced during the action of nar- 
 cotics. The carbonic acid gas expired is less ; the constituents 
 of the urine are reduced ; the temperature is lowered ; chem- 
 istry has put into our hands distinct chemical substances, by 
 
THEIR EFFECTS. 393 
 
 which any one of these states can be produced temporarily 
 and at will. Is it by the agency of similar substances, 
 formed naturally in the system, that those diseased states of 
 mind are naturally produced ? If so, can we artificially, and 
 by chemical means, counteract these, so as either to retain 
 the mind in a sound condition, or to restore it to its natural 
 health? 
 
 Can we produce, for example, virtual insanity — imaginary 
 happiness, imaginary misery, or the most truth-like delusions 
 — by introducing into the stomach, and thence into the blood 
 which is passing through the hair-like blood-vessels of the 
 brain, a quantity of a foreign body too minute to bo recog- 
 nised by ordinary chemical processes ; and may not real 
 natural insanity, in any of its forms, be caused by the natural 
 production within the system itself of minute quantities of 
 analogous substances possessing similar virtues ? And, if so 
 produced, wiU our future chemistry teach ns to remove the 
 mental disease, by preventing the production of the cause, or 
 by constantly neutralising its effects ? 
 
 And these are not merely ends to bo aimed at. Even now 
 they appear to be not beyond the pale of hope. For what are 
 so like to each other as the natural and artificial states of 
 mental derangement, and how much light do they throw upon 
 each other? A monomaniac, in apparently perfect bodily 
 health, takes the strangest fancies into his brain, and talks of 
 and reasons upon them as if they were real. A person labour- 
 ing under delirium sees sights which are invisible to others, 
 and speaks of them to his attendant as real and present. The 
 second-sighted seer, in his gifted moments, receives strange 
 warnings from shadowy ghosts, and with full faith believes 
 in and reveals them. A strong man, under the influence of 
 haschisch, or the Siberian fungus, sees a huge tree in a tiny 
 straw, and persists in his inability to step over it, as if the 
 tree were really there. A child swallows common thorn-apple 
 seeds, and forthwith spectral illusions dance before it, which 
 the child regards as real. A decoction of a similar plant calls 
 up to the presence of the Indian of Peru the spirits of his 
 ancestors ; he converses with them ; and when the effects of 
 the drug have disappeared, he relates these imaginary conver- 
 sations to his neighbours, believing them to be real — and, 
 what is stranger still, they are listened to with an equal faith 
 
394 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 in their reality. An excited, nervously susceptible, or epilep- 
 tic female sees lights streaming from human graves, and Will- 
 o'-the-wisps dancing around the poles of a magnet, or issuing 
 in flickering mistiness from the finger-tops of an operator; 
 she believes and describes them as real, and, like the cred- 
 ulous Indians, hundreds around her believe the "odylic" 
 moonshine to be real" too. But are the things seen in any 
 one of these cases more true and real than they are in aU the 
 rest? Are they not all delusions alike — mere mockeries, 
 which deceive the diseased or drug-afifected senses ? And if so 
 nearly allied in nature, may they not be so also in cause and 
 in cure? At all events, what interesting chemico-physiolo- 
 gical experiments are suggested by these striking analogies ! 
 
 Some physiologists, reasoning from analogy, go BtUl farther. 
 They ascribe not only these rarer states of mind, but those 
 also which are much more frequent and common, to the direct 
 physiological action of material substances. M. Moreau, for 
 example, guided by his personal experience of the action of 
 the resin of hemp on his own mind, throws out the conjecture 
 " that every feeling of joy and gladness, even when the .cause 
 of it is exclusively moral — that those enjoyments which are 
 least connected with material objects, the most spiritual, the 
 most ideal — may be nothing else but sensations purely physi- 
 cal developed in the interior of the system, in the same way 
 as those which are produced by means of the haschisoh." In 
 so far as relates to our internal consciousness, at least, he 
 adds, "that there is no distinction, to be made between tiiese 
 two orders of sensations, in spite of the diversity of causes to 
 which they are due." This conjecture is eminently suggestive 
 of experimental research, but it goes deeper into the connec- 
 tion between mind and matter than any positive knowledge 
 we possess enables us as yet safely to penetrate. 
 
 4°. The special properties by which they are severally 
 distinguished are also remarkable features of the narcotics I 
 have described. Thus, while tobacco soothes, and, according 
 to some, sets the mind to sleep, opium and hemp stimulate 
 and exalt the mental faculties, giving the feeling and sense 
 of increased intellectual power. In the case of opium, the 
 activity of mind thus produced resembles the activity of the 
 mind in sleep. It seems as ii] all the bodily organs being at 
 rest, the thoughts and images floated over or through the qui- 
 
THEIR EFFECTS. 395 
 
 escent brain without fatiguing or wasting it, as cloud and 
 sunshine flit over a fair landscape without stirring or physi- 
 cally changing it. With hemp it is otherwise. It occasions 
 hunger along with the mental activity. Prolonged thought 
 in the waking man makes the liead smoke, as it were. Like 
 physical exertion, it exhausts the body, and brings on a 
 hunger which can only be stayed by ordinary food. And so 
 the mental activity occasioned by hemp resembles more that 
 of the waking than of the sleeping man. This agrees with 
 another observed difference between the two. Opium lessens 
 the susceptibility to external impressions, while haschisch in- 
 creases and quickens it in a high degree. The one shuts up 
 the mind, as it were, within itself, while the other throws it 
 open to the most lively influence of every bodily sense. It is 
 also in agreement with all these differences, that the action 
 of opium is interrupted and lessened by disturbance and 
 bodily motion, while that of hemp is diminished by stillness 
 and repose. In this latter quality hemp agrees with ardent 
 spirits. 
 
 Coca and opium, again, agree in sustaining the strength, 
 in certain circumstances, in a marvellous manner ; yet they 
 differ in two important qualities. The former never induces 
 sleep as opium does, and even when taken in great excess, it 
 moves the bowels, while opium usually makes them torpid 
 and costive. Betel rouses from the effects of opium, as tea 
 does from that of ardent spirits. The Siberian fungus opens 
 and shows the heart as good wine is said to do. Secrets drop 
 out spontaneously under its influence, since either the will or 
 the ability to retain them has for the time gone to sleep. 
 
 Such specialities are curious and interesting in themselves ; 
 but they are so also in showing that the several narcotic sub- 
 stiinces act upon the system, and disturb the mind in different 
 ways. They strengthen the probability, therefore, that by 
 the use of special chemical substances, we may be able, here- 
 after, to control the similarly differing mental affections by 
 which natural diseases are so often accompanied. 
 
 5°. How DEFECTIVE OUR KNOWLEDGE IS. ^Yot thoUgh, flOm 
 
 what we do know, we may venture to express such hopes as 
 these, it must have struck the reader of the preceding chap- 
 ters how very defective our knowledge is, both of the chemical 
 nature and of the physiological action of the narcotics in 
 
396 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 which we indulge. The field of study which they present is 
 indeed captivating and extensive ; but hitherto the materials 
 and opportunities for cultivating it have presented themselves 
 rarely, at intervals, and to few individuals. The growing 
 sense of the importance of chemical physiology to the aai; of 
 medicine, however, promises by-and-by to make the value of 
 a higher acquaintance with chemistry more manifest to medi- 
 cal men, and thus to lead a greater number of that profession 
 to qualify themselves for chemico-physiologioal investigations. 
 As this desirable change takes place, we may expect to see 
 many gaps in our present knowledge gradually filling up. 
 But the chemical study of the constituents of narcotics will 
 obviously never suflSce alone to explain their action on the 
 human system. We must ascertain, by direct experiment, on 
 man, and on the lower animals, the chemical changes which 
 they bring about in the functions and alterations of the body. 
 We must bring the microscope to our aid, and we must give 
 due consideration to the changes caused by ferments. These 
 latter play an important part in health and disease. The un- 
 organised ferments, like pepsine and ptyaline, help to digest 
 our food ; organised ferments, minute living creatures, are the 
 poisons of our blood in many acute diseases. 
 
 6°. Nationai, Influence of Narcotics. — We have seen that 
 almost every part of the world grows and consumes its own 
 peculiar narcotic. The use of each of these in the country 
 which produces it seems natural enough. It is consumed, as 
 the national species or variety of grain is, because it is most 
 easily and plentifully obtained. But when different narcot- 
 ics are equally accessible, why is one selected rather than 
 another ? England, for example, drinks much hopped beer, 
 while Scotland and Ireland drink comparatively little. It is, 
 no doubt, owing to some peculiarity in the national character 
 and constitution that the narcotic hop, and probably also 
 tobacco, are used more largely in the south than in the north 
 of our island — that the German and Swede smoke more than 
 the Frenchman — that opium and haschisch, so loved in the 
 East, have made such slow progress in our European affec- 
 tions. And so the different forms in which the same substance 
 is used are probably, in part at least, constitutional. France, 
 the north of Scotland, Iceland, and Northern Scandinavia, are 
 great consumers of snufi ; England, Germany (high and low), 
 
NATIONAL INFLUENCE OF NAKCOTICS. 397 
 
 Southern Scandinavia, and Bussia, prefer to bum their 
 tobacco, and inhale its smoke. Snuff is much used also by 
 the African races who live between the Red Sea and the 
 Upper Nile, while the Mograbins are great chewers, and the 
 Turks and Arabs as constant smokers — (Werne). It may 
 be said that differences such as these are mere matters of 
 taste ; but national taste, though sometimes the child of habit, 
 is more frequently the offspring of constitution and bodily 
 temperament. 
 
 But does the use of the peculiar narcotic not again react 
 upon the constitution, and gradually change the disposition 
 and temperament? It probably does. The soothers and 
 exciters we indulge in to excess are seen gradually to affect 
 the constitution, and sensibly to modify the temper and con- 
 stitution of individuals. Let the use of tliese become general, 
 and similar changes will in time affect the whole people. We 
 cannot tell how far such constitutional alterations may pro- 
 ceed. But it is a problem of interest to the legislator, not 
 less than to the physiologist and psychologist, to ascertain 
 how far and in what direction such changes may go — how 
 much of the actual tastes, habits, and character of existing 
 nations has been created by the prolonged consumption and 
 prevailing forms of the narcotics in daily use — how far tastes 
 and habits have been modified by the changes in these forma 
 which have been adopted within historic times — and what in- 
 fluence their continued use is likely to exercise on the final 
 fortunes of this or that people. The fate of nations has fre- 
 quently been decided by the slow operation of -long-acting 
 causes, unthought of and unestimated by the historian, which, 
 while the name and local home of the people remained the 
 same, had gradually changed their constitution, their charac- 
 ter, and their capabilities. 
 
 7°. Asiatic and American Customs. — In connection with 
 this subject, it is also very sti'iking that so many close coin- 
 cidences should exist between Asiatic and American customs. 
 Such are the assumed ancient use of tobacco in China as well as 
 in Central America — the use of hemp by the natives of Brazil 
 as well as by those of India and the East — the practice of 
 chewing lime or plant-ashes with the coca in Peru, and with 
 the betel in India and Cliina — the use of the red thorn-apple 
 by the hill Indians of the Andes, and of the common thorn- 
 
398 THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. 
 
 apple by the hill people on the slopes of the Himalayas. All 
 these coincidences can scarcely be the result of chance ; they 
 are evidences rather of ancient intercourse between Asia and 
 America — possibly even of ancient family relationship between 
 their early inhabitants. 
 
 We are accustomed to trace analogies among nations by 
 means of alphabets, names of things, forms of speech, modes 
 of writing, religious rites, &c., and from these to infer a 
 family connection or a community of origin. But old habits 
 and peculiar customs of common life, clung to often not only 
 with the fondness of a natural instinct, but with a reverence 
 inspired by high national antiquity — these are not less im- 
 portant evidences of ancient intercourse. They are also more 
 persistent. They may survive after power, civilisation, lan- 
 guage, alphabets, writings, and even old religions, have dis- 
 appeared. The chewing of coca in Peru has oiitlived all 
 these. The common-life customs and the bodily features of 
 the people have alone survived. 
 
 Philological travellers describe, as the most ancient race 
 among the Mexican mountains, a tribe of Indians speaking a 
 monosyllabic language which bears considerable resemblance 
 to the Chinese. The similarity of customs above described 
 is equally close and striking. And the most cautious ethnol- 
 ogist will scarcely refiise to consider the two kinds of evi- 
 dence as materially aiding each other, and giving strength 
 to the conclusion to which they both point — that a remote 
 family connection exists between the Indian inhabitants of 
 America and the most ancient populations of Eastern Asia. 
 
 8°. General Summary. — From all that we know on the 
 subject of the narcotics, we may, I think, extract these gen- 
 eral propositions : — 
 
 First, That there exists a universal craving in the whole 
 human race for indulgences of a narcotic kind. This is 
 founded in the nature of man. 
 
 Secondly, That this craving assumes in every country a 
 form which is more or less special to that country. It is 
 modified most by climate, less by race, and least, though still 
 very sensibly, by opportunity. 
 
 Thirdly, That among every people the form of craving 
 special to the whole undergoes subsidiary modifications among 
 individuals. These are determined by individual constitution 
 
SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS. 399 
 
 first, and next by opportunity. Hence different professionB, 
 in consequence of acquired habits and states of body, show 
 the craving in differently modified forms. And hence, also, 
 the different classes of society, because of their unlike means 
 and opportunities, exhibit similar differences. 
 
 Fourthly, That differences in physiological action, which 
 are sometimes very slight, separate — 
 
 a. The more dreaded from the less dreaded narcotics — 
 opium and hemp from tobacco and the hop. 
 
 b. The narcotics from the fermented liquors — opium from 
 alcohol. 
 
 c. The milder from the fiercer alcoholic drinks — the beers 
 and wines from the brandies. 
 
 d. The mildest fermented drinks from the beverages we 
 infuse — the beers from the teas and coffees. 
 
 All these indulgences shade into each other, often by 
 almost imperceptible degrees, and our constitutions, in favour- 
 able circumstances, insensibly adapt themselves to them alL 
 How much, therefore, ought we to be on our guard against 
 their insidious attractions I 
 
 Fifthly, That one general good effect of all or most of these 
 soothers is, that they remove a disturbing nervous influence 
 by which some of the usual functions of the healthy body are 
 liable to be deranged. 
 
 Lastly, I may remark that, with the enticing descriptions 
 before him, which the history of these narcotics presents, we 
 cannot wonder that man, whose constant search on earth is 
 after happiness, and who, too often disappointed here, hopes 
 and longs, and strives to fit himself for happiness hereafter — 
 we cannot wonder that he should at times be caught by the 
 tinseUy glare of this corporeal felicity, and should yield himself 
 to habits which, though exquisitely delightful at first, lead him 
 finally both to torture of body and to misery of mind ; — that, 
 debilitated by the excesses to which it provokes, he should 
 Rink more and more under the influence of a mere drug, and 
 become at last a slave to its tempting seductions. We are 
 indeed feeble creatures, and small in bodily strength, when a 
 grain of haschisch can conquer, or a few drops of laudanum 
 lay us prostrate ; but how much weaker in mind, when, know- 
 ing the evils they lead us to, we are unable to resist the fes- 
 cinating temptations of these insidious drugs ! 
 
CHAPTER XXIIL 
 
 THE POISONS WE SELECT. 
 
 The consumption of white arsenic. — ^Action of arsenic upon the system. — 
 Practice of using it in Styria. — Its effects in improving the complexion and 
 removing breatUessness. — Quantity taken. — Length of time it may be used 
 with impunity. — Illness produced by discontinuing it. — Its effects upon 
 horses. — Its chemico-physiologioal action in producing these effects. — 
 Ancient love-philtres and charms. — Incredible things formerly beUeved. — 
 The eating of clay.— Practice in Guinea, in the West Indies,.in Java, in the 
 Himalayas.^Use of bread-meal and mountain-meal in Sweden, Finland, 
 and North Germany. — The Otomacs in South America — Humboldt's ac- 
 count. — ^Does clay support life ? — Eaten by the Indians of Bolivia and Peru. 
 — Its physiological action.— Our ignorance still great. 
 
 I SHOULD omit from this outline of the chemistry of common 
 life some of the most remarkable features it presents, were I 
 not to add to the preceding chapters on narcotic indulgences 
 a brief notice of two other forms of indulgence not less won- 
 derful and extraordinary. These are, the habitual consump- 
 tion of arsenic, and the practice of eating clay. 
 
 I. The Consumption op White Arsenic. — Arsenic, as we 
 commonly call it — the white arsenic of the shops and the arseni- 
 ous oxide of the chemist — is well known as a violent poison. 
 Swallowed in large doses, it is what medical writers call an 
 irritant poison. It forms the really poisonous ingredient in a 
 potion still prepared with magic rites in Ceylon, and to which 
 a large lizard is supposed to contribute its venom — (Emerson 
 Tennent). In very minute doses it is known to professional 
 men as a tonic and alterative, and is sometimes administered 
 
AKSENIC-EATERS. 401 
 
 with a view to these effects. It is remarkable, also, for ex- 
 ercising a peculiar influence upon the skin, and is therefore 
 occasionally employed in cutaneous diseases. Arsenic, how- 
 ever, is never, I beUeve, used as a household medicine by 
 the people. 
 
 In some parts of Lower Austria, however, in Styria, and 
 especially in the hilly country towards Hungary, there pre- 
 vails among the common people an extraordinary custom of 
 eating arsenic. During the smelting of lead, copper, and 
 other ores, white arsenic flies off in fumes, and condenses in 
 the solid form in the long chimneys which are usually attached 
 to the smelting furnaces. From these chimneys, in the min- 
 ing regions, the arsenic is obtained, and is sold to the people 
 by itinerant pedlars and herbalists. It is known by the name 
 of Hidri,^ and the practice of using it is of considerable anti- 
 quity. By many it is swallowed daily throughout a long life, 
 and the custom is even handed down hereditarily from father 
 to son. 
 
 Arsenic is thus consumed chiefly for two purposes^/Vr«<, 
 To give plumpness to the figure, cleanness and softness to the 
 skin, and beauty and freshness to the complexion. Secondly, 
 To improve the breathing and give longness of wind, so 
 that steep and continuous heights may be climbed without 
 difficulty and exhaustion of breath. Both these results axe 
 described as following almost invariably from the prolonged 
 use of arsenic either by man or by animals. 
 
 For the former purpose young peasants, both male and 
 female, have recourse to it, with the view of adding to their 
 charms in the eyes of each other ; and it is singular to see 
 how wonderfully well they attain their object, for those young 
 persons who adopt the practice are generally remarkable for 
 clear and blooming complexions, for full rounded figures, and 
 for a healthy appearance. Dr Von Tschudi gives the follow- 
 ing case as having occurred in his own medical practice : 
 " A healthy but pale and thin milkmaid, residing in the 
 
 parish -of H , had a lover whom she wished to attach to 
 
 her by a more agreeable exterior ; she therefore had recourse 
 to the well-known beautifier, and took arsenic several times 
 a-week. The desired effect was not long in showing itself; 
 for in a few months she became stout, rosy-cheeked, and all 
 ' A corruption of Hutter-rauch, smelt-house smoke. 
 
402 THE POISONS WE SELECT. 
 
 that her lover could desire. In order, however, to increase 
 the effect, she incautiously increased the doses of arsenic, and 
 fell a victim to her vanity. She died poisoned, a very painfiil 
 death." The number of such fatal cases, especially among 
 young persons, is described as by no means inconsiderable. 
 
 For the second purpose — ^that of rendering the breathing 
 easier when going nphiU — a small fragment of arsenic is put 
 into the mouth, and allowed to dissolve, which it does very 
 slowly. The effect is described as astonishing. Heights are 
 easily and rapidly ascended, which could not otherwise be 
 surmounted without great difficulty of breathing. 
 
 The quantity of arsenic taken by those who are beginning 
 the practice varies with the age, sex, and constitution, but it 
 never exceeds half a grain. This dose is taken two or three 
 times a-week, in the morning fasting, till the patient becomes 
 accustomed to it. The dose is then cautiously increased as 
 the quantity previously taken diminishes in its effect. " The 
 
 peasant K ," says Dr Von Tschudi, " a hale man of sixty, 
 
 who enjoys capital health at present, takes for every dose a 
 piece about two grains in weight. For the last forty years 
 he has continued the habit, which he inherited from his 
 father, and which he will transmit to his children." 
 
 No symptoms of illness or of chronic poisoning are ob- 
 servable in any of these arsenic-eaters, when the dose is 
 carefully adapted to the constitution and habit of body of the 
 person using it. But if from want of material, or any other 
 cause, the arsenic be left off for a time, symptoms of disease 
 occur which resemble those of slight arsenical poisoning. 
 Especially a great feeling of discomfort arises, great in- 
 difference to everything around, anxiety about their own 
 persons, deranged digestion, loss of appetite, feeling of over- 
 loading in the stomach, increased flow of saliva, burning from 
 the stomach up to the throat, spasms in the throat, pains in 
 the bowels, constipation, and especially oppression in the 
 breathing. From these symptoms there is only one speedy 
 mode of relief, namely, an immediate return to arsenic-eating. 
 
 This custom never amounts to a passion like that of opium- 
 eating in the East, betel-chewing in India, or coca-chewing 
 among the Peruvians. It is not, like opium or hemp, a 
 source of intense pleasure, the craving for which cannot be 
 resisted ; but, the habit once acquired, the fear of pain com- 
 
EFFECTS OF ARSENIC ON HOKSES. 40S 
 
 pels its continuance. The use of arsenic has become a 
 necessity of life. 
 
 Upon animals the effects are similar to those which are 
 produced upon man. It fattens and plumps out the horse, 
 gives it a bright and glossy skin, and an appearance of high 
 health and condition. Hence this use of arsenic is very com- 
 mon in Vienna, especially among gentlemen's grooms and 
 coachmen. They either sprinkle a pinch of it among the 
 oats, or they tie a piece as big as a pea in linen, and fasten 
 it to the bit when the bridle is put into the horse's mouth. 
 There it is gradually dissolved by the saliva, and swallowed. 
 The sleek, round, glossy appearance of many of the first- 
 rate coach-horses, and especially the foaming at the mouth, 
 which is so much admired, is owing to the arsenic they get. 
 In mountainous districts also, where horses have to drag 
 heavy burdens up steep places, the drivers often put a dose 
 of arsenic into the last portion of food they give them. This 
 practice may be continued for years, with horses as with men, 
 without the least injury; but if a horse which is used to it 
 comes into the possession of one who does not give arsenic, 
 it loses flesh and spirits, and its strength sensibly diminishes. 
 In this state the most nutritious food is unable to restore tie 
 animal to its former appearance ; but a few pinches of arsenic 
 speedily bring it round again. ^ 
 
 Though very different in its nature from the narcotic sub- 
 stances described in the preceding chapters, yet the effects 
 which result from the use of arsenic resemble some of those 
 which are produced by the use of narcotics. Thus arsenic 
 resembles coca in making the food appear to go farther, or to 
 have more effect in feeding or fattening the body ; and, like 
 coca, it gives the remarkable power of climbing hills without 
 breathlessness. Farther, it resembles both coca and opium, 
 and especially the latter, in creating a diseased and uncom- 
 fortable state of body, when the practice of eating it is in- 
 terrupted, and in thus becoming, through long use, a necessity 
 of life. 
 
 The chemioo-physiological action of arsenic in producing 
 these curious effects has not as yet been experimentally 
 investigated. The peculiar influence exercised by arsenic 
 
 1 Medecinische Woclienschrift of Vienna, October 11, 1851, quoted in the 
 British Joarnal of Homoeopathy. The facts, I believe, are undisputed. 
 
404 THE POISONS "WE SELECT. 
 
 upon the skin is the cause of the improved appearance in the 
 complexion of the human subject, and in the outer coat of the 
 horse ; but the physiological nature of this influence, and how 
 arsenic comes to exercise it, we cannot even conjecture. 
 
 Among other, ways in which it acts chemically upon the 
 system, experiment will probably show that it lessens the 
 natural waste of the body, and especially that it diminishes 
 the quantity of carbonic acid discharged from the lungs in a 
 given time. The consequence of this action upon the lungs 
 will be, — first, that less oxygen wiU require to be inhaled, 
 and hence a greater ease in breathing under all circum- 
 stances, but which wiU be especially perceived in climbing 
 hills ; secondly, that the fat of the food which would other- 
 wise be used up in supplying carbonic acid to be given off 
 by the lungs, will be deposited instead in the cellular tissue 
 beneath the skin, and thus wiU feed, plump out, and render 
 fat and fleshy the animal which eats it. 
 
 Still, how arsenic produces or can produce such a lessening 
 of the carbonic acid formed within the body, and discharged 
 by the lungs, is quite inexphcable ; it is another of the 
 chemico-physiological mysteries of which common life, both 
 animal and vegetable, is so fall. And to lessen the produc- 
 tion of carbonic acid is to lower the temperature and reduce 
 the power of doing work possessed by the body. 
 
 The perusal of the above facts regarding arsenic — taken in 
 connection with what has been previously stated as to the 
 effects of the resin of hemp — recalls to our mind the dreamy 
 recollections of what we have been accustomed to consider 
 as the fabulous fancies of easy and credulous times. Love 
 philtres, charms, and potions start up again as real things 
 beneath the light of advancing science. From the influence 
 of hemp and arsenic no heart seems secure — by their assists 
 ance no affection unattainable. The wise woman, whom the 
 charmless female of the East consults, administers to the de- 
 sired one a philtre of hasohisch, wliich deceives his imagina- 
 tion — cheats him into the belief that charms exist, and attrac- 
 tive beautj', where there are none, and defrauds him, as it 
 were, of a love which, with the truth before him, he would 
 never have yielded. She acts directly upon his brain with 
 her hempen potion, leaving the unlovely object he is to 
 admire really as . unlovely as before. 
 
LOVE-POTIONS. 405 
 
 But tho Styrian peasant-girl, stirred by an unconsciously 
 growing attachment — confiding scarcely to herself her secret 
 feelings, and taking counsel of her inherited wisdom only — 
 really adds, by the use of hidri, to the natural graces of her 
 filling and rounding form, paints with brighter hues her blush- . 
 ing cheeks and tempting lips, and imparts a new and win- 
 ning lustre to her sparkling eye. Every one sees and admires 
 the reality of her growing beauty : the young men sound her 
 praises, and become suppliants for her favour. She triumphs 
 over the affections of all, and compels the chosen one to 
 her feet. 
 
 TRus even cruel arsenic, so often the minister of crime and 
 the parent of sorrow, bears a blessed jewel in its forehead, 
 an<l, as a love-awakener, becomes at times the harbinger of 
 happiness, the soother of ardent longings, the bestower of 
 contentment and peace 1 
 
 It is probable that the use of these and many other love- 
 potions has been known to the initiated from very early times 
 — now given to the female to enchance her real charms — now 
 administered to the lords of the creation, to add imaginary 
 beauties to the unattractive. And out of this lise must often 
 have sprung fatal results, — to the female, as is now some- 
 times the case in Styria, from the incautious use of the 
 poisonous arsenic ; to the male, as happens daily in the East 
 from the maddening effects of the fiery hemp. They must 
 also have given birth to many hidden crimes which only 
 romance now collects and preserves — the ignorance of the 
 learned having long ago pronounced them unworthy of 
 belief. 1 
 
 1 TIi8 many real folliea which the history of love-potions contains, in a great 
 measure justify such incredulity. Such, for example, are the absurdities 
 mentioned in the following passage : "To be brief, — to as great effect does 
 the virgin parchment serve, as doth the amoroils potion or love-drink, of 
 which, as the saying is, Lucretius the poet died; and Caligula the emperor 
 became with such another to be enraged, and, in a sort, distracted, and out of 
 his wits ; his wife CsEsonia having given him such a kind of drink, who, for 
 that cause, was also slain by the soldiers that had before killed her husband, 
 as Josephus reporteth. And more than so, this seemeth to be that Hippo- 
 manes, which is apt to stir and procure love, no less than the true Hippomanes 
 plucked from the forehead of a horse colt, whereof Virgil, Propertius, and 
 other poets speak much ; or that Hippomanes which, as Theocritus reporteth, 
 was planted amongst the Arcadians ; or that fish called Reraora, which, as 
 Aristotle saith, was good for love, and for happy success in suits of law ; or 
 
406 THE POISONS WE SELECT. 
 
 II. The Eating of Clay. — Among the extraordinary pas- 
 sions for eating uncommon things is to be reckoned that 
 which some tribes of people exhibit for eating earth or clay. 
 Though not so directly or immediately poisonous as arsenic, 
 the swallowing of clay, with our ordinary European constitu- 
 tions and habits, could scarcely be otherwise than injurious 
 to the bodily health ; but in Western Africa the negroes of 
 Guinea have been long known to eat a yellowish earth, there 
 called caouac, the flavour or taste of which is very agreeable 
 to them, and which is said to cause them no inconvenience. 
 Some addict themselves so excessively to the use of it, that 
 it becomes to them a kind of necessity of their lives — as 
 arsenic does to the Styrian peasant, or opium to the Theriaki 
 — and no punishment is sufficient to restrain them from the 
 practice of consuming it. 
 
 When the Guinea negroes used in former times to be 
 carried as slaves to the West India Islands, they were observed 
 to continue the custom of eating clay ; but the caouac of the 
 American islands, or the substance which the poor negroes 
 attempted in their new homes to substitute for the African 
 earth, was found to injure the health of the slaves who ate it. 
 The practice, therefore, was long ago forbidden, and has prob- 
 ably now died out in our West India colonies. In Martinique, 
 a species of red earth or yellowish tufa was stiU. secretly 
 sold in the markets in 1751 ; but the use of it has probably 
 ceased in the French colonies also. Whether the custom 
 still exists in Cuba and Brazil, where slavery is not yet en- 
 tirely extinguished, we do not know. 
 
 In Eastern Asia a similar practice prevails in various 
 places. In the island of Java, between Sourabaya and Sama- 
 rang, Labillardiere saw small square reddish cakes of earth 
 sold in the villages for the purpose of being eaten. These 
 have been found by Ehxenberg to consist for the most part 
 of the remains of microscopic animals and plants, which had 
 lived and been deposited in fresh water. In Kunjeet valley, 
 
 the bird called Sippe, spoken of by the same Aristotle ; or the lizard, bruised 
 and infused in wine, according as Theocritus prescribeth ; or the hair which 
 is found in the end of a wolfs tail ; or else the bone of a frog or toad, which 
 hath been cast into a nest of ants, by whom the flesh thereof hath been 
 gnawed away, as Hiny afErmeth." — ^The Cradle of the Twin Giants, Science 
 and History, by Henry Christmas, vol. ii. p. 261. 
 
CLAY-EATEES. ' 407 
 
 in the Sikkim Himalaya, a red clay occurs, whicli the natives 
 chow as a cure for the goitre — (Hooker*). The chemical 
 nature of this Indian clay has not been examined. 
 
 In Northern Europe, especially in the remote northern 
 parts of Sweden, a kind of earth known by the name of bread- 
 meal is consumed in hundreds of cart-loads, it is said, every 
 year. In Finland a similar earth is commonly mixed with 
 the bread. In both these cases the earth employed consists 
 for the most part of the empty shells of minute inlusorial 
 animalcules, in which there cannot exist any ordinary nourish- 
 ment. In North Germany also, on various occasions, where 
 famine or necessity urged it — as in long-protracted sieges of 
 fortified places — a similar substance, under the name of moun- 
 tain-meal, has been used as a means of staying hunger. 
 
 In tropical America, clay or earth eating is really a serious 
 endemic disease. Children begin the practice quite young. 
 Women lying in bed restless will pull out bits of clay from 
 their hut walls and offer the tempting rubbish to their squal- 
 ling brats. Dropsy carries off the infantile clay-eaters, and 
 dysentery the mature. So says Dr Gait in his 'Medical 
 Notes of the Upper Amazon.' The eating of clay prevails 
 also among the native Indians on the banks of the Orinoco, 
 and on the mountains of Bolivia and Peru. The most precise 
 and detailed accounts we possess on this subject, in regard to 
 the Indians of the Orinoco, are given by Humboldt. In north 
 latitude 7° 8', and west longitude 67° 18', he met with the 
 tribe of the Otomacs, of which he writes as follows : — 
 
 " The earth which the Otomacs eat is an unctuous, almost 
 tasteless clay — true potter's earth — which has a yellowish- 
 grey colour, in consequence of a slight admixture of oxide of 
 iron. They select it with great care, and seek it in certain 
 banks on the shores of the Orinoco and Meta. They distin- 
 guish the flavour of one kind of earth from that of another, 
 all kinds of clay not being alike acceptable to their palate. 
 They knead this earth into balls, measuring from four to 
 six inches in diameter, and bake them before a slow fire, until 
 the outer surface assumes a reddish colour. Before they are 
 eaten the balls are again moistened. These Indians are 
 mostly wild and uncivilised men, who abhor aU tillage. There 
 is a proverb current among the most distant tribes living on 
 
 ' Himalayan Journals, vol. 1. p. 145. 
 19 
 
408 THE POISONS WE SELECT. 
 
 the Orinoco, when they wish to speak of anything very un- 
 clean — ' so dirty that the Otomacs eat it.' 
 
 " As long as the waters of the Orinoco and the Meta are 
 low, the people live on iish and turtles. They kill the former 
 with arrows, shooting the fish, as they rise to the surface of 
 the water, with a skOI and dexterity that has frequently ex- 
 cited my admiration. At the periodical swelling of the rivers 
 the fishing is stopped, for it is as difficult to fish in deep water 
 as in the deep sea. It is during these intervals, which last 
 from two to three months, that the Otomacs are observed to 
 devour an enormous quantity of earth. We found in their 
 huts considerable stores of clay balls piled up in pyramidal 
 heaps. An Indian will consume from three-quarters of a 
 pound to a pound and a quarter of this food daily, as we were 
 assiired by the inteUigent monk, Fray Eamon Bueno, a native 
 of Madrid, who had lived among these Indians for a period 
 of twelve years. According to the testimony of the Otomacs 
 themselves, this earth constitutes their main support in the 
 rainy season. They eat, however, in addition, when they 
 can procure them, lizards, several species of small fish, and 
 the roots of a fern. But they are so partial to clay, that even 
 in the dry season, when there is an abundance of fish, they 
 still partake of some of their earth-balls, by way of a bonne 
 louche after their regular meals. 
 
 " These people are of a dark copper-brown colour, have un- 
 pleasant Tartar-like features, and are stout, but not protube- 
 rant. The Franciscan, who had lived amongst them as a 
 missionary, assured us that he had observed no difference in 
 the condition and wellbeing of the Otomacs during the periods 
 in which they lived on this clay. The simple facts are there- 
 fore as follows : The Indians undoubtedly consume large 
 quantities of clay without injuring their health ; they regard 
 this earth as a nutritious article of food — that is to say, they 
 feel that it will satisfy their hunger for a long time. This 
 property they ascribe exclusively to the clay, and not to the 
 other articles of food which they contrive to procure from 
 time to time in addition to it. If an Otomac be asked what 
 are his winter provisions — the term winter in the torrid parts 
 of South America implying the rainy season — he will point to 
 the heaps of clay in his hut." ^ 
 
 1 Humboldt's Views of Nature, pp. 143-144. Bohn's edition. 
 
THE CUSTOM OF CLAY-EATING. 409 
 
 Although the mouths of the Orinoco are at no great dis- 
 tance either from the West India Islands or from the colo- 
 nies of Guiana, this custom of the Otomacs differs bo much 
 from that of the Guinea negroes that we can scarcely beheve 
 it to have been borrowed by them from any runaway negro 
 slaves. It is more probably of old date, if not indigenous 
 to the country. 
 
 This is rendered more likely by the fact that a similar prac- 
 tice prevails towards the south-west, in the hill-country of 
 Bolivia and Peru. In describing the various articles he saw 
 exposed for sale in the provision markets of La Paz, on the 
 eastern Cordillera, Dr WeddeU says : " Lastly, the mineral 
 kingdom contributes its shaxe to the Bolivian markets, and it 
 is sufficient to see the important place which this contingent 
 occupies on the stalls of La Paz, to be satisfied that the part 
 it plays is deserving of much attention. The substance I 
 allude to is a species of grey-coloured clay, very unctuous 
 to the touch, and distinguished by the name of pahsa. The 
 Indians, who are the only consumers of it, commonly eat it 
 with the bitter potato of the country, Papa amargas. They 
 allow it to steep for a certain time in water, so as to make a 
 kind of soup or gruel, and season it with a little salt. It has 
 the taste of ordinary clay. 
 
 " At Chiquisaca, the capital of the State, as I was informed, 
 small pots are made of an earth called chaco, similar to the 
 pahsa of La Paz. These are eaten liko chocolate. I was 
 told of a senorita who had killed herself by an extreme fond- 
 ness for these little pots, but it appears that the moderate use 
 of pahsa is followed by no bad effects. The chemical exami- 
 nation of these substances shows that they cannot in any way 
 contribute to the nourishment of the body." ^ The chemistry 
 of edible day has been pretty thoroughly examined. It con- 
 tains generally a mere trace of organic matter, or of any mate- 
 rial that can possibly be really nutritious. Some kinds do not 
 differ at all from ordinary pipe or fire clay, some contain much 
 oxide of iron in addition, and some consist in part of the fine 
 silicious or flinty remains of minute animals. This latter sort, 
 or infusorial earth, is the " berg-mehl," or mountain-meal of 
 North Germany, already alluded to. 
 
 The eating of certain varieties of earth or clay may there- 
 ' WeddeU — Voyage dans le Nord de la Bolivia, p. 161. 
 
410 THE POISONS WE SELECT. 
 
 fore be regarded as a very extended practice among the 
 native inhabitants of the tropical regions of the globe. It 
 stays or allays hunger in some unknown way, possibly by 
 diluting the food or spreading it over a larger surface, so 
 that its nutrient materials are more completely digested and 
 utilised. It may be assumed to act somewhat in the same 
 way that the woody fibre in the food of the ox, though itself 
 in great part indigestible, acts as a usefiil addition to the daily 
 rations of such animals. It enables the body to be sustained 
 in comparative strength, with smaller supplies of ordinary 
 food than are usually necessary, and it can be eaten in moder- 
 ate quantities even for a length of time without any sensible 
 evil consequences. A fondness even is often acquired for it, 
 so that it comes at last to be regarded and eaten as a dainty. 
 But clay-eating in excess may and does prove fatal to life. 
 
 But after all, the effects attributed to clay-eating are so 
 strange that we must confess they cannot yet be wholly ex- 
 plained. That they are produced is testified by so many wit- 
 nesses that we cannot refuse our belief. So contrary do they 
 appear to our experience as to the dependence of animal life 
 and strength on what we rightly Call the necessaries of life, 
 that we hesitate to believe what we cannot explain. The 
 more we consider, however, the statements contained in this 
 and the preceding chapters regarding the beverages, the nar- 
 cotics, and the poisons, the more we shall be satisfied of the 
 imperfect state of our knowledge as to what concerns the 
 maintenance and comfort of our lives. We are especially 
 ignorant still of the conditions as to quantity and forms of 
 food under which man wiU refuse to Eve in the varied circum- 
 stances of climate, habit, and constitution to which he is sub- 
 ject. But this will come under our notice again, in a succeed- 
 ing chapter, when we consider, "What, How, and Why we 
 Digest." 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE ODOUKS WE ENJOY. 
 
 VOLATILE OILS AND FRAGRANT RESINS. 
 
 Vegetable odours.— The volatile oils ; how extracted. — Quantity yielded ty 
 plants. — The otto of roses ; how collected. — The oils exist in different parte 
 of plants. — Simple and mixed perfumes. — Analogy between odoiiis and 
 sweet sounds. —Odours may resemble and blend with each other.— Extrac- 
 tion of oils by maceration. — Composition of oils of lemons, oranges, &o. — 
 Isomeric oils.— Oils containing oxygen. —Volatile oils of almonds and 
 cinnamon. — Artificial essences. — Oil of spirsea; can be prepared by art. — 
 Manufactured substitutes for oil of bitter almonds. — Nitro-benzol, or 
 Essence de Mirbane, and benzonltril. — The camphors.— Chinese and Borneo 
 camphors. — Balsams of Peru and Tolu. — The odoriferous resins ; why 
 they become fragrant on red-hot charcoal ; their use as incense. — Vanilla; 
 its fhigrance, and analogy to the balsams. — The Tonka bean ; coumarin, 
 the odoriferous principle of this bean.— The same principle in vernal grass, 
 melilot, and other plants. — Gives fragrance to hay. 
 
 Among the appliances of common life by which, the comfort of 
 man in a civilised state is very materially affected, are the 
 odours he enjoys and the smells he dislikes. Upon the origin, 
 nature, mutual relations, and physiological action of these, 
 modern chemistry has tlirown much light. I shall therefore, 
 in this place, briefly illustrate their chemical history. 
 
 The odours we enjoy are nearly all derived, either directly 
 or indirectly, from the vegetable kingdom. Among scents in 
 common use, musk, civet, and ambergris, are the only ones 
 which owe their origin to animal life ; while with pleasant 
 smells of a purely mineral origin we are as yet altogether 
 unacquainted. 
 
412 THE ODOURS WE ENJOY. 
 
 I. Vegetable Odours. — The odoriferous substances yielded 
 by plants may be conveniently grouped thus — ^the volatile 
 oils, such as the oils of lemons and lavender — ^the camphors, 
 balsams, and sweet-smelling resins — and the volatUe ethers, 
 such as those which give their agreeable bouquet to different 
 kinds of wine. 
 
 1°. The Volatile Oils. — ^Wlien the parts of odoriferous 
 plants are distilled with water, an oil passes over along with 
 the steam, and floats on the surface of the water, which con- 
 denses in the receiver. This volatile oil usually exhibits in 
 a high degree the peculiar smell, and often also the taste of 
 the plant from which it is extracted. In this way are ob- 
 tained the oils of roses, lavender, orange-flowers, cinnamon, 
 peppermint, and many others, which in smell and taste 
 remind us at once of the plants from which they have been 
 distilled. 
 
 The greater part of the oil usually floats on the surface of 
 the water which distils over along with it. But this water 
 always retains a small portion of the oil in solution, and from 
 this oil it acquires both smeU and taste. Thus rose-water, 
 lavender-water, peppermint-water, &c., are simply waters 
 impregnated with a minute quantity of the oil from which 
 they severally derive their names. The water. distilled from 
 myrtle-flowers forms that very agreeable perfume known in 
 France by the name of eau dange. 
 
 The quantity of oil yielded by some plants is so small, that 
 the water which distils over along with it retains it aU in 
 solution. In such cases the oil is difficult to obtain, and is in 
 consequence very expensive. Eoses are among the flowers 
 which yield their oil in such minute quantities, and hence 
 the high price of the pure attar of roses. The rose-gardens 
 at Grhaziepore are fields in which small rose-bushes are planted 
 in rows. In the morning they are red with blossoms, but 
 these are all gathered before mid-day, and their leaves distilled 
 in clay stiUs, with twice their weight of water. The water 
 which comes over is placed in open vessels, covered with a 
 moist muslin cloth to keep out dust and flies, and exposed all 
 night to the cool air or to artificial cold — as we set out milk 
 to throw up its cream. In the morning, a thin film of oil has 
 collected on the top, which is swept off with a feather, and 
 carefully transferred to a small phial. This is repeated, night 
 
VOLATILE OILS. 413 
 
 after uight, till nearly the whole of the oil is eeparated from 
 the water. Twenty thousand roses are required to yield a 
 rupoc-weight of oil, which sells for £10 sterling — (Hookek*). 
 In the province of Philippopolis it was generally found that 
 28 cwt. of roses produced 1 lb. of attar. The total yearly 
 yield of this province of European Turkey, before the disas- 
 trous war of 1877-78, was 3600 lb. Pure attar of roses is 
 rarely to be met with. That which is sold in the Indian 
 bazaars is adulterated with sandalwood-oil, or diluted with 
 sweet salad-oils. What we obtain in Europe is genei-aUy 
 still more diluted, as the price we usually give for it suffi- 
 ciently shows. 
 
 The odoriferous principle is not always diffused uniformly 
 over the whole plant. In some, as in mint and thyme, it 
 resides in the leaves and stem ; in others, as in the cinnar 
 mon-tree, it is in the bark ; in others, as in the sandal and 
 cedar trees, it is in the wood ; in others, like the rose, the 
 lily, the violet, and the jasmin,^ it is in the petals of the 
 flower. In many, like the Tonquin bean, the anise, and the 
 caraway, it is in the seed or fruit ; while in some, like ginger, 
 the iris, and the vitivert, it is in the root. It sometimes even 
 happens that distinctly different scents are extracted from 
 different parts of the same plant. Thus the orange-tree, 
 from its leaves, yields a perfume called petit grain — from its 
 flowers, another called neroU — and from the rind of its fiuit 
 the essential oil of oranges, called also essence of Portugal. 
 
 The volatile oils and scented waters are used as perfumes 
 for the toilet, to flavour the bonbons of the confectioner, or for 
 giving an agreeable relish to the finer dishes of the cook. 
 The oils of roses, lavender, orange-flowers, &c., are sold only 
 for toilet use, and for scenting the preparations of the per- 
 fumer ; while those of lemons, peppermint, cinnamon, cloves, 
 ginger, &o., are employed almost solely by the confectioner 
 and the cook. 
 
 Every pure volatile oil is a definite chemical compound, or 
 
 ' The weight of a rupee is something less than 176 grains. Others say that 
 a thousand roses yield less than 2 grains of oil. Of course, the quantity must 
 vary very much as the scent of the rose is greater or less. 
 
 ' Pure oil of jasmin is almost as rare and dear as pure attar of roses. At 
 the Great Exhibition of 1851, 6 oz. of it were exhibited, the price of which 
 was £9 an oz. 
 
414 THE ODOURS WE ENJOY. 
 
 a mixture of two or more such compounds, and is possessed 
 of properties which, are fairly constant and peculiar to itself. 
 Among other properties, it possesses an odour, more or less 
 pronounced, by which it can in most cases readily be recog- 
 nised. Upon this odour, when agreeable, its value and esti- 
 mation depend ; and the quality of the odour determines the 
 purpose, in perfumery or otherwise, for which it is employed. 
 The pure unmixed odours of such single oils are often highly 
 esteemed, and by some persons preferred to aU other scents. 
 But in preparing delicate perfumes, it is seldom that a single 
 oil, or the parts of one plant only, are employed for the pur- 
 pose. The art of the perfumer is shown by the skill with 
 which he combines together the odoriferous principles of 
 various flowers, or mingles together many volatile essences, 
 so as to produce a more grateful scent than any single plant 
 can be made to yield. In this way the huile de mille fleurs (oil 
 of a thousand flowers) professes to be made ; and the secret 
 recipe for the popular eau-de-Cologne — called the perfection 
 of perfumery — depends for its excellence on the same 
 principle.! 
 
 Odours resemble very much the notes of a musical instru- 
 ment. Some of them blend easily and naturally with each 
 other, producing a harmonious impression, as it were, on the 
 sense of smell. Heliotrope, vanilla, orange-blossom, and the 
 almond, blend together in this wayj and produce different 
 degrees of a nearly similar effect. The same is the case with 
 citron, lemon, vervain, and orange-peel, only these produce a 
 stronger impression, or belong, so to speak, to a higher octave 
 of smells. And again, patchouli, sandal-wood, and vitivert 
 form a third class. It requires, of course, a nice or well- 
 trained sense of smell to perceive this harmony of odours, and 
 to detect the presence of a discordant note. But it is by the 
 skilful admixture, in kind and quantity, of odours producing 
 a similar impression, that the most delicate and unchangeable 
 fragrances are manufactured. When perfumes which strike 
 the same key of the olfactory nerve are mixed together for 
 handkerchief use, no idea of a different scent is awakened as 
 the odour dies away ; but when they are not mixed upon this 
 principle, perfumes are often spoken of as becoming sickly or 
 faint, after they have been a short time in use. A change of 
 ' Report of the Juries of the Great Exhibition of 1851, p. fi08. 
 
PERFUMES. 415 
 
 odour of this kind is never perceived in genuine eau-de- 
 Cologne. Oils of orange-flower, lemons, juniper, and rose- 
 mary are among those which are mixed and blended together 
 in this perfume. None of them, however, can be separately 
 distinguished by the ordinary sense of smell ; but if a few 
 drops of hartshorn be added to an ounce-measure of the water, 
 the lemon smell usually becomes very distinct. 
 
 But though, as I have said, each volatile essence is chem- 
 ically distinct, and possesses properties peculiar to itself, 
 among which the odour is one, yet the delicacy and fragrance 
 of this odour are found to vary considerably with the locality 
 in which the plant that yields it has been grown. Thus, on 
 the shores of the Mediterranean, near Grasse and Nice, the 
 orange-tree and the mignonette bloom to perfection in the 
 low, warm, and sheltered spots ; while, in the same region, 
 the violet grows sweeter as we ascend from the lowest land 
 end approach to the foot of the Alps. So lavender and pep- 
 permint, grown at Mitcham,* in Surrey, yield oils which far 
 excel those of France or other foreign countries, and which 
 bring eight times the price in the market. This effect of 
 soil and climate on the odour of plants resembles that which 
 they exercise in so remarkable a manner on the narcotic con- 
 stituents of tobacco, opium, and hemp.* 
 
 The small proportion of volatile oil which many flowers 
 yield by distillation has led to other modes of extracting it 
 for use in perfumery. The flowers are placed between layers 
 of pure fat melted on to glass or metal plates ; whole piles of 
 flowers and fat-layers being built up ; or alternate layers of 
 flowers and of cotton steeped in a pure fixed oil are similarly 
 arranged, and, after lying for a while, are submitted to pres- 
 sure. In either way the oil or fat is impregnated more or 
 less strongly with the odour of the flowers, and has acquired 
 a proportionate value. This process is called maceration, 
 enfleurage, &c., and- fats so perfumed are generally called 
 French pomatums. Spirit of wine extracts the odoriferous 
 principle from these scented fats, and the solutions are em- 
 ployed for the manufacture of perfumed waters. When a 
 plant or some part of it is particularly rich in a volatile oil, 
 
 1 The Mitcham lavender is, however, the produce of Lavandula vera, a 
 ■peciea distinct from L. apica, the plant cultivated chiefly on the Continent. 
 » See " Tie Narcotics we Indulge in." 
 
416 THE ODOUKS WE ENJOY. 
 
 then it may be obtained by mere pressure. The oils of lemon 
 and orange-peel are so prepared. 
 
 The otto of roses comes chiefly from Constantinople and 
 Smyrna ; the oil of lemons from Sicily and Portugal ; berga- 
 mot in large proportion from Sicily ; and anise from Germany 
 and the East Indies. The oil of cloves imported is small in 
 quantity; but the consumption is probably ten times as much, 
 the English wholesale druggists being themselves large dis- 
 tillers of this oil. Caraway is also largely distilled at home ; 
 while of oil of lavender probably as much as 6000 lb. are dis- 
 tilled in England, besides much oil of peppermint. 
 
 2°. Composition op the Volatile Oils. — A large number 
 of the odoriferous essences of plants is composed of the two 
 elementary bodies, carbon and hydrogen only. And what is 
 very remarkable, many of them, which are otherwise very 
 distinct, consist of these two elements vmited together in the 
 same proportions. Thus. 100 lb. of pure oil of turpentine 
 consist of— 
 
 Carbon, 88.24 lb. 
 
 Hydrogen, 11.76 „ 
 
 100.00 „ 
 
 And the oils of lemons, of oranges, of juniper, of rosemary, of 
 copaiba, and many others, though so different in their pro- 
 perties from the oil of turpentine, and from each other, con- 
 sist of exactly the same proportion (88 J lb.) of carbon united 
 to the same weight (llf lb.) of hydrogen. Substances thus 
 differing in properties, and yet agreeing in composition, are 
 distinguished among chemists by such names as isomeric, 
 metameric, and polymeric — terms signifying that, while the 
 constituent elements are the same in nature and in propor- 
 tion, their arrangement is not identical, or that they exist in 
 multiple proportions. As an example of the latter case, we 
 may take the oils of caraway and cloves. Caraway-oil con- 
 tains a hydrocarbon, having the usual composition of the 
 common turpentine — namely, C^ Hjg. But clove-oU contains 
 another hydrocarbon, having one-third more carbon and one- 
 third more hydrogen in its molecule — namely, C^ H,. — the 
 same proportions, but larger- quantities of its two elements. 
 This is a polym.er- 
 
 Another class of these volatile odoriferous oils contains a 
 
OIL OF BITTEIt ALMONDS. 
 
 417 
 
 small proportion of oxygen combined with the carbon and 
 hydrogen of which they chiefly consist. To this class belongs 
 the volatile oil which bitter almonds (fig. 68) yield when dis- 
 tilled with water. This fragrant oil is very different from the 
 fixed oil which almonds, both sweet and bitter, yield when 
 submitted to pressure, and is much used by the confectioner 
 and cook. 
 
 Of the same kind is the oil of cinnamon, which the young 
 bark of the cinnamon laurel (fig. 69) yields when distilled 
 
 Fig. 68. 
 
 Fig. 69. 
 
 Amygdalus vymmunU, var. ainara — 
 
 The Bitter Almond. 
 
 Scale, 1 Inch to 20 feet 
 
 Scale for flowers, leaf, fhilt, stone, and 
 
 kernel, 1 inch to 8 inches. 
 
 Cinnamomum reytonicum— The 
 
 Cinnamon Lanrel. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 20 feet 
 
 Scale for leaf, 1 inch to 4 inches. 
 
 Fruit, natural sine. 
 
 with water ; and also the oil which is obtained from anise- 
 seed by a similar process. But in this class the proportions 
 of the several constituents are rarely the same in two differ- 
 ent oils. Thus the three oils above mentioned consist, in 100 
 parts, respectively of — 
 
 Oil of Anise, Oil of Cinnamon. 
 
 Car1)on, . 
 Hydrogen, 
 Oxygen, . 
 
 81.08 
 8.11 
 10.81 
 
 100.00 
 
 81.82 
 
 6.06 
 
 12.12 
 
 100.00 
 
 Oil of Bitter 
 Almonds. 
 
 79.24 
 
 5.66 
 
 15.10 
 
 100.00 
 
 Oil of roses consists of two compounds — one solid and scent- 
 
418 
 
 THE ODOURS WE ENJOY. 
 
 Fig. 70. 
 
 less, the other liquid and fragrant. The former by oxidation 
 easily passes into the latter. The oils of rose, citroneUe, 
 and many others belong to this class, though in many cases 
 a kind of turpentine or hydrocarbon accompanies the oxi- 
 dised oil, which is their chief and characteristic ingredient. 
 They nearly aU differ from one another in composition, the 
 proportions of the three elements varying in each case. 
 
 3°. Artificial Essences. — It was long a character of aU the 
 volatile oils of the kinds above mentioned, that they could 
 not be formed or imitated by chemical art. The progress of 
 chemistry, however, has recently made us acquainted with 
 several odoriferous essences, somewhat peculiar in kind, which 
 can be prepared by artificial processes ; and this advance is 
 probably only the forerunner of many similar discoveries by 
 which our power over matter is hereafter to be enlarged. 
 
 But as yet a few only of the essential or volatile oils just 
 described can be prepared by artificial means in tlie laboratory. 
 Plants possess the strange heredi- 
 tary power of producing the iden- 
 tical chemical compound through 
 long ages, but man has not yet 
 succeeded in making oil of lemons 
 or oil of rose. StiR the progress of 
 chemistry has already enabled us 
 to prepare a few fragrant oils, such 
 as those of meadow-sweet, bitter 
 almonds, and winter-green. When 
 the flowers of the meadow-sweet 
 {Spircea iilmaria,, fig. 70) are dis- 
 tilled with water, they yield a sweet- 
 smelling substance, known as the 
 essence of spiraea, which contains 
 oxygen. This essence resembles in 
 its odour the oil of bitter almonds, 
 and is remarkable for possessing 
 the properties of the substances 
 known to chemists as aldehydes. 
 Common aldehyde passes by oxidation into vinegar, or acetic 
 acid, while the aldehyde of spiraea passes into salicylic acid. 
 
 Now when water is boiled upon the bark of the willow-treo 
 [salix), it extracts from the bark a bitter substance, to which 
 
 Spir(Ea iilmaria — The Queen 
 
 of the Meadows. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 1 foot. 
 
nilTATIONS OF BITTEK-ALMOND-OIL. 419 
 
 tlie name of salicine is given, and which possesses many of 
 the fever-dispelling virtues of the well-known quinine. When 
 this bitter substance is heated along with bichromate of pot- 
 ash and sulphuric acid, it is converted into essence of spiraea, 
 or salicylic aldehyde. Thus we have a method of forming 
 this essence without the use of the natural flowers of the 
 spinea itself. And although this method is too expensive to 
 be adopted on a large scale for the manufacture of the essence 
 for practical purposes, it is a type of a whole series of pro- 
 cesses by which one vegetable compound may be made to 
 yield a new, and in some cases more valuable, compound. 
 We can now make oil of bitter almonds, or benzoic aldehyde, 
 and also the fragrant principle of vanilla, by artificial means. 
 And we now Imow at least two chemical preparations which 
 closely resemble the oil of bitter almonds, and can be cheaply 
 prepared by art. 
 
 This oil, as is well known, is highly prized, extensively 
 used, and comparatively costly. The methods by which it 
 is imitated are as follows : — 
 
 First, When common coal is distilled in our gas-works, a, 
 quantity of tarry matter (coal-tar) comes over along with the 
 gas which is used for lighting our streets. When this tarry 
 matter is again distilled by itself, a thin, very combustible 
 liquid, known as coal-naphtha, is obtained. This coal-naphtha 
 is a mixture of various substances, one of which is a very 
 light colourless liquid, distinguished by the name of benzol 
 or benzene. When this benzol is carefully mixed with nitric 
 acid (aquafortis), it unites with it and forms a sweet-scented 
 compound (nitro-benzol), which in odour and general appear- 
 ance somewhat nearly resembles oil of bitter almonds. It is 
 known and sold in commerce under the names of artificial oil 
 of bitter almonds, and of Essence de Mirhane. It differs in 
 composition from the true volatile oil of bitter almonds ; but 
 it resembles it in odour, and is a tolerable substitute for it in 
 the scenting of soaps. But it is not a pleasant substitute for 
 tlie true oil in confections and cookery, for its taste and smell 
 are somewhat coarse, and it is not very wholesome, to say 
 the least. Now the true bitter-aim ond-oilj when freed from 
 the prussic acid which invariably and necessarily accompanies 
 the crude oil as distilled (for it is formed simultaneously), is 
 destitute of poisonous properties. 
 
420 THE ODOUES WE ENJOY. 
 
 The second mode of imitating this volatile oil has recourse 
 to substances of a very different origin. The urine of the 
 horse and the cow contains an acid substance which is easily 
 extracted from it in the solid state, and which is known to 
 chemists by the name of hippurie acid. When this acid, 
 mixed with sand and cliloride of zinc, is heated in a retort 
 over a lamp, it decomposes, giving off carbonic acid gas, while 
 there then distils over a liquid substance, containing 13 J per 
 cent of nitrogen, to which the name of henzonitril has been 
 given. The odour of this liquid also is similar to that of the 
 volatile oil of bitter almonds. 
 
 The thoughtful reader will rightly appreciate the tendency 
 and social importance of results and researches such as these, 
 with which modern chemical investigations abound. They 
 tend to give a new value to waste materials, by discovering 
 new uses for them, and to cheapen at the same time, and 
 bring within reach of the many, the luxuries and material 
 refinements heretofore confined to the few. 
 
 4°. The Camphors, Odorous Crystalline Solids, and 
 Aromatic Balsams and Resins, are all more or less solid, 
 possess a fragrance more or less agreeable, and always 
 contain oxygen as one of their constituents. By combina- 
 tion with oxygen, many of the volatile oils become changed 
 into resins. 
 
 The Camphors. — There are several known varieties of 
 camphor. The two most familiar in commerce are the 
 camphor of Japan, called also Dutch camphor, because it 
 is usually brought to Europe by the Dutch — and the China 
 or Formosa camphor. Every part of the camphor-tree {Gam- 
 phora officinarum), fig. 71, is impregnated with the perfume. 
 It is extracted by chopping the branches and boiling them in 
 water ; the camphor rises to the surface, and becomes solid 
 when the water is afterwards allowed to cool. 
 
 The odour of the camphors is powerful, very characteristic, 
 and to many persons very agreeable. Camphor is used for 
 scenting soaps, tooth-powders, and numerous other prepara- 
 tions for the toilet, for preserving fabrics and animal matters 
 from moth, and for medicine. 
 
 What is called Borneo camphor is obtained from reservoirs 
 in the trunk .of a different tree, Drydbalanops aromatica, 
 which, like the camphor-tree, belongs to the Laurel Order. 
 
THE BAI-SAMS OF PERU AND TOLU. 
 
 421 
 
 Fig. 71. 
 
 Borneo camphor may be oxidised by nitric acid into common 
 camphor; indeed it stands in the same relation to common 
 camphor as alcohol does to aldehyde. 
 
 The Balsams are thick, more or less fragrant, fluids, which, 
 like the common turpentines, are obtained by making in- 
 cisions into the bark of the 
 trees which yield tjiem. The 
 balsam of Peru, and the balsam 
 of Tolu, which are among the 
 best known, are extracted in 
 this way from species of My- 
 roxyhn which grow in Peru, 
 New Granada, Sau Salvador, 
 and on the banks of the Mag- 
 dalena in South America. 
 They consist chiefly of an 
 odoriferous volatile oil, which 
 comes over when they are dis- 
 tilled alone, and of a resin 
 nearly void of smell which re- 
 mains behind. The balsam of 
 Peru has a powerful but agree- 
 able odour, resembling that of 
 vanilla. The balsam of Tolu 
 is very fragrant, though less 
 powerfully so than that of 
 Peru. The fragrance of both 
 is increased, and somewhat 
 changed, when they are drop- 
 ped on a red-hot coal. While burning, the inodorous resin 
 decomposes, and gives off an agreeable scent. 
 
 For their natural odour these balsams are used as an in- 
 gredient in various perfumes; they are also employed in 
 medicine. For the additional scent they give off when 
 burned, they are employed as incense, and in preparing the 
 fumigating pastilles which we bum in the chambers of the 
 sick and elsewhere to disguise or overpower unpleasant 
 smells. Both Peru and Tolu balsams contain cinnamic acid, 
 a crystalline acid related to oil of cinnamon. 
 
 The Odoriferous Besins, such as myrrh and fiankincense, 
 have comparatively little natural fragrance. The balsamic 
 
 Camphora officinarum — The Camphor 
 
 Laiirel, or Camphire tree. 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 30 feet. 
 
 Scale for flower and leaf, 1 inch to 4 inchea. 
 
422 THE ODOURS WJE ENJOY. 
 
 resins, such as storax and benzoin, have more decided odours, 
 and, like the true balsams, recall the sweet smell of vanilla. 
 Like the camphors and balsams, all are used to some extent 
 in preparing articles for the toilet. 
 
 But it is for the odours they evolve when burned that they 
 are chiefly used and valued. When thrown in the state of 
 powder upon burning charcoal, myrrh, frankincense, aloes, 
 benzoin, storax, olibanum, and other resins of this kind, emit 
 an agreeable fiagrance. Hence they are largely used for 
 burning as incense in- the Greek and Komish churches and 
 in pagan temples. When burned in this way, three effects 
 are produced : first, the volatile oil is driven off in vapour, 
 and dififases through the air the scent emitted by the resin in 
 its natural state ; secondly, white vapours of a volatile fra- 
 grant acid, which exists partly ready formed in the resin,* 
 ascend and mingle their smell with that of the volatile oil ; 
 and, thirdly, another volatile aromatic oil is produced by the 
 decomposition of the resin upon the red-hot charcoal. The 
 vapours of this oil also rise and unite with those of the 
 other substances, and thus produce' the full effect upon the 
 olfactory nerves for which the most esteemed varieties of 
 incense are valued, and disguise more effectually the offen- 
 sive effluvia from the dirty clothes and unwashed bodies of 
 the worshippers. 
 
 Vanilla. — I have described the balsams as possessing an 
 odour which resembles that of vanilla (fig. 72). This highly- 
 prized perfume resides in the pods of an orchidaceous plant 
 ( Vanilla aromatica or planifoUa), long known to the ancient 
 Mexicans for its remarkable fragrance, and probably used by 
 them, as it is now, for flavouring their favourite chocolate. 
 The best vanilla is stiU brought from Mexico, though less 
 esteemed varieties are produced by species of the plant 
 which grow in other parts of tropical America,^ and much is 
 now grown in Eeunion, Mauritius, Guadaloupe, and Demerara. 
 
 1 From benzoin the fragrant lensoic acid is given off— from storax, and the 
 halsams of Peru and Tolu, the cinnamic acid. The benzoic acid is white 
 solid, and crystalline ; and, though so different in its properties, is remarkable 
 for possessing the same ultimate chemical composition as the volatile essence 
 of spiraea already described. The cinnamic acid is very like the benzoic and 
 derives its name from the fragrant oil of cinnamon, which, by combining with 
 oxygen, forms cinnamic acid. 
 
 2 See Map of Vanilla Countries, p. 360. 
 
VANILUN FROM VANILLA. 
 
 423 
 
 The finiit of this plant, as shown in the annexed figure, is a 
 long pulpy pod, filled with rounded seeds. When ripe, the 
 pod is said to yield from two to six drops of a liquid which 
 has an exquisite odour, and bears the name of balsam of 
 vanilla. This balsam, however, is never seen in Europe. 
 
 Vanilla plani/blia—'Ibc Aromatic Vaaillo. 
 
 Scale for plant, 1 inch to 6 feet. 
 
 Scale for flowers and A:uit, 1 inch to 6 inches. 
 
 The pods are dried in the sun, and afterwards slightly fer- 
 mented, for the purpose of developing their odour, as, when 
 fresh, they are said to be without smell. In some places 
 they are afterwards rubbed over with oil, and in this state 
 sent to market. 
 
 The odoriferous principle of vanilla is a beautiful colourless 
 crystalline substance called vanillin, soluble in alcohol and 
 in boiling water. It melts easily, and turns into vapour 
 slowly at the ordinary temperature. Bottler in which vanilla 
 pods have been kept sometimes become like the pods them- 
 selves, encrusted with crystals of vanillin. Vanillin in 100 
 parts contains — 
 
424 
 
 THE ODOUKS WE ENJOY. 
 
 Carbon, 
 Hydrogen, 
 Oxygen, , 
 
 C3.1 
 
 5.3 
 
 31.6 
 
 100.0 
 
 Vanillin lias been produced from a substance called coniferin 
 
 occurring in tbe sapwood of certain firs. The artiiicial fla- 
 
 vourer not merely resembles but is identical with the natural. 
 
 As a perfume, vanilla is highly esteemed. Its principal 
 
 use, however, is in flavouring 
 ^'S- 7.3. chocolate, ices, creams, and 
 
 other confectionary. Coffee, 
 and even tea, are sometimes 
 also flavoured with it. Phy- 
 siologically, it acts upon the 
 system as an aromatic stimu- 
 lant, exhilarating the mental 
 functions, and increasing gen- 
 erally the energy of the ani- 
 mal system. Like some other 
 odours— ^those of camphor and 
 patchouli, for example — that 
 of vaniUa sometimes exhibits 
 narcotic effects upon those 
 who are much exposed to it. 
 Five or six hundredweight 
 of vanilla are yearly imported 
 into this country. 
 
 Ooumarin. — Nearly allied 
 to the fragrant resins is an 
 interesting and widely-diffus- 
 ed natural perfume, to which 
 chemists have given the name 
 of coumarin. A fragrant bean, 
 
 Di^ttrix odorata— Tbe Tonquln Bean tree, the Tonka Or Tonquin bean 
 Leaves an(friclmeof*flowers,'i inch to (^S* '^^)' *^^ ^^i* °f ^^^ Dip- 
 
 *«»ohes. terix odorata of Guiana, for- 
 
 a. Flower : 6, Kernel or bean ; c. Pod or -v.^-..!-..- «.«n i • .i . 
 
 fruit. 1 inch to 2 inches. meriy weU known m this 
 
 country, and much employed 
 
 for perfuming snuff (by a recent regulation not more than 
 
 3 per cent of ground Tonquin beans may be added to snuff), 
 
 contains this substance coumarin. Alcohol readily extracts 
 
COUMAKIN. 
 
 425 
 
 Fig. 74. 
 
 it from the bean ; and by evaporating the alcoholic solution, 
 we obtain the substance in a solid state. It forms white 
 brilliant needles, soluble in hot water and spirit, and pos- 
 sessed of an agreeable aromatic odour. When heated, it 
 melts and rises in vapour ; and this vapour, when inhaled, 
 acts powerfully upon the brain. It consists of carbon, hydro- 
 gen, and oxygen, in the following proportions : — 
 
 Carbon, 74 
 
 Hydrogen, 4 
 
 Oxygen 22 
 
 100 
 
 But the interesting circumstance in the history of this 
 substance is that, though discovered first in a foreign bean, 
 the produce of a warm climate, it has since been found to 
 exist in, and to impart their well-known agreeable odours 
 to, several of our most common European plants. Among 
 tliese, the sweet-scented vernal grass 
 (fig. 74), to which we are in the habit 
 of ascribing the fragrance of well-made 
 hay, deserves especial mention. This 
 grass contains coumarin, and imparts to 
 dry hay the odour of this substance. 
 
 The following is a list of the sweet- 
 smelling plants in which coumarin, 
 either free or associated with such 
 closely-allied acids as the melilotic and 
 coumaric, has already been found : — 
 
 Dipterix odorata, or Tonka bean. 
 
 Atigracum fiugrans, the Faham tea-plant of 
 
 Mauritius. 
 AspenUa odorata, the common sweet-woodniff. 
 ArUhoxanthum odoratum, the sweet-scented 
 
 vernal grass. 
 MelUotus officinalia, or common melilot. 
 MelUotxts ccerulea, the blue or Swiss melilot. 
 Hierochloe borealis, the northern holy grass. 
 
 It is the same odour, therefore, which 
 gives fragrance to the Tonka bean, to 
 the Faham tea of the Mauritius, to our 
 melQot trefoil, and to sweet-smelling hay-fields, in which 
 melilot and vernal grass abound. In Switzerland the blue 
 
 Anthoxaiithnm odoratum — 
 Sweet-scented vernal grass 
 Scale, 1 inch to 9 inches. 
 Single flower, glume, and 
 seed, natural size. 
 
426 THE ODOURS WE ENJOY. 
 
 melilot is mixed with particiilar kinds of scented cheese, and 
 the ooumarin it contains gives to the cheese of Schabzieger 
 its peculiar well-known odour. ■ Coumarin has been prepared 
 artificially, from the oil of Spirma ulmaria (see p. 418). And 
 several other coumarins having very pleasant odours have 
 been made. 
 
 Many sweet-smelling grasses are known, such as Ataxia 
 horsfieldii, Andropogon Iwacancusa, Andropogon Schoenanthus 
 or ginger-grass, &c., &c., in which coumarin probably does 
 not exist. Indeed, the Andropogon citratuSy A. muricatus, 
 and allied species (the Melissa hislcus of India), yield distinct 
 and fragrant oils, used as medicines and perfumes in that 
 country. There are other sweet-smelling substances, there- 
 fore, without doubt, from which grasses dried for hay, in 
 different countries, may derive an agreeable odour. 
 
 It has been thought that hay-fever, to which nlany sensi- 
 tive people are Hable during hay-time, may be due to the 
 diffusion of coumarin in the air at that season. But the 
 notion is probably incorrect. It is more probable that hay- 
 fever is due to tiny organisms, low forms of living matter, 
 excessively simple in structure and minute in size, which are 
 known to be peculiarly abundant in the pollen of certain 
 grasses. An injection into the nostrils of a weak solution of 
 sulphate of quinine allays the unpleasant symptoms of hay- 
 fever by killing these organisms. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE ODOURS WE ENJOY. 
 
 THE VOLATILE ETHERS AND ANIMAL ODOUEB. 
 
 Wine-ether, how prepared. — Nitric ether and acetic ether. — ^Wood-spirit aod 
 wood-ether. — Potato-spirit, or oil of grain, and potato-ethers. — Oil of 
 ■winter-green, a natural ether ; how prepared artificially. — Sweet-smelling 
 ethers manufactured as perfumes, — Fear-oil, or essence of jargonelle. — 
 AppU-oil.— Grape and cognac oils. — Pine-apple oil. — Hungarian -wine-oil, 
 and other artificial fragrances.— Caprylic ethers.— The flavour of whisky. — 
 Propylio ethers. — The bouquet of wines.— CEnantliio ether gives the generic 
 flavour to grape -wines. — Characteristic fragrant principles of different 
 wines.— Use of the sweet-flag in flavouring spirits and beer; its abun- 
 dance in Norfolk. — Odoriferous substances of animal origin. — Musk ; the 
 musk-deer; lasting smell of musk. — Civet. — Effect of dilution upon 
 odoriferous substances. — Use of civet in Africa. — Castoreum and 
 hyraceum. — Ambergris and perfumes prepared from it. — Insect odours. 
 — General reflections. — Extreme diffusiveness of odours. — Delicacy of 
 the organs of smell. — How chemistry increases our comforts, gives rise to 
 new arts, and generally civilises. 
 
 II. The Volatile Ethers yielded by plants, like the crystal- 
 line principles vanillin and coumarin, have been studied of 
 late by the chemist. His interest in them arises in part 
 from the circumstance that a careful analytical examination 
 of some of those produced in living plants, has given ns the 
 key not only to the true chemical composition of these sub- 
 stances themselves, but also to the mode of prodiicing by art 
 an almost endless variety of odoriferous compounds. 
 
 1°. Wine-Ethers. — When spirit of wine (alcohol) is mixed 
 with twice its bulk of common oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid) 
 
428 THE ODOUES WE ENJOY. 
 
 in a retort, and distilled by the aid of heat, a very light, 
 volatile, and somewhat fragrant liquid passes over, which is 
 known by the name of ether, or wine-ether. In chemical lan- 
 guage it is the oxide of ethyl, while alcohol is the hydrate. 
 
 If into the retort, along with the alcohol and sulphuric 
 acid, a sufficient quantity of nitrate of potash (saltpetre) be 
 introduced before the mixture is distilled, the nitric acid of 
 the saltpetre^ acts upon the alcohol, forming water, and a 
 compound ethei — the nitrate of ethyl or nitric ether of the 
 shops — distils over. It is very light, volatile, and not un- 
 pleasantly odoriferous. If, instead of saltpetre, acetate of 
 potash be introduced into the retort, acetic acid unites with 
 the ether during the distillation, and acetic ether, another 
 volatile ethereal compound, distils over. 
 
 By similar processes many other acids may be made to 
 yield compound ethers, each possessed of a composition and 
 properties peculiar to itself. 
 
 2°. Wood-Ethees. — When dry wood is distilled in iron 
 retorts for the manufacture of wood - vinegar, there comes 
 over, along with the tar, water, and vinegar, a quantity of a 
 peculiar alcohol, which is separated and sold under the name 
 of wood-spirit. Methylated spirit is spirit of wine containing 
 10 per cent of this wood-spirit. 
 
 When this wood-spirit is distilled with sulphuric acid, as 
 in the first of the processes above described, a peculiar ether 
 comes over, which is known as wood-spirit ether, or wood- 
 ether. This ether differs from wood-spirit as wine-ether does 
 from wine-spirit (common alcohol), in being an oxide instead 
 of a hydrate. From wood-spirit, compound ethers may be 
 formed nearly in the same way as they are formed from the 
 wine - spirit. These compound ethers have a general re- 
 semblance, in properties and composition, to those formed 
 from the wine-spirit ; but each of them possesses- a peculiar 
 composition and sensible properties, by which it can be distin- 
 guished more or less readily from every other compound body. 
 
 3°. Potato -Ethers. — When brandy is manufactured from 
 potatoes,^ there comes over along with it, in the first dis- 
 
 1 Nitric acid, known commonly by the name of aquafortis, unites with 
 potash, and forms nitrate of potash, or saltpetre, and water. Acetic acid 
 (vinegar) and potash form acetate of potash and water. 
 
 2 See p. 250. 
 
COMPOUND ETHERS. 429 
 
 tillation, an oily liquid in which there ie found a quantity of 
 a third peculiar spirit or alcohol, known as potato-spirit. It 
 exists also in the crude spirits distilled from grain,* and 
 from grape-husks, and gives to these varieties of brandy 
 their disagreeable flavour. By repeated rectifications it is 
 separated from the brandy, and may thus be obtained in a 
 pure state. It is more unpleasant to the taste and smell, 
 and more maddeningly intoxicating, than wine-alcohol ; and 
 hence the peculiar, violent, and often poisonous efiects pro- 
 duced by ill-rectified grain and other raw spirits. 
 
 When this potato-spirit is distilled with oil of vitriol, it also 
 yields a peculiar volatile ethereal liquid — the potato-spirit 
 ether, or briefly the potato-ether ; and by processes similar to 
 those already described, compound ethers are readily obtained 
 in which this potato-ether is combined with the nitric, the 
 acetic, and many other acids. 
 
 For certain chemical reasons, which it is unnecessai-y here 
 to state, in chemical language — 
 
 Wine-spirit is ethyl alcohol ; wine-ether is ethyl oxide. 
 Wood-spirit is methyl alcohol ; wood-ether is methyl oxide. 
 Potato-spirit is amyl alcohol ; potito-ether is amyl oxide. 
 
 And the compound ethers they severally form are named after 
 the acid and simple ether tkey respectively contain. Thus 
 the common nitric ether I have mentioned is nitrate of ethyl, 
 common acetic ether tlie acetate of ethyl — and so on. 
 
 With the aid of this preliminary explanation, the non- 
 chemical reader will readily understand and appreciate what 
 follows on the subject of ethereal perfumes. 
 
 4°. Oil of Winter-gbeen. — In the State of New Jersey, in 
 North America, the partridge-berry, tea-berry, or winter-green 
 (Oaultheria procumbens) fig. 75, grows abundantly in the 
 woods and drier swamps. It is a dwarf evergreen fragrant 
 heath-plant, and possesses an agreeable aromatic odour re- 
 sembling that of the sweet birch. It has long been gathered 
 and distilled, like other fragrant plants, for tlie sake of the 
 volatile oil, which in this way may be extracted from it. 
 This natural essence is largely imported into Europe as a 
 perfume, and is known in commerce by the name of oil of 
 winter-green. 
 
 ' Hence it is called also oil o/gmin, and by the Germana/uid oU. 
 
430 THE ODOURS WE ENJOY. 
 
 About thirty years ago, a French chemist (M. Cahoure), 
 ia experimenting with this oil, discovered that, unlike the 
 ^ sweet-scented volatile oils 
 
 ^^' ' usually yielded by plants 
 
 ■ — those of peppermint, cin- 
 namon, anise, juniper, &c. 
 — this was a compound 
 body belonging to the 
 known family of com- 
 pound ethers, and, like 
 them, was capable of be- 
 ing decomposed and again 
 
 GauUl^ria 3>ro««I,«^--Wmter-green of recompoundcd by chemical 
 
 Scale, 1 inch to 6 inciies. art. This was the • first ■ 
 
 Flower and fruit, natural size. , . -, . , . 
 
 step in a new direction, 
 and opened up a fresh field of practical inquiry, which, though 
 as yet only partially cultivated, has already yielded most 
 unexpected fruits. 
 
 I have already spoken (p. 418) of the bitter substance, salt- 
 cine, which by a peculiar process can be made to yield the 
 fragrant essence of spirasa* By another simple process this 
 salicine ^ produces a solid crystalline acid substance, the 
 salicylic acid. Now salicylic acid forms with methyl the 
 basis of wood-ether, a compound ether called methyl salicy- 
 late, and this is found to be identical with the oil of winter- 
 green. This-compound is produced naturally in the Gaultheria 
 procumiens, and in the bark of Betula lenta, and the leaves of 
 Andromeda Laschenaultii ; but the same esteemed perfume, 
 now that we know its nature, we can also make by art. 
 Salicylic acid may also be more cheaply made from carbolig 
 acid, a coal-tar product, than from salicine. 
 
 5°. Aktificial sweet-smelling Ethers. — Chemical research, 
 however, had meanwhile been discovering in the laboratory 
 other compound ethers, not known to occur in nature, but 
 which were distinguished by smells so sweet as to entitle 
 them to be placed among valuable perfumes. Many of these 
 
 1 Salioine-is largely extracted from -willow-bark, and is employed in prefer- 
 ence to quinine amid the marshes of the Danube, in Turkey, and in the East- 
 ern Archipelago — being less stimulating, and therefore better suited to the 
 constitution and circumstances of the native inhabitants of these parts pf the 
 earth. 
 
FRUIT-ESSENCES. 431 
 
 have a well-established place in the market, and have become 
 articles of extensive and profitable manufacture. Thus, under 
 the name of — 
 
 a. Pear-oil, or essence of jargonelle pears, is sold a spirit- 
 uous solution of acetate of amyl ^ derived from vinegar and 
 potato-spirit. This ether, when pure, has a peculiar fruity 
 smell, but when mixed with six times its bulk of spirit of 
 wine, it acquires the peculiar pleasant odour and flavour of 
 the jargonelle pear! Whether the pear, when ripe, really 
 contains any of this ether, is not known. It is largely manu- 
 factured, however, chiefly for the use of the confectioners. 
 Among other purposes, they employ it to flavour pear-drops, 
 which are merely barley-sugar flavoured with an influitesimal 
 quantity of this ether. If these are not always as pleasant in 
 taste as they might be, it may be due to the excessive quan- 
 tity of amyl acetate used, or to the presence of the offensive 
 potato-spirit itself. 
 
 b. Apple-oil, again, is a compound of the same potato or 
 amylic ether, with an acid kno^n to chemists by the name of 
 the valerianic. It is easily prepared, by substituting the W- 
 chromate of potash for the acetate of potash employed in the 
 manufacture of pear-oiL The pure ether becomes the com- 
 mercial apple-oil, when it is dissolved in five or six times its 
 bulk of alcohol. It has then a most agreeable flavour of 
 apples, and is employed largely by the confectioners. 
 
 c. Grape- oil and cognac -oil are also formed from amyl or 
 potato-ether and acids. They are used for giving the desired 
 cognac flavour to British-made and other inferior brandies. 
 
 It will strik-e the reader as not unworthy of remark, that 
 the same potato-spirit which, because of its offensive smell 
 and taste, is carefully removed by the rectifler from the 
 ardent spirits he distils, should, under the hands of the 
 chemist, become possessed of the most agreeable and coveted 
 fiugrance ! 
 
 d. Pine-apple oil, again, is common wine -ether combined 
 with butyric acid, and tlien dissolved in alcohol. It has the 
 pleasant flavour of the pine-apple, and is employed in England 
 to flavour sweetmeats and an acidulated drink or lemonade 
 called pine-apple ale. In Germany it is used to flavour bad rums. 
 
 ' Prepared, as already described, by distilling potato-spirit with oil of vitriol 
 and acetate of potash. 
 20 
 
432 THE ODOUES WE ENJOY. 
 
 The butyric acid contained in this compound ether is the 
 substance which gives its peculiar disagreeable odour to 
 rancid butter. One mode of preparing the ether is to make 
 butter into a soap, and to distil this soap with alcohol and 
 sulphuric acid.'' 
 
 e. Hungarian wine-oil is wine-ether in combination with a 
 peculiar acid called the oenanthio acid. This compound 
 exists in all grape-wines, and, when extracted, is employed 
 for flavouring an artificial cognac which can scarcely be dis- 
 tinguished from the genuine. For this purpose it has been 
 sold in Breslau, at the price of sixty-nine dollars a pound ! 
 It was prepared in Hungary — whence its name — and was 
 distilled from wine -husks. It has been examined by 
 Schwartz, who, besides making out its composition and 
 chemical relations, has also suggested a cheap process by 
 which it may hereafter be abundantly prepared. 
 
 / Other artificial fragrances. — The above are only samples, 
 so to speak, of the almost endless variety of artificial com- 
 pound ethers, possessed of sweet smells, which are either 
 already manufactured, or are capable of being so, easily and 
 cheaply, for use as perfumes. Essences of quinces and of 
 melons have been prepared. 
 
 There are, for example, many other acids which are capable 
 of forming compound ethers possessed of agreeable odours. 
 We know already that the formic and hippuric acids ^ each 
 yield with the wine and wood spirit ethers, agreeable per- 
 fumes, the formiates and benzoates of methyl and ethyl ; and 
 the number of similar compounds which may be formed with 
 other acids is almost inexhaustible. 
 
 Then, besides the three simple ethers prepared from wine, 
 wood, and potato spirits, there are many other simple ethers, 
 not so commonly known as these, each of which, with the 
 same host of acids, yields compounds of a more or less odor- 
 iferous character. Thus — 
 
 1 Another mode is, to mix sugar with powdered chalk and a little curd of 
 milk, in water, and set it aside. The curd gradually causes the sugar to 
 change, first into lactic acid, and then into butyric acid, which comhines with 
 the lime of the chalk. This \mtyiate of lime, distilled with alcohol and sul- 
 phuric acid, gives the pine-apple oil. 
 
 2 The formic acid is the acid of ants, hut it can also be formed artificially. 
 The hippnric acid is extracted from the drainings of stables. 
 
THE BOUQUET OF WINES. 433 
 
 Caprylk etlter, or oxide of capryl, yields with acetic acid a 
 compound of a most intense and pleasant smelL The chloride 
 too of capryl has an orange odour. Those ethers which it 
 forms with other acids are still scarcely known, but many 
 of them are remarltable for their aromatic odour. To the 
 drinkers of whisky it may be interesting to know that the 
 peculiar flavour of this liquor is believed to be due to the 
 presence of a compound of this caprylio ether.^ Again — 
 
 Propylic ether, or oxide of propyl, when com'bined with 
 butyric acid, yields a pure odour of pine-apple enperior to that 
 which the same acid gives when combined with wine-ether. 
 And many other sweet smells, still unknown, will no doubt 
 become familiar to us when the compounds of this sing^ilar 
 substance are further investigated.* • 
 
 6°. The Bouquet of Wines. — Among the odours we enjoy 
 is to be reckoned the bouquet of our favourite wines. This 
 bouquet is owing mainly to the presence of one or more vol- 
 atile ethereal oils, similar to those I have above described. 
 
 Generally speaking, the peculiar character of a wine is de- 
 pendent upon at least two volatile compounds possessed of 
 odours more or less distinct. One of these is common to all 
 good grape-wines — the other is characteristic of the kind of 
 wine, sometimes even of the sample we are examining. As 
 in a well-made eau-de-Cologne, so the excellence of a bouquet 
 or the value it imparts to the wine which possesses it, depends 
 veiy much on the way and degree in which the odours of 
 those several compounds harmonise and flow into each other. 
 
 When a vinous liquor of any kind is submitted to distil- 
 lation, it yields, besides common wine-alcohol, two ethers, 
 one of which is the acetic ether before described, while tlie 
 other is cenanthio * ether. It is the same as the Hungarian 
 
 1 Caprylio ether is prepared from one of the acid substances contained in 
 butter. The peculiar turpentine manufactured in some parts of Germany 
 rem the Scotch fir (Piniis sylvestrls), very closely approaches the oil of 
 whisky in smell. This, however, is merely a variety of turpentine, and not 
 nn ether. 
 
 ' Propylie ether, or oxide of propyl, is prepared from another alcohol, the 
 propylic ; and I have called it a singular substance because, while this oxide 
 of propyl yields delightful odours, another compound of the same propyl 
 yields repulsive smells, like those of boiled crabs, herring-brine, and stinking 
 
 lisll. 
 
 " From Mnv, wine ; and avOas, a flower. 
 
434 
 
 THE ODOURS WE ENJOY. 
 
 Fig. 76. 
 
 wine-oil already described, and consists of common wine-ether 
 united to a peculiar acid, the oenanthic. This ether, when 
 pure, possesses the characteristic odour of grape-wine in a 
 very high degree. It gives what may be called the funda- 
 mental or generic flavour to all grape-wines. 
 
 But wines contain other odorous substances besides the 
 two ethers just named. Our tnowledge of these fragrant 
 materials is . at present very imperfect, but we may attribute 
 to them the specific flavours or bouquets of particular sorts of 
 wine. They appear to consist in great measure of compound 
 ethers ; such as butyrate of ethyl and analogous compounds. 
 
 I need scarcely observe that the practice of flavouring 
 brandies and beers, so as to give them an esteemed bouquet, 
 has been long known and extensive- 
 ly practised. I have already men- 
 tioned certain compound ethers — the 
 Hungarian wine-oil, and the pine- 
 apple oil for example — which are 
 employed to give the flavour of cog- 
 nac or of rum to inferior spirits, and 
 the use of juniper in the manufac- 
 ture of gin is known to every one. 
 A less familiar flavourer is the sweet 
 flag, the calamus of the Song of Solo- 
 mon (fig. 76). This imparts at once 
 an aromatic taste and an agreeable 
 bouquet or odour to the liquid in 
 which it is infused. It is used by 
 the rectifiers to improve the flavour 
 of gin, and is largely employed to 
 give a peculiar taste and fragrance 
 to certain varieties of beer. It 
 abounds in the rivers of Norfolk, 
 and from this locality the London 
 market used to be principally sup- 
 plied. As much as £40 has been sometimes obtained for 
 the year's growth of a single acre of the river-side land, on 
 which it naturally grows. 
 
 Aeorus calamus — The Sweet Flai 
 Scale, 1 inch to 10 inches. 
 
 III. Animal Odouks. — Most species of animals emit from 
 their skin an odour peculiar to themselves, by which other 
 
MUSK. 435 
 
 animala, keen of scent, can recognise and trace them. The 
 blood and flesh of animals also possess a peculiar smell, and 
 only long habit prevents us from distinguishing in this way 
 the flesh of the ox, the sheep, and the pig. The parts of 
 animals have rarely so powerful an odour as to cause them 
 on that account to be either rejected or selected for economical 
 purposes. It is different with the secretion of animal bodies. 
 Some of these are offensively disagreeable to the sense of 
 smell, while others are sought after and valued as agreeable 
 perfumes. Among the latter, musk, civet, and ambergris are 
 the most important. 
 
 1°. Musk is a substance which is found secreted in a small 
 bag, attached to the under part of the body of a ruminating 
 animal of the size of a roebuck (fig. 77), which inhabits the 
 mountains of China, Thibet, 
 Tonquin, Tartary, and Sibe- ^' 
 
 ria. It is obtained only from ^^^^^ ■ ^-= 
 
 the male animal. When ''^*^f<- i-r-ix; 
 
 fresh, it is in the state of a 
 soft, salve-like, reddish-brown 
 mass. It possesses a peculiar, 
 penetrating, long - continuing 
 odour; and a bitter, astringent, 
 aromatic, slightly saline taste. 
 By keeping, it dries, becomes 
 blackish-brown, and assumes 
 the form of little rounded 
 grains, which give a brown 
 
 , , " , Moschus «WiC/ii/criij;— Musk-deer. 
 
 streak upon paper, and are 
 
 easily rubbed to powder. It is one of the most powerful, most 
 penetrating, and most lasting of odoriferous substances. It 
 attaches itself, and gives a durable scent to everything in 
 its neighbourhood. Different qualities of musk are met vrith 
 in the market, and from its high price it is very liable to 
 adulteration. When pure, it dissolves in water to the ex- 
 tent of three-fourths of the whole. 
 
 The chemical nature of musk is not tlioroughly understood. 
 It contains several less valuable ingredients, the general 
 properties and origin of which are known ; but the chemical 
 characters and composition of that ingredient which emits the 
 esteemed odour have not yet been rigorously investigated. 
 
436 THE ODOURS WE ENJOY. 
 
 So persistent and apparently indestructible is the odorous 
 principle of musk, that when taken internally, as it frequently 
 is in cases of spasms, it passes through the pores of the skin, 
 and impregnates the perspiration with a strong smell of 
 musk. When kept in capsules of wax, however, or in contact 
 with lime, with milk of sulphur, with sulphide of gold, or 
 with syrup of almonds, musk loses its smell. But in all these 
 cases the smell is restored by moistening it with liquid am- 
 monia (hartshorn). 
 
 The flesh of the crocodile and the alligator smells of musk, 
 while the musk-rat deriTes its name from the smell it emits. 
 The same odour is sometimes emitted by plants. Thus our 
 common beet has a musky smell, and the musk-plant of our 
 gardens possesses it more distinctly. But the Delphinium 
 glaciale, a plant which grows on the Himalayas at the height 
 of 17,000 feet, has so strong and disagreeable a smell of 
 musk, that the natives believe the musk-deer, which is found 
 on the mountain-slopes, to derive its smell from eating this 
 plant. Another Delphinium, the D. hrunonianum, which grows 
 on the western slopes of the Himalayas, has a similar smell 
 of musk, though less disagreeable — (Hooker). The nature 
 of the musky-smelling substances contained in these plants is 
 not yet known. 
 
 About 14,000 ounces of musk are imported into this country 
 every year. From British India about 7000 ounces are 
 annually exported. Each natural bag or sac weighs only 
 about half an ounce, less than half of which consists of musk. 
 It is somewhat remarkable that while this scent is so much 
 esteemed in England and other countries, it is extensively 
 disliked in Italy, and makes many persons iU. 
 
 2°. Civet. — The substance known in commerce by the 
 name of civet, is secreted by two animals of the genus Viverra 
 ( V. zibetha and V. civetta), one of which is a native of Asia, 
 and the other of Africa. It is of a pale-yellow or brownish 
 colour, has usually the consistence of honey, and possesses 
 a somewhat acrid taste. Its smeU resembles that of musk. 
 "When undiluted, this smell is so powerful as to be offensive to 
 many ; but when mixed with a large quantity of fat, or other 
 diluting substance, it becomes agreeably aromatic, fragrant, 
 and delicate.^ It is used only as a perfume, and chiefly to 
 1 It throws some light upon the diversity of taste which pi-evails in regard 
 
CIVET. 
 
 437 
 
 Fig. 78. 
 
 Viverra civetta — Civet-cat 
 
 mingle with and improve the odour of less costly scents. 
 Lavender and other scented waters are made more agreeable 
 by a skilful addition of civet, in minute proportions. 
 
 Over Northern Africa, between the Eed Sea and Abyssinia, 
 the civet-cat, called by the Arabs kedis, is highly valued. 
 Numbers of them are 
 kept in wicker cages for 
 the purpose of collect- 
 ing the civet they se- 
 crete. It is used by the 
 women for the purpose 
 of powdering the upper 
 parts of their body, their 
 necks, &c. Its strong 
 odour overpowers the 
 disagreeable effluvium 
 which often escapes 
 from their dusky skins in that arid climate.* 
 
 The blacks of Angola, too, use the skin of the civet-cat to 
 scent their clothes and bodies. If the clothes of a person 
 touch the grass where one of these animals has been, they 
 acquire a most persistent musky odour. Other species of 
 Viverra are known — all possess the civet odour. In the 
 northern province of Ceylon the glossy genette or civet-cat, 
 Viverra indica, abounds. The Tamils confine it in cages, and 
 collect the perfume from the bars. 
 
 Castoreum, yielded by the beaver, is a natural secretion, 
 similar in its origin and its properties to musk and civet. 
 Like these substances, it has, when fresh, a powerful pene- 
 trating odour, and a bitter acrid taste. The odour, however, 
 is fetid and disagreeable : it is only used in medicine, there- 
 fore, and never as a perfume. In 1875 over 3000 lb. were 
 imported. 
 
 Hyraceum is a similar substance obtained from the mountain- 
 
 to scents, that the same substance may he agreeable in u diluted, wliich is 
 offensive in a concentrated state. The volatile oils of ueroli, thyme, and 
 patchouli, are in themselves unpleasant ; but when diluted with a thousand 
 times their bulk of oil or spirit, their fragrance ia delightful. So the odor- 
 iferous ethers require to be diluted with six times their weight of alcohol 
 before they can be used as perfumes. 
 1 Weme's African Wanderings (Tiavellers' Library), pp. 187, 280. 
 
438 
 
 THE ODOUKS WE ENJOY. 
 
 badger [Hyrax capensis). It resembles castoretun in smell,, 
 and is sometimes used medicinally in its stead. 
 
 3°. Ambergris is an odoriferous substance whicb is occasion- 
 ally found floating on the sea near the Molucca Islands, in 
 other parts of the Indian Ocean, and off the coast of South 
 America. It is a diseased product formed ia the intestines 
 of the sperm-whale (Physeter macrocephalus), in which it haa 
 sometimes been found. • 
 
 Fis. 79. 
 
 
 f^rr 
 
 jj>4^''^_ 
 
 Physeter Tiiacroceplialus — Sperm-whale. 
 
 When fresh, ambergris is solid, greyish, streaked, or 
 marbled, and somewhat soft. It has a strong agreeable, 
 odour, resembling that of musk, and a fk,tty taste. It con- 
 sists, to the amount of six-sevenths of the whole (85 per 
 cent), of a crystalline substance, soluble in alcohol, called 
 ambrein, probably identical with cholesterin, from bile and 
 brain. It is not known to what ingredient its value as a 
 perfume is owing. It sometimes fetches £2 an ounce. 
 
 Ambergris is rarely employed alone. The essence of am- 
 bergris of the perfumer is an alcoholic tincture of the sub- 
 stance, to which the oils of roses, cloves, &c., are added 
 according to fancy. What is called tincture of civet is formed 
 by macerating half an ounce of civet with a quarter of an 
 ounce of ambergris in a quart of rectified spirit. Either of 
 these tinctures, added in minute quantity to lavender-water 
 
ODOURS OF INSECTS. 439 
 
 to tooth-powder, hair-powder, toilet-soaps, &c., communicates 
 to them the peculiar odour of ambergris. 
 
 In fixity and permanence of scent the animal odours are 
 unrivalled. A handkerchief scented with ambergris retains 
 the odour even after it has been washed ; musk and civet are 
 scarcely less permanent. To this property these substances 
 owe their chief use in perfumery. They impart to volatile 
 handkerchief-scents a smell which continues after the less 
 fixed ingredients have disappeared. A favourite mixed per- 
 fume of this kind, the extrait d!amhre of the Parisian perfumers, 
 is compounded of — 
 
 Esprit de rose triple, \ pint. 
 
 Extract of ambergru 1 „ 
 
 Essence of musk, } „ 
 
 Extract of vanilla, 2 ounces. 
 
 When well perfumed with this, a handkerchief, though 
 washed, retains an odour stilL 
 
 The high price which ambergris, like musk and civet, 
 brings in the market, leads to frequent adulterations, both in 
 this country and in those from which it is imported. The 
 chemistry of this substance is not yet so well understood as 
 to justify us in hoping soon to produce its odoriferous ingre- 
 dient by artificial processes. Yet the observation, that dried 
 cow-dung smells of ambergris — (EEDWOOD)^and that even 
 nightsoil, under certain forms of treatment, assumes a power- 
 ful odour of this substance — (Homberg) ^ — suggests lines of 
 research, by following which a mode of manufacturing amber- 
 gris may hereafter be discovered. 
 
 4°. Insect Odours. — Among animal odours of an agreeable 
 kind, those given off by certain insects are deserving of men- 
 tion. To entomologists, many strong-smelling insects are 
 known, though some of these, of course, are far from being 
 agreeable to our senses. 
 
 The Ceramhyx moschata (fig. 80), a coleopterous insect, 
 derives its specific name from the musky odour it emits. 
 Most of the ants of Europe give off, when crushed, a 
 well-known penetrating odour of formic acid : those of Bahia 
 in South America, which are very troublesome and destruc- 
 tive, give off when squeezed a strong smell of lemons — 
 (Wetherell). The Gyrinus natator of Linnaeus has so 
 1 Memoirs of the French Academy, 1711. 
 
440 THE ODOURS WE ENJOY. 
 
 strong an odour, that, wten several of the insects are col- 
 lected together, they may be scented at a distance of five or 
 six hundred paces — (Roesel). It is to 
 Jig. 80.^^^^ ^j^g eating of these insects that Mr 
 Lloyd "■ is inclined to ascribe the remark- 
 able odour emitted by the grayling (2%- 
 mallus vulgaris), which by different writ- 
 ers has been likened to that of thyme 
 or of honey. Many of the Ichneumon- 
 idea emit an odour, powerful and agree- 
 able, like that of otto of roses. 
 CerambyxmosciMia I (Jo not multiply examples of this 
 
 Half natural size. , . i . i ■ ■ j. i x it, 
 
 kmd, as nothing is yet known as to tne 
 chemical nature of the odoriferous substances which insects 
 emit ; nor have any of them as yet been employed for pur- 
 poses of luxury or economy. 
 
 Many reflections are suggested by the facts I have brought 
 together in the present chapter. Want of space forbids me 
 to indulge in more than one or two. 
 
 First, One circumstance which presses very strongly upon 
 our attention, is the extremely minute state of difiiision in 
 which the odoriferous substances of animal origin still make 
 themselves perceptible to our senses. A fragment of musk 
 not only gives ofl: a strong smeU when it is first exposed to 
 the air, but it continues to do so for an almost indefinite 
 period of time. Yet the odour must be caused by particles 
 of matter which are continuously escaping from the musk, so 
 long as it remains exposed to the air. How inconceivably 
 small in weight, how infinitely minute in size, the molecules 
 must be of which this constantly-flowing stream of matter 
 consists ! 
 
 And to vegetable perfumes the same observations almost 
 equally apply. A single leaf of melUot will for years pre- 
 serve and manifest its sweet odour, and yet the quantity of 
 coumarin it contains would probably be inappreciable by the 
 most delicate balance. We know in this country how a stalk 
 of mignonette, placed in an open window, will scent the air 
 that enters, through the whole of a long summer's day. 
 But in hot climates, especially during the morning and 
 evening hours, this diffusiveness of perfumes is stiU more 
 1 Scandinavian Adventures, i. 128. 
 
DELICACY OF THE OKGANS OF SMELL. 441 
 
 Etriking. "The odour of the balsam -yielding Humeriades 
 has been perceived at a distance of three miles from the 
 shores of South America — a species of Tetracera sends its 
 perfume as far from the island of Cuba — and the aroma of 
 the Spice Islands is wafled out to sea." ^ Aromatic woods or 
 a drop of mercury preserve cloth from insects, yet lose no 
 appreciable weight. 
 
 The quantity of ethereal oil which gives its peculiar aroma 
 to grape-wine has been estimated at one -forty -thousandth 
 only of the bulk of the wine, and that which gives the aroma 
 to roasted coffee, at one-fifty-thousandth of its weight ; but 
 ozone is distinctly perceptible to the smell when mixed with 
 500,000 times its bulk of air. 
 
 Secondly, The nicety of the bodily organs by which we per- 
 ceive these extremely diluted perfumes is equally a subject 
 for admiration. The sense of smell detects and determines 
 the presence of these infinitesimally minute molecules. This 
 is remarkable. But it does much more. It distinguishes 
 between them, pronouncing the impression it derives from 
 one class to be agreeable, and from another class the reverse. 
 It then further pronounces upon the amount and kind of the 
 pleasurable sensation produced by each, and this through 
 a long series of varieties and degrees. How delicate the 
 structure of the organs of smell must be I How surprising 
 that they should continue uninjured and unimpaired, amid so 
 much thoughtless usage, and for so long a series of years I 
 
 Thirdli/, This history of the odours we enjoy illustrates in 
 a remarkable manner, how, out of the most vile materials, 
 chemistry, by its magical processes, can extract the sweetest 
 and most desirable substances. How wonderful this power, 
 how delightful to possess it, how useful its results ! Arti- 
 ficial musk and ambergris I Manufactories of oil of bitter 
 almonds 1 Essences of spirsea and winter-green prepared in 
 chemical laboratories 1 Humble wines successfully flavoured 
 to compete with the produce of the most costly vintages ! 
 Ethereal fragrances without number, and unknown by name, 
 added to the list of enjoyable odours ! Pleasing scents, in 
 cheap abundance, of which the wealthiest in ancient times 
 could form no conception, and which they had no means of 
 obtaining I 
 
 > Mrs SomervlUe's Physical Geography, ii. 122, 
 
442 THE ODOUES WE ENJOY. 
 
 This history presents, in truth, another striking illustration 
 of the way in which modem chemical research leads to the 
 establishment of new arts and manufactures — to the addition 
 of new and unknown luxuries to those already within our 
 reach — ^to the cheapening of luxurious comforts to all, — and 
 thus to the refining, and softening, and polishing of the 
 whole commimity. It displays, also, to the reader the 
 existence of a new field for practical and economic research 
 which is almost boundless, shows how valuable chemistry is 
 in almost every walk of life, and how the studies of the 
 laboratory may be made a source even of money profit in the 
 moat xmexpected departments of economio pursuit. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 NATURAL SMELLS. 
 
 Difference of opinion as to smells. — Disagreeable mineral smells. — Snlphn- 
 retted hydrogen ; its properties, and production in nature. — Sulphurous 
 acid given off from volcanoes ; its suffocating reputation. — Muriatic acid 
 gas. — Unpleasant vegetable smells. — Garlic and the onion.— Oil of garlic. 
 — Sulphureli of allyl. — Sulphur an ingredient of many fetid smells. — 
 Asatoetida, a concrete juice. — Oil of asafcetida. — Extensive use of vege- 
 table substances containing allyl; they sStisfy soAe natural craving; 
 extensive distribution of them in nature. — Mustard also contains allyl. — 
 The stinking goosefoot, — ^The peculiar strong-smelling compound con- 
 tained in this plant exists also in putrid fish ; economical use of it in the 
 c/uinne, — Carrion-plants ; the Saussurea and the Stapeliat. — Smells often 
 disagreeable only because of the things or memories associated with them. 
 — Disagreeable animal odours ; the goat, the badger, and the skunk. — 
 Effects of minute doses of sulphur and tellurium. — Stenches as weapons 
 of defence. — Insect-smells. — The putrefaction of animal bodies ; con- 
 ditions which promote it ; substances given off ; their unwholesome char- 
 acter. — Burying-vaults and graveyards. — The droppings of animals; pecu- 
 liar substances and smells given off by these. 
 
 The smells we dislike are probably quite as numerous as the 
 odours we enjoy. Between the two, however, there is a wide 
 debatable ground, in regard to which the utmost diversity of 
 opinion prevails. What is fragrance to one person is some- 
 times abomination to another. Plutarch tells us that a 
 Spartan lady paid a visit to Berenice, the wife of Dejotarus ; 
 but that one of them smelled so much of sweet ointment, and 
 the other of butter, that neither of them could endure the 
 
444 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 other : similar differences of taste still prevail, even among 
 the most cultivated and refined. For although cultivation 
 may very much improve this taste, and though individual 
 constitution modifies in a certain degree the effect which 
 odoriferous substances produce upon the organs of smell, yet 
 early habit determines for the most part the judgments we 
 form as to the agreeable and the disagreeable. The his- 
 torians of the time thought it worthy of record that Cardinal 
 Olivieri Carafa, who died at Eome in 1511, aged 81, had an 
 invincible repugnance to the smell of a rose. 
 
 Still, as there are certain odours which nearly all persons 
 enjoy, so there are certain smells which almost every one 
 dislikes. These are distinctly indicated by the old English 
 word stinJcs. Of these acknowledged bad smells, some are 
 produced naturally, while others are the result of artificial 
 processes. In the present chapter I shall consider only 
 the bad smells which occur in nature. Of these some are of 
 mineral, some of vegetable, and some of animal origin. 
 
 I. Mineral Smells. — Of disagreeable mineral smells, the 
 most common are the sulphuretted hydrogen and sulphurous 
 acid. The former gives its disagreeable smeU and taste to 
 sulphureous mineral waters, like those of Harrogate ; the 
 latter is given off from the mouths of active volcanoes, and 
 from cracks and fumaroles in volcanic countries. Hydrochlo- 
 ric acid is also occasionally discharged by active volcanoes. 
 
 1°. Sulphuretted Hydrogen. — When common sulphur and 
 iron-filings are melted together in a red-hot crucible, they 
 combine chemically, and form a black sulphide of iron. If 
 this black substance be put into a flask or retort along with 
 diluted sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol), a gas is given off, gen- 
 erally without the application of heat. This gas consists of 
 sulphur and hydrogen, and is therefore called sulphuretted 
 hydrogen. This gas may be collected over water in the 
 usual way. It has no colour, but is distinguished by a 
 sulphury taste, and a strong fetid sulphureous smeU. resem- 
 bling that of rotten eggs. It is about one-fifth heavier than 
 common air, bums .with a blue flame and a smeU of sulphur, 
 and is very poisonous when breathed. A single gallon of it, 
 mixed with 1200 of air, will render it poisonous to birds, and 
 one in a hundred will kill a dog. A very small proportion of 
 
SULPHtFROUS ACID GAS. 445 
 
 it, therefore, mingled with the air we breathe, will render it 
 injurious to human health. Water dissolves two and a half 
 times its bulk of this gas, and acquires at the same time its 
 smell and taste. 
 
 This gas is often produced naturally in the interior of the 
 earth, and, rising upwards through the rocks, is absorbed by 
 springs, and gives them the unpleasant smell familiar to us 
 in many mineral waters. It is the sulphuretted hydrogen 
 they contain which causes these waters to blacken when 
 mixed with those of oth^ springs which contain iron. 
 
 From marshy and stagnant places also, where vegetable 
 matter is undergoing decay in the presence of water contain- 
 ing gypsum (sulphate of lime), this gas is often given off; 
 and its smell may in most cases be perceived in moist soils, 
 where gypsum lies in contact with decaying roots and leaves. 
 In volcanic countries it frequently issues from the earth in 
 larger quantities. From fissures and openings in the solfa- 
 taras of Italy, for example, as in that of Pozzuoli, it rushes 
 out, mixed with steam and other gases, and diffuses its fetid 
 odour sometimes to great distances. In such localities the 
 smell of this substance becomes a serious annoyance. 
 
 The iron pyrites of our coal-mines, when thrown up in 
 heaps in the open air, undergoes decomposition through the 
 action of the moisture of the atmosphere. One of the results 
 of this decomposition is the evolution of sulphuretted hydro- 
 gen gas, sometimes in sufficient quantity to be both offensive 
 and unwholesome to the immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 This gas consists, as I have said, of sulphur and hydrogen 
 only, in the proportions, in 100 parts, of — 
 
 Hydrogen, 6.9 
 
 SnIphuT, 91.1 
 
 100.0 
 
 So that a comparatively small proportion of hydrogen causes 
 sulphur to assume the gaseous form, and to exhibit the fetid 
 odour and remarkably poisonous properties possessed by this 
 gas. 
 
 2°. Sulphurous Acid Gas. — When sulphur is kindled in the 
 air, it bums with a pale-blue flame, and is converted into a 
 heavy acid vapour or gas, which is distinguished by a pecu- 
 liar suffocating smell. This is well known as the smell of 
 
446 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 burning sulphur. It is formed by the union of the sulphur 
 with its own weight of the oxygen of the atmosphere, and 
 is called by. chemists sulphurous acid gas, or sulphur dioxide. 
 It is two and a fifth times heavier than common air ; and 
 when inhaled, it first provokes cough, and if the inhalation be 
 continued, causes suffocation. 
 
 This gas is given off from the mouths of active volcanoes, 
 from vents and fissures in the earth in volcanic countries, 
 and from the solfataras which often ex.ist where volcanic 
 action is going on. It is almost as much disliked for its 
 smell as is sulphuretted hydrogen, and it is even more suffo- 
 cating when breathed. 
 
 The universal dislike of this gas is indicated by the place 
 so generally assigned to it, in figurative descriptions, of a 
 future place of torment. Thus, in the Book of Eevelation, 
 we have " the lake which bumeth with fixe and brimstone, 
 which is the second death ; " and in Milton's description, it 
 is a place 
 
 " Where peace 
 
 And rest can never dwell ; hope never comes, 
 
 That conies to all ; but torture without end 
 
 Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed 
 
 With ever-bwminr/ sulphur, unconsumed." 
 
 3°. Hydrochloric Acid. — When oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid) 
 is poured upon common salt, white vapours are given off, 
 which provoke cough, are very suffocating, and affect the 
 sense of smell in an exceedingly unpleasant manner. These 
 are vapours of hydroehloric acid or spirit of salt. They are 
 absorbed by water with great rapidity ; and when conducted 
 by a bent tube into a bottle of water, till the latter is satu- 
 rated, they form the strongly corrosive acid liquid usually 
 known by the name of spirit of salt. 
 
 Vapours of this gas are sometimes given off from the 
 mouths of active volcanoes ; but they rarely prove an annoy- 
 ance to the neighbouring population. But they are abun- 
 dantly produced in the glazing of stoneware by means of salt, 
 and constitute a serious nuisance in some pottery districts. 
 But the two most common and best-known evil smells of 
 mineral origin are those of the sulphuretted hydrogen and 
 the sulphurous acid gases. Of these, the former is by far the 
 more widely difiiised and the more frequently observed, and 
 
GARLIC AND ONION. 447 
 
 is prodnctive of the more general annoyance. The sulphnr- 
 ous acid gas is naturally produced only in the neighbourhood 
 of volcanoes, or where sulphur, by some natural means is 
 made to burn in the air. 
 
 II. Vegetable Smells. — Of the smells we dislike, a much 
 greater number are of vegetable than of mineral origin ; and 
 of these, some are given off by living plants, 'which produce 
 and contain essential oils to whicli their smells are owing. 
 Among these, I advert more particularly to the garlic tribe, 
 the asafcetida plant, and the stinking goosefoot, both be- 
 cause they all emit smells which, in a . coribentrated form, 
 are generally considered very unpleasant, and because the 
 chemistry of the evil-smelling substances they contain is at 
 present better understood than that of any other known sub- 
 stances of the same kind and origin. 
 
 1°. Garlic and the Onion. — A familiar plant in many of oiir 
 moist woods and shady meadows is the common ramps, 
 or ramsons (Allium ursinum). 
 When in flower, this plant dif- '^' 
 
 fuses its disagreeable garlic 
 odour through the air, and im- 
 parts its unpleasant flavour to 
 the milk of cows eating it. 
 When distilled with water in 
 a retort, a heavy volatile oil 
 passes over and collects beneath 
 the water, which condenses in 
 the receiver. The common 
 
 onion, the chive, the shallot, Allium saKmtm— The I AUiwm Cepa—Tbe 
 
 the leek, the common garlic. Cultivated Garlie. | Common Onlon. 
 
 , ' . » . , . T Scale, 1 inch to 1 foot. 
 
 and other species of this strong- 
 smelling tribe of plants, yield the same oil when distilled 
 with water. 
 
 This oil is of a brownish-yeUow colour, is heavier than 
 water, and possesses the peculiar smeU. of the class of plants 
 which yields it, but in a highly pungent and concentrated 
 form, though it is often, in part at least, formed during dis- 
 tillation, and does not exist ready-formed in aJl the plants 
 which may be made to yield it. It is their strong-smeUing 
 principle or ingredient. The strength of its odour may be 
 
448 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 judged of from the fact that, powerfully smelling as garlic is, 
 from thirty to forty pounds of it are required to yield one 
 ounce of the oil. 
 
 We have seen that a large class of the volatile perfumes 
 which are extracted from plants — such as the oils of rosemary, 
 lemons, &c. — consist of the two elementary substances, carbon 
 and hydrogen only. In this fetid oil of garlic there also 
 exists a compound consisting of carbon and hydrogen only, 
 to which, from the generic name {Allium) of the plants in 
 which it is found, the name of AUyl has been given. This 
 substance, however, is united vdth sulphur in the oil of garhc, 
 and has not an agreeable but an intensely fetid odour. This 
 compound oil is called by chemists sulphide ofaUyl; and it is 
 this substance which exists in garlic, and gives both to garlic 
 and the onion their peculiar smell. The chive, the shallot, 
 the leek, the rocambole, and the onion {Allium leptopJiyllum), 
 which is eaten by the hiU-people of India, all derive their 
 smell from the same sulphur-containing oil of garlic. So do 
 Thlaspi arvense, Alliaria officinalis, and many other plants. 
 The relative mildness of these several vegetable productions, 
 as well as that of different varieties of the common onion, 
 depends upon the proportions of garlic oil they severally con- 
 tain. And the bad smell of the breath after eating any of 
 these plants is caused by the constant presence of a small 
 quantity of this oil in the air we exhale from our lungs. 
 
 This strong-smelhng compound, by the intensity and per- 
 sistence of its odour, reminds us of the animal perfumes — 
 musk, civet, and ambergris — described in the preceding chap- 
 ter. Like musk, also, its exudes through the pores of the 
 skin of the garlic-eater, giving its smell to the perspiration ; 
 and, on the other hand, a garlic poultice applied to the skin 
 affects the breath ; while, like the narcotic principles of 
 opium,' it' passes, probably unchanged, into the milk of the 
 animals which swallow it. And both the intensity and ad- 
 hesiveness of its odour are shown by the well-known fact 
 that a knife which has been used to cut an onion retains for 
 a long time, and communicates to other substances, the smell 
 and taste of this oil, though it loses it when plunged for a 
 little while in fresh earth. So powerful and persistent is the 
 odour of alliaceous plants, that it may be recognised in the ex- 
 1 See "The Narcotics we Indulge in." 
 
ASAFCETIDA. 
 
 449 
 
 Fig. 82. 
 
 jcre ta of persons who have consumed the oil only in the form 
 Ha sauce into which a chive or an onion has been dipped. 
 ^^It is not unworthy, also, of the attention of the reader, 
 that, as the most fetid mineral smells I have described are 
 compounds of sulphur, so this fetid vegetable oil of garlic is 
 also a compound of sulphur. We shall have occasion to re- 
 mark a similar ooimeotion of sulphur with other evil smells, 
 both natural and artificial 
 
 2°. Asafxtida is the concrete juice of two -umbelliferous 
 plants, Narthex asafietida and Scorodosma .fcetida. The 
 former grows in Western Thibet, the latter on the steppes of 
 the Caspian. It is probable that two other umbellifers also 
 yield this resin. It is collected by cutting the stalk of the 
 plant across immediately above the root — as represented in 
 the woodcut (fig. 82) — leaving the root in the ground, and 
 scraping off the sap as it flows 
 upwards and dries on the cut 
 surface. It possesses an odour 
 similar to that of garlic, but 
 still stronger, more fetid, and 
 generally much more disagree- 
 able to Europeans. On the 
 borders of Asia, however, the 
 concrete juice is not consid- 
 ered unpleasant. On the con- 
 trary, it is extensively collect- 
 ed, sold, and used as a condi- 
 ment for food. 
 
 When this resinous sub- 
 stance is distilled with water, 
 it also yields a volatile oil in 
 small quantity. On cooling, 
 this oil becomes solid, and •'•tr|uS*r^e?rc^^i^ 
 
 gives off, in a concentrated loot-IeaTes ; c, Flowering stem. 
 r ii r- j.'j J J? xi Scale, 1 inch to a foot and a half. 
 
 form, the fetid odour ot the 
 
 natural drug. Its smell has a certain resemblance to that of 
 garlic, but it is still more offensive ; and it contains, like that 
 oil, a compound of carbon and hydrogen united with sulphur. 
 Then, too, the oil obtained by distilling black mustard seeds, 
 Binapis nigra, with water, contains allyl and sulphur, though 
 in this pungent oil nitrogen is present as welL 
 
 The Asafuetida plant. 
 
 allow 
 with 
 
450 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE, 
 
 Two circumstances are interesting in connection with tliese 
 compound oils and the condiments in which they occur. 
 
 First, That Tegetable productions, so unhke to each other 
 as the onion and garlic, which belong to the Lily Order, the 
 asafoetida plants which are umbellifers, and the mustards 
 which are crucifers, should owe their powerful and peculiar 
 smell and taste to compounds containing the element sulphur 
 • — an element which is rarely present in any vegetable or 
 animal compound, except in small proportion, but which 
 exists in oil of garlic to the extent of 28 per cent of its 
 weight. 
 
 Secondly, That without any knowledge of the close chemical 
 relations among the plants in question, different races of men, 
 in different parts of the world, have long selected and largely 
 used them as condiments to their food. The Englishman, to 
 a certain -limited extent, relishes his onion, and the French- 
 man mildly flavours his more savoury dishes with a touch of 
 garlic or shallot. The Eussian soldier Mes his black bread 
 with oil and onions. And mustard is almost everywhere a 
 favourite condiment. But in Portugal and Spain the onion 
 and the garlic are the relishes of common and everyday life. 
 This taste the Peninsula has probably acquired from Northern 
 Afidca. Over the whole of the latter region — ^from the shores 
 of the Mediterranean to the sources of the Nile — garlic and 
 the onion are most estefemed seasoners of the universal food ; 
 Arab, Moorish, and Ethiopian tribes equally delight in 
 them ; ^ and this taste is of very remote origin. The Israel- 
 ites, during their sojourn in the wilderness, murmured, say- 
 ing, "We remember the cucumbers and the melons, the 
 leeks, the onions, and the garlic." Among the ancient Egyp- 
 tians themselves, the onion formed an object of worship ; and 
 the modern Egyptians assign it a place in their paradise. 
 To the present day, the onion of the Nile borders possesses 
 a pecuhar excellence and flavour. The Eastern Asiatics 
 appear to require more powerful condiments. With them 
 the asafoetida takes the place both of the milder onion and 
 of the stronger garUo. 
 
 Strange that the peculiar taste for these compounds of sul- 
 phur and allyl should so extensively prevail, and that vege- 
 
 ^ Garlic and salt, placed under the tongue, are considered ty the Arab as a 
 cure for thirst and fever. 
 
HORSE-RADISH AND MUSTARD. 451 
 
 table productions, bo unlike in external appearance, ehould 
 have been selected for the purpose of gratifying it I As in 
 the case of the beverages and the narcotics, men seem to 
 have been led to this selection by a kind of human instinct, 
 guiding them blindly, as it were, to plants which were cap- 
 able of yielding to the body the same or similar chemical 
 compounds. 
 
 And to facilitate, as it were, the guidings of this instinct 
 —to afford the means of gratifying the natural craving — 
 these garlic-smelling compounds appear to be much more 
 extensively diffused throughout the vegetable kingdom than 
 physiologists are yet aware of. Several species of Petiveria, 
 which are common in the West Indies, in Brazil, and on the 
 eastern slopes of the Andes, are possessed of a strong garlic 
 odour. Such is the case with the Petiveria alliacea, the 
 guinea-hen weed of the West Indies ; with the P. tetrandra ; 
 with the Seguiera alliacea, the root, wood, and leaves of 
 which have a powerful odour of garlic or asafoetida, and are 
 employed to form medicated baths in Brazil ; and with a 
 species of Petiveria called Ajo del monte, which forms one of 
 the giant ornaments of the Bolivian forests on the eastern 
 elopes of the Cordilleras. 
 
 Future research will probably show that these compounds 
 of allyl exercise a peculiar physiological action upon the 
 system, by which certain of its natural cravings are allayed, 
 and its general comfort promoted. This is rendered more 
 probable by the remarkable circumstance that the many 
 kinds of mustard — the use of which as condiments so exten- 
 sively prevails — owe their peculiar properties to the pres- 
 ence of compounds of the same substance — allyl. 
 
 3°. Horse-radish and Mustard. — When the root of the com- 
 mon horse-radish is distilled with water, it yields a volatile 
 oil, which possesses the pungent smeU and taste of the natural 
 root in a highly concentrated state. The smell is not disliked, 
 I believe, by most people ; but I mention the oil in this place, 
 because it contains a compound body, isobutyl, which takes 
 the place of the allyl existing in the oils of garlic and asafoetida. 
 In the horse-radish, however, it is combined not only with 
 sulphur, but also with nitrogen, to the presence of which much 
 of the difference of properties possessed by the horse-radish 
 are to be ascribed. The smell and taste of the oil it yields are 
 
452 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 very strong and pungent, but it has little of the fetid char- 
 acter which distinguishes those of garlic and asafoetida. 
 
 Mustard owes its peculiar penetrating odour, burning taste, 
 and bUstering quality, to the presence of a volatile oil, con- 
 taining nitrogen and sulphur, like that which is found in 
 horse-radish. It may also be prepared by distilling with 
 water the roots of Alliaria officinalis, and our common cress, 
 rape, radish, and similar pungent plants. Mustard-oil con- 
 tains allyl, a»d so is more nearly related to garlic-oiP than is the 
 pungent oil of horse-radish. Yet to one or other of these oils 
 the above-named and many similar plants owe their peculiar 
 pungent virtu^ ; and, as in the case of those which possess 
 the garlic smell, it is probably an instinctive consciousness of 
 their salutary influence upon the system that has led to the 
 extended use of them all in so many parts of the earth. 
 From the water-cress, Nasturtium officinale, a pungent oil 
 (called phenyl-propionitrit), containing nitrogen but no sul- 
 phur, has been obtained ; the common garden Nasturtium, 
 Tropwolum majus, yields a similar oil, called phenyl-aceto- 
 nitril. Thus we have three groups of pungent oils closely 
 allied in odour and taste. The first group, of which garlic- 
 oil is the type, are organic sulphur compounds ; the second 
 group, which includes mustard-oU, is marked by the presence 
 of sulphur and nitrogen ; the third group, of which water- 
 cress oil is an example, are organic nitrogen compounds. 
 
 4°. The Stinking Goosefoot {Chenopodium vulvaria), fig. 83, 
 is another plant which has been long known for its disagree- 
 able smell, comparable to that of putrid salt-fish. 
 
 If a portion of this plant be distilled along with a solution 
 of common soda, a volatile alkaline substance passes over, 
 which has the smeU of stock-fish, of boiled crabs, of herring- 
 brine, or of Findhorn haddocks which have been long kept. 
 To this substance chemists have given the name of trimethyU 
 amine. It has been found in hawthorn-flowers and in many 
 other plants. 
 
 One of the interesting circumstances connected with this 
 vegetable product is, that if herring-brine be distilled in the 
 
 I The chemical expressions for these two allyl compounds will illustrate 
 their diffetences : — 
 
 „' „° [ S is oil of garlic ; ^ „" f N is oil of mustard. 
 
THE STINKING GOOSEFOOT. 453 
 
 same way along with soda, the same volatile substance passes 
 over in still greater abundance than from the stinking goose- 
 foot. In a living and growing plant, 
 therefore, and in the substance of dead '^' 
 
 and decaying fish, one and the same che- 
 mical compound is naturally produced, 
 and imparts to each the same well-known 
 penetrating and offensive odour for which 
 it is everywhere remarkable. The famous 
 relish of the ancients, yarum, prepared by 
 fermenting fisli in brine, contained the 
 same alkaloid. 
 
 The history of this substance {trimethyl- 
 amine) presents also an interesting illus- 
 tration of the way in which chemistry 
 throws light on natural phenomena. It 
 was formed and obtained in the labora- _ _ _ 
 
 tory by special chemical processes, and c,«u™,<ii,m m,(mWa-Ti.o 
 its peculiar properties were ascertained, stinking Ooosefoot. 
 
 ,» .. * *, ,, .,, » ,,' Scale, 1 inch to inches. 
 
 betore it was extracted either from the 
 evil-smelling plant or from the decaying fish. It was the 
 smell of the artificial compound which suggested first that it 
 might possibly be the cause of the repulsive odour of the 
 living plant, and, afterwards, of that of the dead animal. 
 Subsequent research showed the correctness of these conjec- 
 tures, by actually extracting it from both by the processes 
 I have described. As is the case with some of the natural 
 vegetable perfumes, therefore, we can now prepare by art the 
 stinking constituent of the goosefoot, should its production 
 over be likely to lead to profit.' 
 
 The interest which attaches to the disagreeable-smelling 
 compounds of this class is very different from that which dis- 
 tinguishes the compounds of allyl. The latter have been 
 sought for and used most extensively : the former have been 
 generally avoided; no instinct or experience of their good 
 
 ' Trimethylamine is not the only substance known to lue possessed of tliis 
 Hshy odonr. Another volatile alkaline compound, called propylamine or 
 tritylamirw, is in smell scarcely distinguishable from trimethylamine. The 
 two substances consist also of the same elements united together in the same 
 proportions, — that is to say, they are isomeric (see above, p. 416). Their chemir 
 cal relations, however, and their chemical constitution, are not identicaL The 
 grouping of the three atoms of carbon (C), nine of hydrogen (H), and one of 
 
454 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 effects upon the system has hitherto led any tribe of men to 
 seek after or indulge in the use of them. 
 
 I may suggest to the cook, however, as a possible use to 
 which these fishy-smeUing compounds may hereafter be put 
 in the cMzsjjie— the flavouring of imitation fish-cakes, crab, lob- 
 ster, crayfish, and oyster-^aies, fish-sauces such as the an- 
 chovy, &c. Such preparations as these, by the application of 
 a little skill, may pass off at table, and be made to please the 
 palate as well as genuine salt-water productions, though con- 
 taining nothing that ever lived in the sea I 
 
 5°. Garrion -plants. — ^As the goosefoot smells like putrid 
 fish, so some plants smell like putrid flesh. The flowers of 
 the bladder-headed Saussurea have the smell of putrid meat ; 
 and the Stapelias, because of their putrid and disagreeable 
 odour, are distinguished by the name of carrion-flowers. The 
 fermented juice of the Mexican agave also, which forms the 
 pulque so popular in Central America,^ is remarkable for its 
 odour of putrid meat. The Skunk cabbage of the United 
 States and our common Henbane afford further examples of 
 offensive vegetable odours akin to those of animalSi 
 
 nitrogen (X), of which the two compounds consist, is thus represented respec- 
 tively — 
 
 Trimethylamine. Propylamine. 
 
 C H3 ) H 
 
 C Ha[N H ^N 
 
 C Ho) C, H, 
 
 The sum being, C3 H9 N C3 H9 N 
 
 The meaning of this mode of rationally representing the composition of the 
 two compounds is this — 
 
 C H3 represents a group of atoms called methyl. 
 C3 H7 „ „ „ propyl. 
 
 H J 
 HaN or H V N „ „ „ ammonia. 
 
 H ) 
 Now, if for one of the atoms of hydrogen (H) in ammonia we substitute one 
 of propyl, we produce propylamine, represented as above ; or, if for each of 
 the three atoms of hydrogen we substitute one of methyl, we have trimethyl- 
 amine, also as above represented. Such substitutions we can actually make 
 in our laboratories ; and thus we are enabled to form a rational idea of the 
 way in which compound bodies may contain the same elements in the same 
 proportions, and yet differ very much from each other in properties. See as 
 to Methyl, &c., p. 464. 
 1 See "The Liquors we Ferment." 
 
DIFFERENCES OF TASTE. 455 
 
 The chemical compound, or compounds, to which this 
 carrion smell is owing, are still unknown. It is produced 
 as a natural secretion, so to speak, in the living Stapelias — 
 as the result of fermentation in the juice of the agave — and 
 as a consequence of putrefaction in dead and decaying flesh. 
 It may either be the same substance which gives the smell 
 in all these cases, or it may be caused by diflerent substances 
 of the same chemical nature — all belonging most probably to 
 the same class of volatile alkaline compounds, as the trime- 
 thylamine of the goosefoot and the stock-fish. 
 
 It is interesting to trace close chemical coincidences like 
 these between vegetable and animal productions as regards 
 even things subordinate and disagreeable. They are at least 
 more unexpected, and apparently less necessary, than those 
 we have already had occasion to remark between the entire 
 substance of the animal body, and the staple forms of vege- 
 table food by which it is supported.^ 
 
 We have seen in this and the preceding chapter how tastes 
 differ in regard to sweet odours. The history of the Mexican 
 pulque illustrates how the disagreeableness of a smell may 
 also be a mere matter of taste. Some relish a slight taint in 
 butoher-meat, or a gaAe-flavour in wild animals, because it 
 indicates, and is usually accompanied by, a greater tenderness 
 of the flesh. And so, notwithstanding its fetid odour, the 
 Mexican loves his native liquor, and rejoices in it above every 
 other drink. We seem to love or detest the putrid taint, not 
 because of any positively painful effect it produces upon our 
 organs of sense, but because of the associations with which it 
 is connected. Let the odour in early life remind the smeller 
 of an agreeably acid, thirst - quenching, and exhilarating 
 liquor, and it will ever after come to his nostrils as an agree- 
 able perfume. Let it first reach his sense of smell, and be- 
 come familiar to him as the repulsive emanation from a dead 
 and decaying animal body, and it wll always remind him 
 thereafter of disagreeable death, of hated worms, and of the 
 dread dissolution his own frame must eventually undergo. 
 It will never be to him otherwise than as a noisome stench. 
 So much are the indications of our senses dependent upon 
 the circumstances in which, when consciousness first began 
 to dawn upon us, we happened to have been placed. 
 1 See " The Bread we Eat," and " The Beef we Cook." 
 21 
 
456 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 III. Animal Smells. — Unpleasant odours natural to animals 
 are familiar to the inhabitants of almost every part of the 
 globe. The he-goat, the badger, and the polecat in this 
 •country, the skunk in North America, the beautifully striped 
 ViverrtB of the South American plains, and the great ant-eater 
 from the same country, now to be seen in zoological gardens, 
 are each characterised by peculiar and unpleasant smeUs. 
 Some of them, as they pass along, even sensibly infect the 
 air with their pestilential odour. 
 
 In the case of the goat it is probably the perspiration from 
 the skin in which the bad-smelling substance resides. In 
 
 the skunk it is lodged in a pecu- 
 ^'.?- ^*- liar receptacle, from which the 
 
 animal has the power of ejecting 
 it at will — ^probably as a means of 
 self-defence. The intensity and 
 durability of the odour of the 
 skunk remind us of the same pro- 
 perties in the more agreeable 
 musk and civet, which are also 
 of animal origin. The purpose 
 of defence*supposed to be served 
 by the smell of the skunk, would 
 jifepiWs am^rana- gggm to imply that it is naturally 
 
 offensive to the senses, altogether 
 independent of early association. 
 
 Many other animals emit unpleasant odours from their 
 skin, especially in the rutting season ; but of the chemical 
 nature or composition of the substances to which all these 
 animal stinks belong, we are as yet entirely ignorant. One 
 known chemical fact in regard to the smells themselves, how- 
 ever, is sufficiently remarkable. This is, that the entire efflu- 
 via given off by an animal is often affected not only by the 
 general nature of the whole food that it eats, but by the in- 
 troduction of most minute quantities of foreign substances 
 into the stomach. Thus the swallowing of a little pellet of 
 finely powdered sulphur frequently gives a decided and dis- 
 agreeable smell to the whole skin, and for many days after. 
 And what is still more remarkable, a single grain of a 
 compound of the metal tellurium administered to a healthy 
 man. will make his neighbourhood perfectly intolerable for 
 
INSECT-STINKS. 457 
 
 weeks, and sometimes even for months, after he has swal- 
 lowed it. 
 
 Tellurium yields a large number of organic compounds, al- 
 most all of which, if volatile, are of a still more fetid and dis- 
 gusting character than those produced by sulphur. With the 
 compound allyl — already spoken of as the peculiar strong- 
 smelling principle of garlic, asafcetida, and mustard — tellu- 
 rium forms a compound body which, when vaporised, is more 
 intolerably ofiensive still than the oils of garlic or asafcetida : 
 telluride of methyl is also fetid and poisonous in a high de- 
 gree. And if wo cannot use such compounds as means of 
 sensuous gratification, it may not be impossible to employ 
 them as weapons of offence or defence. Imitating the nat- 
 ural habit of the skunk in this respect, we might far surpass 
 it in the intensity and offensiveness of our artificial stinks. 
 Squirted from the walls of a besieged city, projected into the 
 interior of a fortified building, or difinsed through the hold of 
 a ship of war, the Greek fire would be nothing to them ; and 
 as for the stink-pots of the Chinese, they must be mere baga- 
 telles to the stenches we can prepare.^ It must be confessed, 
 however, that it would be difficult to find persons willing and 
 able to manufacture these noxious compounds. Moreover, 
 these stinks are generally deadly poisons, and would be &tal 
 in most cases to their preparers. 
 
 As there are insects which give off agreeable odours, so 
 many are known which emit disagreeable smells. That of 
 the common bug tribe {Cimiddce) is probably more offensive, 
 because of the unpleasant sensations which the smell recalls. 
 The same is the case also with the tree-bug {Pentatoma), 
 and with the flying bug, which is one of the insect pests 
 of the Ganges about Benares. The last of these is a large 
 hemipterous insect of the genus Derecteryx, which insinu- 
 ates itself between the skin and the clothes. It diffuses a 
 dreadful odour, which is increased by any attempt'to touch 
 or to remove it ; but the natural dislike for its smell is no 
 doubt increased by the other annoyances which the insect 
 occasions. 
 
 In regard to the chemistry of insect-stinks, little is known 
 beyond the observation that. some of them contain nitrogen 
 and sulphur. 
 
 1 See the succeeding chapter. 
 
458 THE SMELLS "WE DISLIKE. 
 
 IV. Smells produced by Decaying Substances. — The most 
 numerous class of disagreeable smells is that which is pro- 
 duced by the decay or decomposition of animal and vegetable 
 substances. Our dislike of these smells arises partly no doubt 
 from their being associated in our minds with unpleasant 
 sights and ideas, and partly from their being found by experi- 
 ence to be injurious to human health. 
 
 1°. The Putrefaction of Animal Bodies. — The general nature 
 and odour of the iU-smelling substances produced during the 
 putrefaction of animal bodies are determined by the sulphur, 
 nitrogen, and phosphorus which are contained in them. Dur- 
 ing their decay the sulphur combines with the constituents 
 of the animal matter, and forms fetid compounds similar to 
 those already described as occurring in the mineral and veg- 
 etable kingdoms. Compounds containing nitrogen, such as 
 various salts of ammonia, are likewise formed. The phos- 
 phorus also enters into combinations scarcely less unpleas- 
 ant and injurious. And with these classes of compound 
 bodies are associated others pecuUar to animal forms of mat- 
 ter, which have not yet been separately examined. All these 
 unite in producing those mixed smells which distinguish so 
 repulsively the natural decay of animal substances in the 
 open air. 
 
 Of the presence of sulphur in such cases, a familiar example 
 is presented by a rotten egg. When such an egg is broken, 
 the smell of sulphuretted hydrogen is at once perceived, 
 and a silver spoon put into it becomes black immediately 
 from the action of sulphur. As the decay proceeds, other 
 smells gradually become sensible, and these mingling with 
 that of the sulphuretted hydrogen, occasion that increasing 
 offensiveness which the rotten egg is known to exhibit. 
 
 In warm climates, decomposition of this kind proceeds more 
 rapidly, and the strong-smelling substances are produced both 
 sooner and in greater abundance. The intensity of the odours 
 emitted, and the distances to which they are diffused through 
 the air in hot countries, may be inferred from the extremely 
 short period of time required to bring the vulture and the 
 condor even from great distances. They scent afar off the 
 decaying carcass, where the liuman organs refuse to give 
 any indications of its presence. 
 
 Air, moisture, and a certain degree of warmth, are neces- 
 
ODOURS OF DECAY. 459 
 
 eary to tho decay of animal bodies. If any of these three 
 conditions be wanting, it either proceeds more slowly or 
 ceases altogether. Thus, in cool dry vaults, dug in an 
 absorbent soil, and through which a current of dry air 
 passes, human bodies sometimes become dry before they 
 have had time to decay, and gradually shrivel up into 
 frightful mummies.^ So in the dry air of some hot cli- 
 mates, as in the Pampas of South America, and on the 
 borders of the African deserts, the flesh of animals can 
 be dried and preserved for any length of time, without 
 erhibiting symptoms of decay, or any manifest evil odour. 
 
 But where moisture continues present — even though 
 warmth and air be in a great measure excluded — decay 
 still slowly takes place, and substances of evil odour and 
 malign influence continue for a long period to be produced 
 and given off. The true chemical nature and exact com- 
 position of many of the volatile and gaseous substances, 
 produced under these circumstances, are still unknown ; 
 but both theory and experience prove that they are injuri- 
 ous to human health. They are so, even when, from their 
 extreme state of dilution, the organs of smell are naturally 
 insensible to their presence, or when, by habit, they have 
 become so. Hence the custom of placing graveyards in 
 the neighbourhood of our dwelhngs, or of requiring people 
 to sit for so many hours a-week over putrid family-vaults, 
 or heaps of mouldering human dust — is as contrary to the 
 dictates of science and enlightened common -sense, as it is 
 to the often -repeated suggestions of sanitary experience. 
 That the senses detect no danger, proves that the senses 
 are not to be relied upon — not that even serious danger 
 is absent. 
 
 2°. The Droppings of Animals, both while recent, and during 
 the decay they undergo in the presence of air and moisture, 
 are the source of some of the most unpleasant smells with 
 which we become familiar in common life. These animal 
 excretions emit certain strong - smelling substances which 
 are common to them all, but each variety also gives off 
 smells peculiar to itself. 
 
 * The reader who has spent a day at Bonn on the Rhine, will probably bo 
 reminded by this passage of the mummies in the church on the Kreuzbei^, 
 which strangers seldom fail to visit. 
 
460 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 a. When in a state of fermentation, for example, all evolve 
 ammonia ; i but it escapes in especial abundance from horse- 
 dung in hot stables, and from nightsoil in ash-pits and neces- 
 saries during warm weather. All also produce and give off 
 the noxious sulphuretted hydrogen already described ; but 
 where nightsoil ferments in close places, such as cesspools 
 and common drains, this sulphureous gas sometimes accumu- 
 lates in sufficient quantity to strike down instantly the work- 
 man who is incautious enough to place his mouth within its 
 reaoh.^ Compounds of phosphorus likewise escape from all, 
 and volatile alkaline compounds, which have not hitherto 
 been particularly examined. 
 
 h. When recent or fresh, on the other hand, each variety 
 emits its own peculiar odour. The droppings of the cow 
 and the horse differ most distinctly in smeU both from each 
 other and from nightsoil. Goat's dung has a smell, which 
 it imparts to plants mamlred with it, bo as to give, a per- 
 ceptible flavour even to the tobacco-leaf. Pig's dung is to 
 most people nearly intolerable, and even animals dislike it. 
 It not only gives its flavour to tobacco, but, when properly 
 applied, it drives away the wireworm from the carrot and the 
 onion. The reader will not be surprised to learn that the 
 chemical nature and composition of the compound bodies 
 from which these noisome smells proceed, should still be in a 
 great measure unknown.* However interesting, in a phys- 
 iological and sanitary point of view, it wotdd be to possess 
 a complete knowledge of aU the substances which animal 
 
 1 Ammonia is the substance wMcli gives its smell to common hartshorn and 
 smelling-salts. 
 
 2 The best and most ready antidote, when sulphuretted hydrogen has been 
 inhaled, is chlorine gas, prepared by wetting a thin towel with vinegar, 
 sprinkling a little chloride of lime between its folds, and causing the patient 
 to breathe through them. 
 
 3 Among the peculiar organic compounds contained in fresh nightsoil, is a 
 crystalline slightly alkaline substance, which has been named exaretine, and an 
 acid called the excretolic acid. They are extracted from fresh feeces by alco- 
 hol, but little is yet known of them. Excretine is not contained in the urine, 
 nor is it ascertained if it is present in the contents of the small intestines. 
 The droppings of herbivorous animals contain no excretine. Those of the 
 carnivorous mammalia contain a substance resembling it, along with butyric 
 acid, which is not present in nightsoil. Those of the crocodile contain ch"o- 
 lesterine and no urea ; those of the boa, uric acid and no _cholesterine — 
 (Makcet). 
 
THE DROPPINGS OF ANIMALS. 461 
 
 dro ppinga contain — of the mode of their production, and of 
 P^ nature of their several actions on the animal economy — 
 we must be content to wait while it slowly and gradually 
 collects. The inquiry is of too repulsive a nature to be 
 undertaken by any chemist whose love of knowledge, or 
 desire to advance a favourite branch of the science, is not 
 of a very ardent kind. 
 
 There are certain known differences, however, ia the com- 
 position of the solid droppings of different animals, which 
 must affect the nature of the smells they severally emit. 
 Thus, man discharges through his kidneys a distinct pro- 
 portion of the phosphorus contained in the food he eats ; 
 while the cow, the horse, and the sheep, emit 'mere traces 
 of it in this way. Very nearly all the phosphorus which 
 th^se animals eat, therefore, is rejected in their solid drop- 
 pings ; and inasmuch as the compounds of phosphorus, which 
 are formed in decaying animal and vegetable substances, are 
 generally diBtinguished by peculiar and offensive smells, it is 
 easy to understand that the droppings of these animals, when 
 they heat and ferment, must emit some — more or less nause- 
 ous, and probably injurious — odours, which are not to be re- 
 cognised in similarly fermenting nightsoil. 
 
CHAPTER 5XVII. 
 
 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 SMELLS PKODUCEI? BY CHEMICAL ART. 
 
 Smells produced ty chemical art. — Seleuiiiretted hydrogen. — Phosphnretted 
 hydrogen. — Mercaptan. — Kakodyl. — Alkarsin. — Cyanide of kakodyl. — 
 Compounds of tellurium. — Interesting chemical relation between sweet 
 odours and stinks. — Acrolein. — Offensive substances produced by destruc- 
 tive distillation. — Smells emitted by manufactories. — The sulphuric acid, 
 soap, candle, vinegar, and glass makers. — Lead and copper smelters. — 
 Such smells may be and ought to be prevented. 
 
 V. Smells produced by Chemical Art. — In tlie preceding 
 chapter I liave mentioned incidentally, that thongh many 
 natviral smells are very offensive, yet that we can already 
 produce others by art which are still more so. Indeed, 
 were any usefiil purpose to be served by them, we could, by 
 familiar chemical processes, add stenches almost inconceiv- 
 ably disgusting to those which have hitherto been prepared. 
 A reference to a few only of those which are now well known 
 in our laboratories, will satisfy the reader as to the resources 
 of the chemist in the production of stenches. 
 
 1°. Seleniuretted Hydrogen. — We have seen that sulphur is 
 a substance which forms many combinations distinguished by 
 their disagreeable odours ; and of these I have described sul- 
 phuretted hydrogen as one which both occurs in nature, and 
 can be easily produced by chemical art. 
 
 Selenium is an elementary body which, though less abun- 
 dant in nature than sulphur, resembles it very much in sen- 
 
MEECAPTAN. 463 
 
 Bible and chemical properties. Like BulpLur, it -also combines 
 with hydrogen, and forma a poisonous gas — the seleniuretted 
 hydrogen. But this gas greatly exceeds the sulphuretted 
 hydrogen, both in its evil smell and in its noxious qualities. 
 A single bubble of it allowed to escape into the air of a room, 
 produces on those who breathe it all the usual symptoms of a 
 severe cold and affection of the throat, and these symptoms 
 do not pass off for several days. The singular virulence of 
 this substance illustrates in a very striking manner the inju- 
 rious influence which may be exercised over the health of 
 the people by the presence of very minute portions of foreign 
 bodies in the air we breathe. 
 
 2°. Phosphuretted Hydrogen is a gas in which phosphorus 
 takes the place of the sulphur and selenium contained in the 
 two gases above mentioned. It is easily prepared in the 
 laboratory, and is possessed of a peculiar fetid smell. It 
 is one of the compounds of phosphorus, also, which is 
 naturally produced along with other disagreeable substances 
 during the decay of animal bodies, and contributes to the re- 
 pulsive character of the smells which decaying animal matter 
 gives off. 
 
 The two metals, or semi-metals, arsenic and tellurium, also 
 combine with hydrogen, and form gaseous compounds — the 
 arsenietted and telluretted hydrogens. These gases are so 
 fetid and poisonous that chemists rarely venture to prepare 
 them ; and when they do so, it is only after taking careful 
 precautions against their escape into the air of the room in 
 wliich the experiments are made. 
 
 It is a common character, also, of all the five gases I have 
 named, that they combine with other compound bodies, and 
 especially with organic'- compounds, producing new sub- 
 stances far more fetid than themselves, and possessed of 
 stenches which cannot be described in words. To this class 
 belong some of the following compounds : — 
 
 3°. Mercaptan. — Among organic substances of much im- 
 portance in modem chemistry is a class of bodies to which 
 the name of compound radicles is given. These bodies con- 
 sist of two or more simple substances united together, and 
 are therefore compound bodies ; and yet behave, in many 
 
 1 By organic is meant such as are derived from the animal or vegetable 
 kingdoms, or such as contain carbon. 
 
464 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 respects, as if they were themselves simple.^ To this clasB 
 of bodies belong those which I have had occasion to mention 
 under the names of 
 
 Ethyl, as existing in wiiie alcohol and ether. 
 Methtl, ,, wood alcohol and ether, 
 
 Amtl, „ potato alcohol and ether. 
 
 AjJLlh, „ garlic and mustard oils, &c. 
 
 Among other properties which these compound radicles 
 possess is that of combining with sulphur, and of forming 
 with it new combinations of an extremely fetid character. 
 Of this the sulphureous oils of garlic and asafcetida are 
 natural examples. 
 
 When ethyl is combined artificially with sulphur, it forms 
 what is called ethyl sulphide, and when with hydrogen as 
 well, it forms mercaptan. This latter substance is a colour- 
 less A'^olatile liquid, possessed of a most offensive, penetrating, 
 and concentrated odour resembling that of onions, and ad- 
 hering obstinately to the hair and clothes. 
 
 Now, the important points to be borne in mind here, 
 are — 
 
 First, That a very large number of compound radicles are 
 capable of combining with sulphur and hydrogen, and of 
 thus forming substances analogous to this mercaptan. 
 
 Secondly, As the number of such organic radicles already 
 known is very great, it is consequently in our power to form 
 many mercaptans, all possessed of very offensive smeUs, but 
 each distinguished by a shade of offensiveness peculiar to 
 itself. The reader wUl by this example, therefore, see that 
 in the compounds of sulphur alone the chemist has at his 
 command a very large number of exceedingly foul smeUs. 
 
 4°. Kakodyl. — But arsenic may take the place of sulphur 
 in all these fetid compounds, and produce new volatile sub- 
 stances of which the smeU is absolutely insufferable, and 
 which, besides, are deadly poisons. Kakodyl is the name 
 given by chemists to one of the compounds which arsenic 
 forms with the radicle methyl. It contains two atoms of 
 methyl with one of arsenic. When this volatile substance 
 
 1 That is, like the simple suhstances— hydrogen, chlorine, the metals, &c. — 
 they rmite -with oxygen, sulphur, and other todies, without heing themselves 
 decomposed, and fonn with them new compounds, possessed of acid or basic 
 properties. 
 
DEADLY SMELLS. 466 
 
 is exposed to the air, it takes fire. As it burps, the arsenic 
 contained in it combines with oxygen, and forms white 
 arsenic. This difiuses itself through the air, and, when 
 drawn in with the breath, acts as a deadly poison. Kakodyl 
 and its oxide are the chief constituents of alkarsin or the 
 fuming liquid of Cadet. This liquid is prepared by heating 
 white arsenic and acetate of potash together. It is volatile, 
 possesses a peculiar garlic-like, fearfully offensive, insupport- 
 able, long-enduring smell, and its vapours act as a deadly 
 poison. 
 
 Four compounds of arsenic and methyl are known, while 
 other compound radicles, as ethyl, also yield, with arsenic, 
 poisonous and fetid liquids, each having some offensive pecu- 
 liarity of its own. Arsenic furnishes us, in fact, with as 
 many varieties of fatal kakodyls and alkarsins, as sulphur 
 with purely fetid mercaptans. 
 
 5°. Cyanide of Kakodyl. — Even at this point, our chemi- 
 cal resources are not exhausted. Cyanogen is a compound 
 radicle which unites with hydrogen to form the deadly poison 
 prussio acid. This cyanogen combines also with kakodyl, 
 and forms what is called cyanide of kakodyl. Besides the 
 fetid odour and fatal properties of kakodyl, this compound 
 possesses a deadly quality peculiar to itself. When exposed 
 to the atmosphere, it rises in the form of vapour. A few 
 grains of this cyanide in the air of a room, suffice to produce 
 giddiness, delirium, and numbness of the extremities. We 
 have a double poison present, combining the properties of 
 two of the most deadly poisons with which we are acquainted. 
 Mercaptan and oil of garlic expel us by their insufferable 
 stench. The kakodyls and their cyanides arrest our flight 
 by almost as suddenly depriving us of life. 
 
 In the preceding chapter I have alluded to the use of un- 
 bearable stenches as weapons of defence. The substances 
 I there alluded to were for the most part disgusting smells, 
 not acting upon the system as inevitable poisons. These 
 kakodyls and their cyanides might certainly bo employed, 
 could they be prepared and transported safely in sufficient 
 quantities, still more efficiently in warlike operations; but 
 how far the use of vulgar poisons in honourable warfare is 
 consistent with the refinements of modem civilisation, is 
 open to much doubt. There may not be much real difference 
 
466 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 between causing death by a bullet, and by the fumes of 
 deadly poison ; and yet, to condemn a man " to die like a 
 dog," does array death to him in more fearful colours. 
 
 Among the deadly chemical combinations which have been 
 spoken of as ingredients in the proposed asphyxiating shells, 
 the kakodyls and their compounds have held a prominent 
 place. Whether the proposers of such asphyxiating pro- 
 jectiles have considered this metaphysical distinction be- 
 tween different modes of compassing death, or whether it 
 has weighed at all with those whose ofiSce it is to decide as 
 to their adoption, we have no means of knowing. According 
 to the received form of retribution, however, in all such cases, 
 the chemist who first suggested the use of such poisons to 
 manufacturers of ammunition, is destined to perish by his 
 own new weapon of destruction. 
 
 6°. Compounds of Tellurium. — I have abeady spoken of 
 the metal tellurium as capable of producing compounds 
 possessed of a most offensive odour. Certain odourless 
 preparations of tellurium administered, by way of experi- 
 ment, to persons in good health, form compounds — as sul- 
 phur not unfrequently does — within the body of the patient, 
 which impart to his breath, to the perspiration from his skin, 
 and to the gases produced in the alimentary canal, a disgust- 
 ing fetor, which makes him a kind of horror to every one he 
 approaches ; and this lasts sometimes for weeks, though the 
 dose of tellurium administered may not exceed a quarter of 
 a grain. Such compounds, which generally combine with a 
 most offensive odour decidedly poisonous qualities, it is no 
 doubt within the power of chemistry to produce by artificial 
 processes. 
 
 7°. Compounds of Phosphorus with the organic radicles have 
 been prepared. One of these, trimethylphosphine, has an inde- 
 scribably nauseous odour. It is a heavy colourless liquid, 
 sometimes taking fire of itself in the air : it boils at a very 
 low temperature. 
 
 It is instructive to recall the fact mentioned in the chapter 
 on " The Odours we Enjoy," that many of the most fragrant 
 liquids made- by art, such as acetic and cenanthic ether, con- 
 tain the very same organic radicles as the offensive compounds 
 just described. Only in the case of the pleasant odours and 
 essences the radicle is imited with substances derived from 
 
SMELLS FROM FACTOEIES. 467 
 
 acids like acetic and butyric ; while sulphur, arsenic, or phos- 
 phorus are present in the offensive compounds just described. 
 
 8°. Acrolein. — When glycerine is distilled in a retort over 
 a quick fire, a liquid passes over, to which the name .of 
 acrolein has been given. This substance is volatile, pos- 
 sesses a strong, penetrating, peculiar odour, affecting almost 
 immediately the nose and the eyes. A few drops in a room 
 render the atmosphere insupportable. Its vapour inflames 
 the eyes, and if much breathed, and in a concentrated form, 
 causes swooning. Acrolein is closely related to the allyl 
 compounds previously described ; indeed it bears the «ame 
 relation to allyl alcohol as aldehyde does to common or ethyl 
 alcohol. 
 
 This substance represents another large class of artificial 
 bodies possessed of evil odours, which are produced by the 
 destructive distillation, as it is called, of vegetable and 
 animal substances. Coal - tar, wood - tar, coal and wood 
 naphthas, the oils obtained by the distillation of horns, 
 hoofs, fats, &o., all afford examples of the varied and un- 
 pleasant-smelling products which are to be obtained by the 
 process of dry or destructive distillation. They are aU mix- 
 tures of several different substances, but the smells they 
 severally possess are owing to the presence in each of them 
 of one or more disagreeable compound bodies. Many of 
 these contain carbon and hydrogen only, or these elements 
 with oxygen ; but am%)ngst them a compound of sulphur called 
 carbon disulphide occurs in some quantity. This has an 
 intolerable odour of decaying cabbage. 
 
 It is unnecessary, indeed, to dwell longer on artificial 
 substances which affect the sense of smeU in an unpleasant 
 manner. Enough has been stated to satisfy the reader that 
 the chemist can prepare these bodies in far greater num- 
 bers than they are yet known to occur in nature, and with 
 smells if possible still more insufferable. 
 
 VI. Smells produced by our Manufactories. — In this 
 great manufacturing country some of these artificial smells 
 materially affect, at times, the comforts of common life. 
 They have justly, therefore, been regarded as nuisances, 
 and have given rise to disputes and contentions which not 
 iinfrequently occupy the attention of our courts of law. 
 
468 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 From our manufactories of oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid) 
 fumes of sulphurous acid, and even of sulphuric acid, and 
 oxides and acids of nitrogen, are occasionally poured out into 
 th.e surrounding air. 
 
 The makers of common soda (alkali-makers, as they are 
 called) no longer discharge from their tall chimneys those 
 vapours of hydrochloric acid which formerly often blasted not 
 only the yearly crops, but permanent hedgerows and fnll- 
 grown plantations. But those potters who make salt-glazed 
 stoneware still send out thick fumes of this noxious and 
 destructive gas. 
 
 The smelters of lead and copper vomit from their furnaces 
 fames of deadly arsenic, of zinc, of sulphurous acid, and even 
 of lead itself, which sensibly affect both animal and vegetable 
 life in their neighbourhood. 
 
 The soap and candle makers dissipate into the air the 
 volatile fetid substances which naturally exist in long-kept 
 and rancid fats. As a result of some of these processes, 
 also, they produce and send forth vapours of the irritating 
 and unpleasant acrolein, to which reference was made in a 
 preceding paragraph. 
 
 The distillation of wood for the manufacture of wood- 
 vinegar — or pyroligneous acid, as it is called — is often 
 attended by the emission into the surrounding air of dis- 
 agreeable and unwholesome fumes. 
 
 The manufacturers of glass, even of plate and crystal 
 glass, when their operations are carelessly conducted, dis- 
 charge from their cones unpleasant — it may be injurious — 
 smells. 
 
 There is scarcely a manufactory, indeed, which involves 
 the immediate application of chemical principles — and this 
 includes by far the greatest number, — which, if carelessly 
 conducted, may not become a source of real annoyance, or 
 even of injury, to its neighbourhood. I speak from a very 
 wide experience, however, when I say that the escape of 
 injurious substances into the open air, from such works, 
 is rarely necessary to the prosperity of the several branches 
 of manufacture. For the comfort of common life, therefore, 
 the intentional discharge of them into the atmosphere ought 
 not to be permitted. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 
 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 THE PREVENTION AND EEMOVAIj OF SMELL3. 
 
 Wide diffusion of evil odours. — Prevention of smells. — Decay prevented by 
 freezing, by drying, by excluding the air, by salting, and by smoking. — 
 Effects of charcoal.— Smell-disguisers or perfumes. — Smell-removers or deo- 
 dorisers. — Charcoal ; cause of its remarkable action, — Dr Stenhouse's 
 charcoal respirator. — Peat, vegetable soil, and burnt clay. — Smell-de- 
 stroyers or disinfectants. — Nitric oxide, sulphurous acid, hydrochloric acid, 
 and chlorine gases.— The chlorides of lime, iron, and zinc, and sulphate of 
 iron. — Carbolic acid. — Permanganates. — Hydrogen peroxide. — Iodine and 
 iodoform. — Quicklime ; its unlike action on fermenting and unfermenting 
 matters. — Summary. 
 
 Evil odours aro equally penetrating with sweet emells. 
 They diffuse themselves through the air, and affect the 
 senses unpleasantly even when the absolute quantity of 
 matter present is too minute to be detected by our most 
 refined methods of chemical analysis. Unlike the sweet 
 odours, however, they are produced everywhere around 
 us, and are therefore a universal source of more or less 
 perceptible irritation and annoyance. To prevent the in- 
 troduction of evil-smelling substances into the atmosphere 
 which surrounds us, and when present to remove them, 
 has consequently been at all times an object of desire. 
 The attainment of this object has been rendered both more 
 easy and more perfect by the discoveries of modem 
 chemistry. 
 
470 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 I. The Prevention op Smells. — The smells which usually 
 arise from the decay or decomposition of the bodies and drop- 
 pings of animals can often be either arrested or altogether 
 prevented. Extreme cold, for example, such as is sufficient 
 to freeze and harden the dead body of an animal, will pre- 
 serve it in a state of absolute freshness, even for thousands 
 of years. In northern winters the freezing of flesh and fish 
 is the common way of preserving it; and in the ice-clififs 
 on the banks of a Siberian river, the entire body of an ex- 
 tinct species of elephant has been met with, so Httle decayed 
 as to be stiU greedily devoured by dogs. Even moderate 
 cold, if accompanied by a drying wind, wUl prevent decom- 
 position, the former retarding the decay tUl the latter re- 
 moves the moisture which is necessary to its continuance. 
 The cargoes of fresh meat brought to our island from distant 
 countries are kept unchanged by means of cold. The heat 
 of the meat-chambers in such vessels is withdrawn by means 
 of the evaporation of very volatile hquids, such as condensed 
 sulphurous acid gas, ether, or liquid ammonia. These Hquids 
 in being vaporised absorb heat and so produce cold. Or 
 the total exclusion of air will have the same effect, as is 
 seen in the tinned meat, now so useful not only in long 
 voyages and in remote parts of the earth, but for bringing 
 cheap and excellent supplies of animal food to our shores. 
 
 These modes of preventing decay illustrate what has been 
 said of the agency of heat, air, and moisture (p. 458), in pro- 
 moting the putrescent fermentation of animal and vegetable 
 substances. When we freeze them, we arrest decay by re- 
 moving the necessary heat ; when we dry them, by remov- 
 ing the necessary moisture ; and when we shut them up 
 in sealed vessels, by excluding the necessary air. 
 
 But decay can also be prevented by the direct application 
 of chemical substances. Such is done when flesh-meat is 
 immersed in sugar, or when it is impregnated with common 
 salt, or with a mixture of common ealt and nitre. These 
 substances fill the pores of the flesh, and thus preserve it by 
 excluding the air. And they withdraw the moisture of the 
 flesh, and render the latter less favourable to the develop- 
 ment of those minute organisms, both animal and vegetable, 
 which incite and increase decay.^ Volatile tarry matters, 
 1 See " The Beet we Cook." 
 
DECAY-PREVENTEHS. 471 
 
 such as creasote and carbolic acid, which are contained in the 
 Braoke from peat and coal, in wood-vinegar, and in the spirit 
 which is distilled from coal or wood tars, act in a similar way. 
 They combine with the fibre of flesh or fish, and retard its 
 decay, until the removal of moisture by evaporation renders 
 decay both slow and difficult. It is in this way that the 
 smoMng of fish or flesh contributes to a speedy cure, saving 
 both time and salt, rendering, the cure more certain, and 
 adding at the same time an artificial flavour, which to many 
 is very grateful. 
 
 Substances which thus retard decomposition are called 
 'antiseptics. Besides those I have mentioned, white arsenic, 
 corrosive sublimate, the chloride of zinc, alum, alcohol, cam- 
 phor, and many essential oils, possess' antiseptic virtues. 
 In common life, however, these substances are rarely em- 
 ployed; though in museums of natural history alcohol iS 
 much used for bottling up anatomical and other prepara- 
 tions — and arsenic, corrosive sublimate, naphthaline, sulphate 
 of copper and camphor, for preserving insects and the skins 
 of animals. 
 
 Charcoal, when recently burned, has much efficacy in pre- 
 venting the ofiensiveness of animal decay from becoming 
 sensible to the smell. Sprinkled in the state of powder over 
 the parts of dead animals, it preserves them sweet for a 
 length of time. Placed in pieces beneath the wings of a 
 fowl, it keeps away much longer than usual any appearance 
 of taint. Or if strewed over substances abeady tainted, or 
 mixed with liquids which have acquired the unpleasant smell 
 of decaying organic matter, it removes the evil odour, 
 and makes them sweet again. It is for this reason our 
 common water-filters are so frequently fiUed with small pieces 
 of fresh charcoal. 
 
 In aU these cases, charcoal appears to act rather as a 
 smell-remover than as a decay and smell preventer. In 
 what way it acts as a remover of smells will be explained in 
 a future part of the present chapter. 
 
 Quicklime also possesses the property of retarding, and to 
 a certain extent preventing, tlie decay of animal and vege- 
 table substances. Its action, however, as we commonly use 
 it, is of .a complicated kind, and will be explained when we 
 come to treat of the smell-destroyers. 
 
472 • THK SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 II. The Disguising op Smells. — Where evil-smelling decay 
 of any kind commences, or where volatile substances which 
 disagreeably affect the organ of smell escape into the air 
 from any source, we naturally desire to rid ourselves of the 
 impleasant sensation. This we generally wish, and always 
 ought if possible to do, by removing the substance to which 
 the noisome smell is owing. In the great majority of cases, 
 however, we merely overpower or disguise it. We are con- 
 tent to mingle vnti the smell we dislike some odour we can 
 enjoy, and to leave floating in the air around us the evil and 
 the good together, to produce unheeded their natural effects 
 upon the system. 
 
 Sweet odours are thus the natural disguisers of evil smells. 
 They are the only resource of rude and dirty times against 
 offensive emanations from decaying animal and vegetable 
 substances, from undrained and untidy dwellings, from un- 
 clean clothes, from ill - washed skins, and from ill - used 
 stomachs. The scented handkerchief in these circumstances 
 takes the place of the sponge and the shower-bath ; the 
 pastille hides the want of ventilation ; the attar of roses seems 
 to render the scavenger unnecessary; and a sprinkling, of 
 musk sets aU other stinks and smells at defiance. The 
 " sixty stinks of Cologne " may thus be at once the parent 
 and grand consumer of its artificial rivers of scented water. 
 The fiercest demand for the luxury of civilised perfumes may 
 exist where the disregard of healthy cleanliness is the great- 
 est. Even the burning of incense at the altar may find a 
 merely rational use in disguising the dank and unwholesome 
 smells which damp floors and waUs engender, and in hiding 
 from the senses of the worshipper the noxious effluvia which 
 slowly decaying bodies in hidden vaults are continually 
 giving off. 
 
 However much, therefore, the employment of fragrant 
 essences may add to the comfort of the cleanly and refined, 
 they may only promote disease and discomfort among the 
 ignorant and barbarous, by concealing the deadly malaria, or 
 overpowering the noisome stench. 
 
 III. The Kemoval of Smells. — The absolute removal from 
 the air — at least from any limited portion of it — of the greater 
 number of the evil smeUs I have described, is, however, by 
 
PROPERTIES OF CHARCOAL. 473 
 
 no means a difficult task : the substances by which this is 
 effected are known in modem sanitary language by the name 
 of deodorisers. 
 
 1°. Charcoal — Of these deodorisers, or smell-removers, 
 charcoal, in its various forms, is one of the cheapest, most 
 abundant, and most efficacious. I have already spoken of 
 this substance among the preventers of smells as being an 
 apparent retarder of putrefaction. That it is so, however, is 
 doubtfuL Many regard it, on the contrary, as a hastener 
 of decay ; but as a remover of smells, its action and virtue 
 are undoubted. Mixed with fermenting nightsoil, or with 
 the contents of our common sewers, it sweetens them almost 
 immediately, and it produces a like effect upon almost every 
 variety of decaying animal and vegetable matter. Spread to a 
 depth of two or three inches over a festering graveyard, or even 
 over a decaying dead body, it is said to prevent any evil odours 
 from rising into the air, or becoming sensible to the smell. 
 
 Animal charcoal — such as is produced by the charring of 
 animal substances out of contact with the air — peat-charcoal, 
 seaweed-charcoal, and the black powder obtained by charring 
 together a mixture of earth and vegetable matter, are more 
 efficient in this removal of smells than common wood-char- 
 coal, however finely it may be powdered. It is this power of 
 absorbing evil odours which has recently recommended peat 
 and seaweed charcoal so strongly to the sanitarian for remov- 
 ing the smells of graveyards, cesspools, drains, and other 
 places where filth has been permitted to accumulate. And 
 it might be employed in absorbing the valuable liquids which 
 escape from stables and fold-yards. 
 
 This remarkable action of charcoal is the result of three 
 properties, the influence of each of which it is important to 
 distinguish. These are — 
 
 a. Its remarkable porosity. In consequence of this, it 
 absorbs gaseous substances in large quantity, and condenses 
 them in its pores. A cubic inch of dense charcoal, made 
 from the shell of the common cocoa-nut, will absorb nearly 
 172 cubic inches of gaseous ammonia, 80 of sulphuretted 
 hydrogen, 78 of carbonic acid gas, 18 of oxygen, and 21 of 
 carbonic oxide. This property is for the most part physical, 
 and is possessed in a considerable degree by other porous 
 substances. 
 
474 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 b. The special affinity which charcoal exhibits for certain 
 Btrong-smelling and colouring substances. So powerful is 
 this affinity, that if a table-spoonful of finely-powdered animal 
 charcoal — or twice as much of newly-burned wood-charcoal — 
 be shaken up with a pint of stinking ditch-water, and the 
 mixture filtered, the water will pass through bright, clear, 
 and with little of either taste or smell. If, instead of dirty 
 water, we take porter or port wine, smell, taste, and colour 
 will in like manner disappear. This property is in great 
 measure physical or mechanical, since the colouring matters 
 removed can be recovered for the most part unchanged. 
 They have been withdrawn, not altered. 
 
 c. The oxidising influence it appears' to exercise upon the 
 substances it absorbs. Many of these substances, whether 
 gaseous or solid, whether strongly smelling or strongly 
 colouring, as soon as they are laid hold of by the charcoal, 
 begin to unite with oxygen, to lose their characteristic pro- 
 perties, and to change into new chemical compounds. An 
 example of this action is furnished by a piece of charcoal 
 plunged first in sulphuretted hydrogen, and then in oxygen. 
 It absorbs both, and becomes hot, while the hydrogen turns 
 to water with some of the oxygen, and the sulphur to 
 sulphurous acid gas with the remainder. This action is 
 purely chemical. But the charcoal does not produce, it only 
 zTiduces it. It condenses these gases within its pores, and 
 when brought in contact in this condensed state, they act 
 upon each other so as to produce sulphurous acid gas and 
 water. In like manner, solid substances are oxidised or 
 changed, but the smell-removing influence of charcoal ceases 
 when its pores become fiUed with the new and fuUy oxidised 
 compound thus produced. 
 
 I have said that it is doubtful if charcoal, though it keep 
 fresh meat sweet, really does preserve it from decay. It is 
 in consequence of the oxidising influence just described that 
 many regard it as in reality hastening the decay of animal 
 bodies. 
 
 Dr Stenhouse availed himself of the absorbent property of 
 charcoal in the construction of a respirator, which, as a re- 
 mover of noxious vapours and unwholesome smells from the 
 air we breathe, is a sanitary instrument of great value. This 
 respirator (figs. 85 and 86) consists essentially of a hollow 
 
CHARCOAL KESPIKATORS, 476 
 
 case made of fine flexible wire-gauze. Internally it is about 
 half an inch wide, and of sufficient length and breadth, when 
 
 Fig. 85. Fig. 86. 
 
 folded over the lower part of the face, to cover closely either 
 the mouth alone, or both the mouth and the lower part of 
 the nose. The hollow space is filled with coarsely-powdered 
 charcoal, and the instrument, like the common metaUio res- 
 pirator, is fitted to the face, and fastened over the head by 
 attachments of ribbon. Through this powdered charcoal the 
 breathing is effected. All the air that enters the lungs must 
 pass through this charcoal sieve, and in so passing is de- 
 prived of the noxious vapours or gases it may contain. 
 Whether, as in the case of cesspools, laboratories, hospitals, 
 dissecting-rooms, sewers, and the holds of ships, these vapours 
 be perceptible and offensive to the smell — or whether, like 
 the miasms and malaria which marshes and festering ponds 
 exhale, they be imperceptible to the eenses — still the char- 
 coal, it is alleged, will arrest them, and thus secure the 
 wearer of the respirator from their irritating and unwhole- 
 some influences. After a while the charcoal-powder becomes 
 saturated, or too old to act with efiSciency ; but an ounce of 
 powdered wood-charcoal renews it, or the old charcoal may 
 be heated to redness in a close vessel, and the instrument is 
 itself again. 
 
 The invincible obstinacy of the labouring classes in adopt- 
 ing novelties has prevented the genei-al employment of this 
 cheap and effective respirator. It would be of great service 
 in hospitals, sick-rooms, and chemical factories. And should 
 its powers in arresting unperceived malaria be established by 
 
476 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 experience, how important will it become to the traveller in 
 unwholesome marshy regions, like those along the foot of the 
 Himalayas, those which skirt the lower course of the Niger 
 and the Mississippi, or such as spread over south European 
 flats and valleys, like the Pontine and other Italian marshes, 
 and the Dobrudscha towards the mouth of the Danube ! May 
 it not even prove a safeguard and health-preserver in many 
 of those inhabited parts of the world where rich crops are 
 dearly bought at the expense of rarely absent fevers, aguish 
 fears and tremblings, debilitated frames, and short, unhappy 
 lives ? 
 
 2°. featj Vegetable Soil, and Burned Clay. — Peat, if dry 
 and in powder, acts also as an absorber of smells. It is like- 
 wise of an acid nature, which enables it to combine with and 
 thus to retain ammonia and many of the stinking substances 
 it has absorbed. Earth rich in vegetable matter acts in a simi- 
 lar manner, and even some varieties of clay purify the water 
 that filters through them. The porous mass obtained by 
 burning together clay and vegetable matter under cover has 
 also, as I have already remarked, a powerfully absorbent pro- 
 perty ; and the coal-cinders we throw into our ash-pits, by 
 their porousness retain a portion of the effluvia which escape 
 from the other offal with which they are mixed, and thus 
 lessen its offensiveness. 
 
 It is a valuable property of charcoal, cinders, peat, earth, 
 and clay, burned or unburned — when saturated with ill- smell- 
 ing substances, such as those I have mentioned — that, when 
 conveyed to the land, they fertilise the soil with which they 
 are mixed, and gradually yield, as valuable nourishment to 
 growing plants, the disagreeable forms of decaying matter 
 which they had previously absorbed or taken up. 
 
 IV. The Destkuction op Smells. — Substances that absorb 
 and remove evil-smelling bodies do not necessarily destroy 
 their smells, or take away any poisonous quality they may 
 possess. Thus water absorbs sulphuretted hydrogen, but 
 acquires, at the same time, its offensive smell and its poison- 
 ous property. Heat the impregnated water, and the gas 
 escapes again into the air with all its original qualities. 
 Bodies which act as water does in this case, remove, but do 
 not change, the smelling substance. 
 
DISINFECTANTS. 477 
 
 But if into water or air which smells of sulphuretted hy- 
 drogen a little chlorine gas be introduced, the smell of rotten 
 eggs will disappear almost instantaneously. The sulphuret- 
 ted hydrogen is decomposed and destroyed. It no longer 
 exists, and consequently both its smell and poisonous influ- 
 ences are gone. 
 
 Water, as regards sulphuretted hydrogen, is a smell-re- 
 mover or deodoriser. Chlorine acts upon the same substance 
 as a smoll-and-poison destroyer, or disir^ectant. 
 
 This distinction is not without its practical importance. 
 Water, soil, and other absorbents, may remove and retain 
 noxious substances so long as cold or wet weather'continues; 
 but let heat and drought return, and forthwith from water 
 and soil they steam up again more or less unchanged. Hence 
 those reeking miasms which spread mortal fever and chatter- 
 ing ague over entire provinces. The disinfectant decomposes 
 and destroys the evil compound, so that no change of circum- 
 stances can brin^ it into activity again. 
 
 All disinfectants act chemically. They either decompose, 
 or they combine with the noxious substances, and produce 
 new compounds, which, if not always void of smell, are com- 
 paratively harmless in their action upon the human body. 
 I slwU mention those wln'ch are at once most efficacious and 
 most easily accessible. 
 
 1°. Nitric Oxide Gas is produced when the common aqua- 
 fortis of the shops is poured over pieces of copper in a glass 
 or earthenware vessel. As it rises into the air it combines 
 with oxygen and water, and forms red fumes of a strongly 
 acid nature (nitrous acid), which diffuse themselves through 
 the atmosphere. These ftimes have a somewhat uncertain 
 action upon the noxious substances, contaminating the air ; 
 moreover, they provoke cough, and cannot be breathed with 
 safety, and they corrode nearly all metallic substances with 
 which they come in contact. 
 
 2°. Sidphurous Acid Gas is produced when sulphur is burned 
 in the air. It is one of the offensive substances I have de- 
 scribed among mineral smells. In large quantity, it is both 
 noxious and offensive to breathe, but as a disinfectant it may 
 often be used with advantage. Hence the very common prac- 
 tice of fumigating with burning sulphur, a sulphur pastille be- 
 ina; one of the best and neatest forms of using this substance. 
 
478 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 The first effect of this gas, when diffused through the air, 
 is to overpower all other smeUs, and thus to make them im- 
 perceptible : it acts as a smell-disguiser. Its next effect is 
 chemically to decompose or destroy such offensive substances 
 as the sulphuretted and phosphuretted hydrogens of which 
 mention has been so frequently made ; and as it is of a 
 strongly acid nature, it as speedily combines with alkaline 
 vapours — such as those which contain ammonia, or the evil- 
 smelling body which gives its odour to stinking fish (p. 452), 
 and removes their smells. It exercises also a special action 
 upon many organic substances. This may be seen by hold- 
 ing a burning sulphur-match beneath a red rose, which it 
 generally whitens, and by the change of colour it produces 
 upon many other flowers. It is also seen in the common 
 use of the fumes of burning sulphur for bleaching silk and 
 woollen goods, and for whitening the straw employed for 
 ladies' bonnets. It is believed, therefore, to be capable also 
 of destroying many noxious substances of organic origin 
 which may happen to be present in the air with which it 
 mingles. And moreover, it is found to be fatal to many, if 
 not all, of those minute forms of animal or vegetable life to 
 which a number of endemic diseases are now with good rea- 
 son attributed. The germs by which these diseases spread 
 are killed by this gas. 
 
 On the whole, sulphurous acid has much to recommend it. 
 It is also cheap and universally accessible. The objections 
 to the use of the gas are, that it is itself unpleasant and re- 
 pulsive — that when employed for disinfecting purposes, the 
 inhabitants of a house must be excluded till the operation is 
 concluded and the apartments fully ventilated — that it cor- 
 rodes metallic surfaces, and leaves behind it for some time 
 traces of its own disagreeable smell. 
 
 3°. Hydrochloric Add Gas is produced when the oil of vitriol 
 of the shops (sulphuric acid) is poured upon common salt. It 
 unites with the moisture of the air the moment it is disen- 
 gaged, and forms white, strongly acid fumes, which provoke 
 cough and cannot be breathed. These acid vapours will un- 
 doubtedly act upon and destroy many kinds of strong-smell- 
 ing and noxious gases and vapours which may be present in 
 the air. The objections to its use, however, are the same as 
 those against the iise of nitric oxide, and of equal strength. 
 
DISINFECTANTS. 479 
 
 4°. Chlorine Gas is obtained when the common spirit of salt 
 (hydrochloric acid) of the shops is poured upon iinely-powdered 
 black oxido of manganese ; or when tliis' powdered oxide is 
 mixed with the common salt before pouring oil of vitriol 
 ■upon it, as in the preparation of liydrochloric acid gas above 
 described. 
 
 Chlorine is a heavy, greenish-coloured, sxiffocating, and 
 stroBgly-smeUing gas. In a dilute state, its smell is now 
 familiar to most persons as that given off by the common 
 chloride of lime of the shops. 
 
 This gas decomposes sulphuretted hydrogen, phosphu- 
 retted hydrogen, ammonia, and nearly all the other gaseous 
 compounds and evil-smelling vapours which escape from de- 
 composing animal and vegetable matters. It acts, indeed, 
 upon all organic substances almost without exception. 
 Hence its extensive use for bleaching cotton, linen, fatty 
 bodies, and a host of other vegetable productions used in the 
 arts. It is also a most powerful agent for the destruction of 
 disease-germs. 
 
 Chlorine has been long employed as a remover and de- 
 stroyer of unpleasant smells. It is probably the most gener- 
 ally efficient for this purpose of any gaseous substance with 
 which we are acquainted. And besides its efficiency, it is 
 further recommended by being easily and cheaply prepared ; 
 by producing its good effects even when so much diluted 
 with air as to be breathable without injurious effects. It 
 can thus bo used within a building without displacing its 
 inhabitants, and with little inconvenience even in the cham- 
 bers of delicate invalids. In this dilute state, also, its use is 
 free from almost every other objection. For though it does 
 corrode metallic substances, its evil effects in this way are 
 much less sensible than those of any of the other gases 
 already mentioned. 
 
 The use of these gaseous substances is restricted almost 
 entirely to the removal from the air of evil-smeUing and 
 noxious substances which are already mixed with it. But 
 a service often demanded of disinfectants, and one not less 
 important for sanitary objects, is to prevent the emission of 
 these substances into the air altogether — to arrest, confine, 
 and fix them down among the festering substances which 
 produce them. This service can ouly be rendered by bodies 
 22 
 
480 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 which are in the solid or liquid state, and can therefore be 
 mixed or spread over the decaying matters from which the 
 hurtful emanations^roceed. 
 
 •A satisfactory disinfectant of this kind must also possess 
 at least two well-marked chemical properties. These are 
 distinctly pointed out by the general chemical characters 
 of the eviL-smelling substances to be acted upon. 
 
 These substances, as they arise from decaying vegetable 
 and animal bodies, are of three chemical kinds. They are 
 either alkaline substances, like ammonia and trimethylaniine 
 (p. 454) ; acid substances, like sulphuretted hydrogen ; or 
 neutral substances, like the sulphuretted hydrocarbons. An 
 eifective and complete disinfectant must be able either to 
 decompose or to combine with all these classes of compound 
 bodies. And economically, its value wiU be further in- 
 creased, if, while it effects these chemical purposes, it at the 
 same time produces a new substance which is not offensive 
 in any way; and still more if it produce one that is positively 
 useful. 
 
 5°. Chloride of Lime possesses the chemical qualities of an 
 efficient disinfectant in a high degree. It consists of lime 
 and chlorine : of these, the lime combines with acid bodies, 
 while the chlorine either combines with or decomposes the 
 alkaline compounds represented by ammonia. And at the 
 same time it possesses a remarkable power of oxidation; it 
 bums up many of the offensive neutral bodies evoked dur- 
 ing decay. It exerts this influence even upon sulphuretted 
 hydrogen. This oxidising action of chloride of lime may be, 
 in some cases, thus explained. Carbonic acid gas unites 
 with its lime and frees its chlorine, which then unites with 
 the hydrogen of water, liberating the oxygen of the latter. 
 It is therefore generally and deservedly esteemed as one of 
 the best, most efficient, and most manageable of our solid 
 disinfectants. Spread in the solid form upon any fermenting 
 mass, it destroys the noxious bodies as they are formed. 
 Dissolved in water, and sprinkled over bad-smelling cham- 
 bers, or mixed with more or less fluid collections of putrid 
 matter, it brings sweetness everywhere. Fetid odours and 
 poisonous qualities ahke disappear before it. Only its com- 
 paratively high price prevents its being employed for sweet- 
 ening onx common sewers, garbage-heaps, and cesspools. 
 
DISINFECTANTS. 481 
 
 The results of its action have the further advantage, that 
 they are not offensive either to sight or smell ; but they do 
 not possess the same fertilising richness as the mixed heaps 
 obtained by the use of powdered charcoal Its chlorine de- 
 composes ammonia, and hence fermenting heaps treated with 
 chloride of lime will be poorer in this ingredient so valuablo 
 to vegetation. 
 
 6°. The Chlorides (J Iron and Zinc, especially when made 
 somewhat acid, are, chemically speaking, almost equally 
 eflfioacious. They have the disadvantage, however, tliat 
 they run to liquid (deliquesce) rapidly when exposed to the 
 air, and cannot well be preserved in the solid form. Hence 
 they are generally dissolved in water, and used in the liquid 
 state. It is an objection to the liquid chloride of iron that it 
 causes a brown stain wherever it is spilt, and makes the fer- 
 menting substances to which it is applied of a black colour. 
 The zinc liquid is itself colourless, colours nothing when it 
 is spilled, and when poured upon the foulest decaying substan- 
 ces, only covers them with a white cream. These properties 
 cause it to be preferred to the iron liquid, where economy is not 
 an object, the chloride of zinc beingthe more costly of the two. 
 
 The solution of chloride of zinc forms " Burnet's Disinfect- 
 ing Fluid." It has the property of not only deodorising and 
 disinfecting, but of actually preventing decay, especially in 
 vegetable substances. Hence, like corrosive sublimate and 
 creasote, it has been extensively used for saturating tim- 
 ber, especially such as is to be used in circumstances in 
 which timber is liable to rot. Sulphate of iron, or common 
 green vitriol, is nearly equal in efficacy to the chloride of 
 iron, but, except that it does not run to a liquid, is liable to 
 the same objections. It has been used for removing the 
 offensive odour of sewage in the Thames, and for similar 
 purposes. But though it fixes ammonia as sulphate, and 
 turns sulphuretted hydrogen into sulphide of iron, jet it 
 does not prevent these matters from again becoming a 
 nuisance, as chloride of lime does. 
 
 7°. Iodine, and one- of its compounds, known to chemists 
 by the name of iodoform, have ieen recommended as smell- 
 removers and disinfectants ; but however efficient, their 
 expense must always exclude them from anything like ex- 
 tensive use. 
 
482 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 8°. Quicklime, though so abundantly used during the 
 cleansings to which the oholerarvisitations have given rise, 
 is less efficacious either as a remover or a destroyer of smells 
 than any of the substances above mentioned. It is usually 
 employed in the state of newly-slaked lime. In this state its 
 action on animal and vegetable substances is twofold. 
 
 a. If the substance be fresh, it retards and partially pre- 
 vents its decay. This is its effect upon flesh, blood, recent 
 animal droppings, nightsoil, urine, &c. And as decay after- 
 wards slowly comes on, it modifies the nature of the chemical 
 substances produced, so that ammoniacal and other strong- 
 smelling compounds do not arise from them, or at least not 
 so sensibly as would otherwise have been the case. To fresh 
 animal matters, therefore, quicklime, as a preventer of smeUs, 
 is a very proper addition. 
 
 b. But if the substance have already begun to ferment, the 
 lime acts very differently. It is strongly alkaline, and there- 
 fore, while it combines with the acid substances which the 
 fermented matter may contain, it sets free the ammonia arid 
 other volatile strong-smelling alkaline compounds which may 
 have been formed in it. Thus its first effect, when laid upon 
 fermenting animal and vegetable refuse, is to increase the 
 quantity of odoriferous matter which exhales, and conse- 
 quently the intensity of the smell. Its next effect is to 
 retard further decomposition, and to change the chemical 
 nature of what does afterwards rise into the air, so as to make 
 it both less disagreeable to the smell and less injurious to 
 the health. 
 
 Spread in a layer over a foul heap, therefore, it disengages 
 a great amount of strong-smelling volatile matter ; but this 
 being once carried off by the wind, the covered heap remains 
 comparatively quiescent. The lime arrests and unites with 
 the sulphur and phosphorus as they approach the surface of 
 the heap, and disposes the substances containing nitrogen to 
 change into nitric acid, and combine with itself, instead of 
 dissipating themselves into the air in the form of ammonia 
 and other volatile alkalies. With the exception of the. first 
 loss it occasions when laid on fermented matter, therefore, 
 lime retains in the decaying heap the greater part of what 
 makes it of value to the farmer, provided, that is, the access 
 of -rain is prevented. 
 
DISINFECTANTS. 483 
 
 It is in close and confined places, where the wind has 
 not ready access to sweep away what is at first evolved, and 
 to masses of putrid semi-fluid matter, sucli as collections of 
 nightsoil, that the application of quickhme may prove most 
 unpleasant. When used in such circumstances, it should be 
 strewed on h'ghtly, or after the heap has been spread over 
 with straw, peat, sawdust, or other similar substance ; and 
 the mass should, if possible, be entirely covered over with it, 
 and left afterwards undisturbed. 
 
 9°. Permanganates and Manganates. — Under the names of 
 Condy's purple and green fluids, certain compounds contain- 
 ing an alkaline metal, such as sodium or potassium, united 
 with much oxygen, and the metal manganese, have come 
 into considerable use as deodorisers and disinfectants. Not 
 being volatile like chlorine, of course such a substance as 
 potassium permanganate cannot search out and destroy those 
 impurities which are dispersed in the air. But if a solution 
 of this substance be placed in a saucer, the air that passes 
 over it may be purified ; while linen or infected clothes may 
 be cleansed from taint by being soaked in it. Like chlorine, 
 it acts by burning up or oxidising the poisonous or offensive 
 matters with which it comes in contact. But it is rather 
 costly, while its action is less energetic than that of chlorine. 
 
 10°. Hydrogen Peroxide. — Under the name of " Sanitas," a 
 watery solution of hydrogen peroxide has been introduced 
 into commerce. It is a usefiil material for removing taints, 
 smells, and poisonous matters of many kinds ; but is, however, 
 costly in comparison with other deodorisers and disinfectants. 
 It has been recommended as a mouth-wash, and for cleansing 
 the teetlu Its active ingredient, hydrogen peroxide, readily 
 gives off oxygen, and then oxidises the impurities with 
 which it comes in contact. Sanitas, or the ordinary commer- 
 cial solution of peroxide of hydrogen, is made by blowing air 
 through a mixture of turpentine and water. In this way part 
 of the oxygen in the air combines with water to form oxidised 
 water or hydrogen peroxide, while another part produces from 
 the turpentine an acid called camphoric acid. 
 
 11°. Carbolic Acid and Creosote. — The smell of wood-tar is 
 due in great measure to the presence of two substances en- 
 dowed with remarkable powers of arresting decay and change 
 in organic matters. The more important of these two iar- 
 
484 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 constituents goes under the names of carbolic add and phenol. 
 It occurs abundantly in coal-tar, which is now its chief source. 
 When pure it is a white crystalline solid, melting at a gentle 
 heat, boiling at a rather high temperature, and dissolving 
 to the extent of 4 parts in 100 of cold water. When perfectly 
 pure its smell is powerful, but not offensive ; but even the 
 best carbolic acid of commerce contains naphthaline and other 
 disagreeably smelling substances. Now the great efficacy of 
 carbolic acid is as a disinfecting agent : it does not oxidise 
 organic impurities, and its chemical afSnity for ammonia and 
 bases is but slight. But it destroys germs of many kinds, 
 the poisons of many diseases of men and animals, by coagu- 
 lating or curdling their chief constituents, and so rendering 
 them incapable of further growth. This at least is the most 
 prominent character of carbolic acid. It also arrests decay as 
 it arrests growth. It is a powerful caustic, even dissolving 
 the skin to which it is applied. It has been put to a con- 
 siderable number of uses in medicine and surgery, having 
 been found efficacious as an application to decayed teeth, 
 for inhalation in hooping-cough and sore throat, and being 
 given internally in some forms of indigestion. But its medic- 
 inal activity is to bo mainly explained by its power of coag- 
 iilating and rendering insoluble organic matters related to 
 albumen, and so of arresting change, and the growth of those 
 vegetable and animal organisms which accompany and favour 
 decay and disease. 
 
 It has been urged against the use of carbolic acid that it 
 is a dangerous irritant poison. People have been killed by 
 drinking it instead of whisky I A taste must be somewhat 
 vitiated by dram-drinking if it cannot discern the difference ! 
 Nor need the carbolic acid be kept in a liquid or concentrated 
 form : it may be prepared so as not to admit of being drunk 
 at all. But the objections are too trivial to need refdtation, 
 and are generally urged by persons interested in the sale of 
 competing disinfectants. 
 
 Besides creasote and carbolic acid, the mixture of this acid 
 with another similar compound, called cresylic acid, is also a 
 good antiseptic and disinfectant. So are a number of essen- 
 tial oUs or substances extracted from them, as eugenol from 
 clove-oil. 
 
 In using disinfectants and deodorisers, their chemical 
 
DISINFECTANTS. 485 
 
 nature and the special objects we have in view should both 
 be considered. We cannot use a fixed substance hke a per- 
 manganate to purify the air, nor must we mix two substances 
 of this group together, unless we are sure that they will not 
 interfere with one another. So burning sulphur or sulphites 
 may be used with carbolic acid ; but none of these substances 
 can be employed at the same time as chloride of Ume or the 
 permanganates, though these latter substances may be asso- 
 ciated with one another. 
 
 When large operations are to be carried on, as in the sani- 
 tary cleansing of towns, charcoal-powder, peat, dried earth, 
 the smother-burned mixture of clay and vegetable matter, 
 and quicldime, are the cheapest and most available. The 
 two former are excellent and unexceptionable ; the latter has 
 the disadvantage, that from substances already fermenting it 
 drives out for a while more powerful odours than they natu- 
 rally emit, and requires, therefore, to be used with care and 
 caution. In their chemical influence upon the after-decay of 
 the substances to which they are applied, charcoal and quick- 
 hme, as I have said, resemble each other very much. A 
 mixture of lime, carbolic acid, and sulphite of lime (calcium 
 sulphite), is also an excellent disinfectant. 
 
 For the sake of clearness I may briefly recapitulate the 
 several classes of substances I have endeavoured to classify 
 and distinguish in the present chapter. Those are — 
 
 1°. Decay-preventers, or Antiseptics, including common salt, 
 saltpetre, white arsenic, corrosive sublimate, the chlorides of 
 zinc and iron, sulphate of iron, carbolic acid and creasote, 
 alcohol, camphor, the essential oils, and, in certain cases, 
 quicklime. 
 
 2°. Bmell-disguisers, or Perfumes. — To this class belong the 
 greater part of the substances already described among the 
 odours we enjoy. 
 
 3°. Smell-removers, or Deodorisers. — Among these, charcoal, 
 peat, fresh and charred, clay burned, unbumed, or smother- 
 burned along with vegetable matter, and other porous sub- 
 stances, are the most important. 
 
 4°. Smell-destroyers, or Disinfectants, which not only absorb 
 and remove evil smells, but decompose and change, and thus 
 altogether remove the substances which produce them. To 
 this class belong nitric oxide,' sulphurous acid, chlorine, the 
 
486 THE SMELLS WE DISLIKE. 
 
 chlorides of lime, zino, and iron, the sulphate of iron, iodine, 
 hydrogen peroxide, permanganate of potash, and quicklime. 
 CarboUo acid and creasote unite to a remarkable extent the 
 characters of antiseptics and disinfectants. 
 
 To disinfect, a substance must chemically change the 
 noxious compound and produce a harmless one. All chemi- 
 cal change does not involve the latter result, as some poison- 
 ous vapours may be chemically changed, and remain poisonous 
 still. Such is the case with those of kakodyl and the cyanide 
 of kakodyl, described in a previous chapter (p. 464). But 
 the disinfectants described and recommended in the preceding 
 pages, are really poison-destructive as regards all natural evil 
 smells and miasms with which we are yet acquainted. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE COLOURS WE ADMIRE. 
 
 Animal pigments or colouring matters. — Red pigment of blood or bsemaglobin. 
 — ^Toracin, a red pigment containing copper, found in certain feathers. — 
 Pigmentum nigrum.— ClUorophyll, or leaf-green. — Colein, the pigment of 
 many &uits and flowers.— Alizarin from madder.— Coal-tar dyes. 
 
 There is no recent application of the science of chemistry to 
 the peaceful arts of common life more interesting and more 
 instructive than the manufacture of colouring matters. Not 
 only have new dyes, possessed of every hue of the rainbow, 
 been produced out of that unpromising and repulsive mess 
 which goes by the name of coal-tar, but the chemist has 
 found out the way to obtain, from the same source, the 
 very substance which gives to madder-root its value as a 
 dye-stuffi For his artificial product is no mere imitation 
 of the natural colouring matter formed by this plant, the 
 Bubia tinctortim of botanists — it is identical with it in every 
 respect And besides making new pigments, and preparing, 
 by the methods of the laboratory, the actual colouring sub- 
 stance of a vegetable organism, the chemist of the present 
 day studies with minute care the various compounds to 
 which so many animals as well as plants owe their diversity 
 and beauty of tint. Indeed the whole subject of colouring 
 matters has now become so complex that a large volume 
 would not suffice for its adequate treatment. To present 
 to the readers of this chapter a few specially characteristic 
 examples, illustrative of recent advances in our knowledge 
 of the properties, the production, and the uses of pigments. 
 
488 THE COLOURS WE ADMIKB. 
 
 both animal, vegetable, and artificial, is the utmost that can 
 be here accomplished. 
 
 1°. Of animal pigments first ; and amongst these the red 
 colouring matter of blood naturally occupies a conspicuous 
 place. It is only of late years that the immense importance 
 of the duties performed by that chiefest and most abundant 
 constituent of the blood now known as hmmagloiin has been 
 realised. If we take 100 grains of blood, perfectly fresh, 
 we shall find that they contain some 15 grains of a red 
 pigment — entirely present in what are called the red cor- 
 puscles.^ This red pigment differs from all other constit- 
 uents of the body of man in several important particulars. 
 The presence of iron in it is perhaps the most striking fea- 
 ture of its chemical composition. But its most remarkable 
 physical or physico-chemical property is its property of ab- 
 sorbing gases. On this latter property depends one of its 
 main uses in the blood, for it carries oxygen throughout the 
 body. The difference of colour between the blood of the 
 arteries and that of the veins is due to the presence of this 
 absorbed oxygen acquired in the lungs. Thus a kind of 
 compound of hsemaglobin and oxygen gas is formed, which 
 has a brighter red than hsemaglobin itself as it exists in the 
 blood of the veins. This difference of colour is seen very 
 plainly, even through the skin, when arteries and veins are 
 compared ; but when an optical examination of the two con- 
 ditions of blood is made it is more conspicuously sho\\ii. 
 And further, it is possible to add oxygen to venous blood out 
 of the body as well as in, and thus to restore its colour to 
 that of arterial blood ; and the reverse process may be accom- 
 plished too. The following table shows, approximately, the 
 proportions by measure of gases in the blood, nearly all of 
 which are associated with the hsemaglobin — 
 
 100 measures of 
 Q„SM Bright red Purplish red 
 
 arterial blood. venous blood. 
 
 Cartonio acid gas , . 60 measures. 60 measures. 
 
 Oxygen „ , . 20 „ 10 „ 
 
 Nitrogen „ . . 2 „ 2 „ 
 
 It has been said above that hEemaglobin contains iron. 
 This metal, though present in very minute proportion, is an 
 1 See Chapter XXXn. 
 
TUEACIN. 489 
 
 absolutely essential part of the substance. The human body, 
 at least that of an adult man weighing some 11 stones, will 
 contain about IJ pound of haemaglobin, in which the iron 
 amounts to no more than 40 grains. As nearly all kinds of 
 vegetable and animal food contain distinct traces of iron, there 
 is no difficulty in understanding the source of the iron in the 
 pigment of the blood. Thus Boussingault found that 100,000 
 parts of potatoes contained IJ part of this metal, and the 
 same quantity of Beaujolais wine about 1 part. The other 
 elements which are united to form hasmaglobin are the same 
 in nature and proportion as those which are found in albu- 
 men (see p. 99), to which this colouring matter is nearly 
 related. It ought to be mentioned that ha;maglobin can be 
 obtained in crystals, but that in every form it is very prone 
 to decomposition. All animals having red blood possess it, 
 or a nearly identical compound. 
 
 2°- Another animal pigment of infinitely less importance 
 than hsemaglobin, but having a still stranger composition, 
 may be introduced here. It has nearly the same colour as 
 arterial blood, and, like it, contains a metallic constituent. 
 But, unlike hasmaglobinj this red pigment is of very rare 
 occurrence in the animal kingdom, while the metal whicJi 
 is present in it is not iron but copper. This pigment, to 
 which the name of turacin has been given, is found in the 
 pinion-feathers of some eleven different kinds of birds pe- 
 culiar to Africa, and known as Touracous or Plantain-eaters. 
 About fifteen feathers in each wing present patches of crimson 
 hue, or are almost entirely red. 
 
 Clean one of . 
 
 these feathers (fig. 
 87 ) with water and 
 acid and ether, and 
 then boil it with 
 water — the water 
 becomes pale pink. " 
 Add a drop of 
 
 hartshorn, or am- Wing-feathcr of a Touracou. 
 
 monia, or soda, or '^ Black part, destitute of copper. 
 
 , . , „ ' 6, Red part, coloured by the cupreous pigment 
 
 a particle of soap, 
 
 and then in a few minutes the water will grow crimson, while 
 
 the red parts of the feather will become white or nearly so, 
 
490 THE COLOURS WE ADMIRE. 
 
 the dark or black portions remaining unchanged. Touracous 
 in captivity have been known to reduce their splendid crim- 
 son decorations to a shabby pink by too frequent ablutions 
 with rain-water ! The red pigment separates from its solu- 
 tion in ammonia or other alkali when a strong acid is added, 
 in flocks, which may be dried into a rich crimson solid. This, 
 when analysed, contains, along with carbon, hydrogen, nitro- 
 gen, and oxygen, about 8 per cent of copper, this copper 
 being so bound up with the other elements present as to be 
 incapable of removal by any treatment of the pigment short 
 of its entire destruction.^ 
 
 The existence of an animal pigment so rich in copper as 
 turacin, offers many interesting problems for study. Traces 
 of this metal seem generally diffused in most vegetables and 
 many animals ; but here are more than traces — weighable and 
 visible quantities. It is true that these plantain-eaters have 
 been seen to pick up in their native countries grains of mala- 
 chite, the green mineral carbonate of copper ; but we must 
 rather look to the vegetable food they consume as the true 
 source of this metal. And when the copper has been ingested, 
 how does it find its way, in the complex pigment of which it 
 is an essential part, precisely to those feathers, and to those 
 barbs of feathers, and to those parts of such barbs, which are 
 red, and not to the black portions ? for if one of these feathers 
 is burnt in a Bunsen gas-burner, not till the red part of the 
 feather is reached wUl the green flash of the copper tinge 
 the flame. However, in the crest of the violet plantain-eater 
 [Musaphaga violacea), and perhaps in traces in the blood of 
 all these birds, turacin, and therefore copper, does occur. Still 
 the -whole mystery of this strange pigment is far from being 
 understood. 
 
 3°. A word or two about a third animal pigment must 
 suffice. In the black and dark feathers of some birds, in 
 black human hair, and possibly in the skin of some mammals, 
 a black pigment is found. It is a remarkably stable com- 
 pound, resisting the action of such a powerful chemical 
 agent as tolerably strong sulphuric acid. Sorby obtained 
 1 grain of it from 100 grains of the feathers of the rook 
 {Corvus pica), and found it to contain the following average 
 
 1 See, for further details. Church on Turacin, in the PhilosopMcal Trans- 
 actions of the Eoyal Society, 1869, pp. 627-636. 
 
LEAF-GREEN. 491 
 
 percentages of these four elements : carbon, 55.4 ; hydro- 
 gen, 4.25; nitrogen, 8.5; oxygen, 31.85. The chemical 
 and physiological relationships of this pigmentum nigrum are 
 at present unknown. It dififers widely from albumen, though 
 it may be a product of its decomposition. 
 
 4°. Turning to the colouring matters of plants, leaf-green, 
 or chlorophyll, in virtue both of its importance and abun- 
 dance, claims the first place. Strange to say, however, in 
 spite of the thousands of tons of this substance which are 
 annually produced by grasses, herbs, and forest-trees, chem- 
 ists have not yet ascertained its component elements, much 
 less their relative proportions. We do not know whether 
 it contains iron or nitrogen, although wo are sure that it 
 is never produced in the absence of compounds capable of 
 supplying these elements. And further, it is possible that 
 leaf-green may consist of more than one substance, or that 
 the leaf-green of all plants may not be identical in every 
 respect. Still some progress has been made in the study of 
 tliis colouring matter, and a good many facts about it have 
 boon ascertained. It occurs, for instance, in all land plants 
 having an independent existence — that is, not living upon 
 other growing organisms, or on decaying organic matter. 
 Chlorophyll, moreover, is found in those cells of plants where 
 the absorption and decomposition of carbonic acid gas goes 
 on, with which characteristic process of vegetable life it is 
 closely concerned. Thus starch-granules are formed in such 
 cells in the midst of a complex material to which the name 
 of protoplasm is given, this protoplasm or formative sub- 
 stance being dyed, as it were, with chlorophyll. It is, then, 
 extremely probable that chlorophyll, when under the in- 
 fluence of the sun's radiant energy, stands, in relation to 
 the carbonic acid gas which plants decompose, very much in 
 the same position of importance as haemaglobin does to the 
 gases of the blood. 
 
 One of the most characteristic properties of chlorophyll is 
 the action of its solutions on light. The solar i-ays in part 
 pass through the liquid, which appears green by such trans- 
 mitted light. But in part they are reflected from its surface, 
 and from some depth beneath, and become so changed thereby 
 as to appear red. Thus a fresh solution of chlorophyll in 
 ether is perfectly clear and green when you look through it, 
 
492 
 
 THE COLOUKS WE ADMIRE. 
 
 but on being looked at, it seems to be full of minute par- 
 ticles of vermilion — it is an opaque red. 
 
 5°. It has long been known that many flowers, fruits, and 
 even leaves, give to spirit of wine a colouring matter which 
 is scarlet with acids, violet or purple in a neutral liquid, and 
 blue or green in the presence of an alkaline substance like 
 soda — dahlia-flowers, grape-skins, and red-cabbage leaves 
 are examples. One colouring matter is probably common 
 to all these plants and to many others. It has been called 
 by many different names, but quite lately has been termed 
 colein,^ from Coleus, a genus of plants, in many species of 
 which it occurs abundantly, both in stem and leaf. There 
 is scarcely a doubt that it is closely allied to chlorophyll, but, 
 unlike that pigment, it has no important office to fulfil in the 
 plant. It is distributed in the most curious manner in the 
 parts of the plants where it is found. In a leaf of Coleus, 
 say C. verschaffeltii, it is irregularly distributed in the cells of 
 
 Fig. 88. 
 
 CoUus verschaffeltii, 
 a, Leaf, half natural size, showing distribution of colouring matter. 
 hf Haixs and epidermic of stem, magnified, showing cells containing 
 colouring matter (colein). 
 
 the epidermis (a, fig. 88), some of these containing much, 
 
 some a trace, and others none. But its mode of occurrence 
 
 in the hairs of the stem and leaf is still more curious ; a hair 
 
 1 See Church on Colein, Journal Chem. Society, 1877, i. 253-262. 
 
ALIZARIN. 493 
 
 made up of, say, six colls, may have the end-cells richly tinted, 
 and all the others free from colein. (See b in fig. 88.) 
 
 Colein is a red resinous-looking substance, which wiU not 
 dissolve in ethfer, and but slightly in water, but is very sol- 
 uble in spirit of wine. A weak alcoholic solution becomes 
 nearly colourless after a few moments, but when it is poured 
 on a porcelain plate it regains its colour as it dries up. 
 With a drop of ammonia solution the colein becomes purple, 
 violet, indigo, green, and then yellow ; with a drop of acid 
 it takes a scarlet hue. Colein has the percentage composi* 
 tion, — carbon, 57.7; hydrogen, 4.7; oxygen, 37.6. It is 
 probably thus identical with the colouring matter of red wine, 
 most red, blue, and purple flowers and fruits, and with the 
 red pigment of the copper beech. Its solution forms a very 
 sensitive test-paper for acids and alkalies. 
 
 6°. A third vegetable pigment, the chief colouring sub- 
 stance to which madder-root {Bubia tinctorum) owes its value 
 as a dye, affords a most striking example of the methods 
 and results of modern chemical research. After many long 
 «nd tedious investigations as to the composition and relation- 
 ships of this madder pigment, called alizarin, Graebe and 
 Liebermann decided that its chemical composition was repre- 
 sented by the expression, G■^^ Hg O4. These chemists further 
 ascertained that it yielded a hydrocarbon (that is, a com- 
 pound of carbon and hydrogen), having the formula Cj^ Hjj, 
 when distilled with zino-dust and zinc-hydrate. Now this 
 hydrocarbon, called anthracene, was already a well-known 
 substance, which could be made from several chemical com- 
 pounds, and occurred in considerable quantities in the less 
 volatile parts of coal-tar. If alizarin, the red pigment de- 
 rived from madder, gives anthracene, may not anthracene 
 be made to give alizarin? The German chemists above 
 named accomplished this transformation also. By a process 
 which is essentially one of oxidation, two of hydrogen are 
 taken away from anthracene, and four of oxygen added. 
 This process, as improved by Perkin, consists in oxidising the 
 antliracene by bichromate of potassium, heating the anthra- 
 guinone (Cj^ Hg Oj) formed with oil of vitriol, and then treating 
 the last product with caustic potash. The materials being 
 cheap, alizarin thus made has displaced the preparations from 
 madder-root to a great extent, so that -the growth and 
 
494 THE COLOUES WE ADMIKE. 
 
 imports of that valuable plant have greatly fallen off since 
 this grand and almost unique discovery of how to prepare 
 artificially a vegetable colouring matter. It is believed that 
 the madder-root (much is grown at Avignon) used in this 
 country in the three years following the discovery, chiefly 
 for dyeing " Turkey red," is represented by the following 
 values : — 
 
 1874, £800,000 
 
 1875, 411,000 
 
 1876 239,000 
 
 Strange that the heating of a few scarlet crystals with 
 some powdered zinc in a test-tube should have produced so 
 considerable an effect on commerce, destroying an old industry 
 and creating many new ones. But the chemistry of the last 
 thirty years has furnished many equal marvels, while the 
 chemistry of the future promises to be still more fruitful. In 
 this same matter of pigments scores of new and splendid 
 dyes have been produced. Indigo, too, that old favourite, 
 the prince of pigments, has at length revealed the secret of 
 its structure to the questionings of the chemist, so that the 
 elements of this colouring matter can now be put together 
 without the assistance of the organic processes going on in 
 the indigo-plant. But as yet the artificial building up of 
 indigo is too costly and elaborate a process to be com- 
 mercially available. 
 
 7°. With the coal-tar colours we are almost too familiar 
 nowadays. Some of these colours in chief request are dis- 
 tressingly violent, and being often used unmixed and in 
 masses fatigue the eye. The passing rainbow, set in a vast 
 expanse of shaded grey, is pleasant and refreshing ; but we 
 should soon be wearied of a sky for ever filled with great 
 arches of pure prismatic hues. But whatever the artistic 
 and decorative failings of the coal-tar pigments as commonly 
 employed may be, the chemistry of these brilliant and com- 
 plex compounds is fuU of interest. 
 
 It was in the spring of 1856 that the first of the coal-tar 
 dyes saw the light. Mr W. H. Perkin, then a young student 
 of the College of Chemistry, during some experiments pre- 
 paratory for an entirely different research, had occasion to 
 attempt the oxidation of a liquid derived irom coal-tar, and 
 called aniline. Aniline (itself formerly made only from 
 
CHEMISTRY OF PIGMENTS. 495 
 
 indigo) did not yield the expected product ; but the spirit 
 used with the object of extracting the wished-for new sub- 
 stance became of a superb purple hue. This was mauve, the 
 forerunner of a countless host of new coloured substances, 
 nearly all of which have been obtained from the following 
 hydrocarbons present in coal-tar : — 
 
 Bonzol, . . Cj Hj Naphthalene, . . Cjo Hj 
 
 Toluol, . . CV Hj Anthracene, . . Cu Hj,, 
 
 But carbolic acid, so familiar as a disinfectant, is likewise 
 the source of several of these dyes. It is, however, not a 
 hydrocarbon, though nearly related to benzol, and containing 
 just one atom of oxygen in addition to the elements of that 
 substance. 
 
 The chemistry of the coal-tar dyes is far too vast and 
 intricate a subject to be discussed here ; but there are three 
 prominent aspects of the subject to which the reader's atten- 
 tion may be profitably directed. 
 
 a. The first of them is the material basis of these dis- 
 coveries, and the process by which they have developed. 
 How utterly unpromising is the appearance of the blackish- 
 brown mess of offensive smell, the coal-tar, which is the 
 prime source of mauve, magenta, magdala-red, corallin, aurin, 
 &c. ! But the chemist separates this tar into the several com- 
 pounds of which it is a mixture. He studies these compounds 
 individually — finds that some, like benzol, are colourless oily 
 liquids ; and others, like naphthalene, are crystalUne solids. 
 Then he learns their constitution, and what derivatives may 
 be formed from them. He submits them to old methods and 
 treatments ; he devises new processes of torture. Finding 
 one line of procedure yield a brown pigment with one com- 
 pound, he repeats the experiment with a second compound 
 and obtains a red product. A thousand failures do not daunt 
 him. He aims at the discovery of nature's secrets by sys- 
 tematic questioning, and a scientific success often rewards 
 him. He may secure that other success which every one 
 can appreciate ; but to enlarge the boundaries of science, not 
 to fill a purse, has been the aim of the greatest discoverers. 
 
 b, A second point of interest exists in connection with the 
 optical properties of many of the coal-tar pigments. A large 
 number of them when in the solid state present that pecu- 
 
496 THE COLOUKS WE ADMIKE. 
 
 liarly intense lustre known as metallio. Some reflect from 
 their surfaces a hue like that of gold, others resemble bronze 
 and copper. Another peculiarity is noticeable in a good 
 many of these pigments, particularly amongst those derived 
 from anthracene. Solutions of these coloured bodies are 
 strongly fluorescent, changing some of the rays that fall 
 upon them, and reflecting a yellow, green, or blue light of 
 wonderful brilliancy. It is strange to see a crimson solution, 
 perfectly transparent when looked through, so lighted up 
 with an internal blue flame as to be dazzlingly opaque when 
 looked at. 
 
 c. The third aspect of these dyes concerns their chemical 
 constitution. They frequently present analogies and relation- 
 ships amongst themselves, and these serve as guides to new 
 discoveries. And we may even find that in some instances 
 we can predict what hue a new product not yet made will 
 have when its production has been realised. One instance 
 of such predictions and relations must sufiSce. Eosaniline, 
 the base of magenta, but itself colourless unless united with 
 an acid, has in it three atoms of hydrogen which admit of 
 being removed and replaced by certain compound radicles ^ as 
 they are called — for instance, by methyl, ethyl, and phenyL 
 Put in one such radicle — say one of phenyl— and the new 
 magenta has acquired a more purple hue : another phenyl 
 gives a violet ; the third produces a colour verging on blue. 
 If then, generally, we want to give a bluer cast to any red 
 colouring substance analogous to rosaniline in constitution, 
 we have but to effect a smilar replacement to that just men- 
 tioned, and we may reasonably expect a similar result. To 
 show how unexpected are the relationships which exist be- 
 tween some of these dyes the following case may be cited. A 
 substance called aurin, of a golden red, is obtained from carbo- 
 lic acid ; its composition is probably expressed by Cjg H^^ O3. 
 Now one sort of rosaniline, made from toluol, is Cjg Hj^ N3 ; 
 and it has been found that aurin long heated with ammonia 
 yields rosaniline. This conversion has led chemists to a 
 better knowledge of the constitution of both substances, and 
 they are now regarded as bearing some such relation to one 
 another as water bears to ammonia. It is difiBcult, perhaps 
 impossible, to express such facts in untechnioal language ; 
 1 See pp. i28 and 463. 
 
IMPOETANCK AND BEAUTY OF COLOUKING MATTERS. 497 
 
 but some notion of the relationship in question may bo 
 gathered from the mere inspection of these expressions — 
 
 S of vxUer, Hj (H0)3 3 of ammonia, H, (NH,), 
 
 1 of aurin, Cji, Hjj (RO)^ 1 of rosaniline, Cjj Hj, (NHj)j 
 
 How rich and varied and beautiful — and, we may add, how 
 important — is the whole science of colouring matters may bo 
 imagined from the glimpses we have here caught of the 
 chlorophyll of the living leaf — the hasmaglobin of the active 
 blood — the alizarin of madder and coal-tar. It is not a mere 
 question of paints and dyes, but the thoughtful mind, no less 
 than the educated eye, discovers a subject of delightful con- 
 templation in " The Colours we Admire." 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOB. 
 
 What is it to breathe ?— Structure of the lungs. — Quantity of air inhaled. — 
 Tidal air and stationary air. — Effect of breathing on the composition of 
 the air ; it increases the proportions of moisture and carbonic acid gas, 
 and diminishes that of oxygen ; to what extent it does so.— Quantity of 
 carbonic acid gas given off from the lungs and the skin. — ^Purpose for which 
 man breathes. — The oxygen absorbed helps to form the substance of the 
 muscular and other tissues ; it converts the waste material of the body into 
 urea and other soluble substances preparatory to its removal ; it converts 
 the fat and starch of the food into carbonic acid gas and water ; acts in a 
 similar way upon alcohol. — ^Why the carbonic acid from the lungs varies in 
 quantity.— Physiological effect of these chemical changes ; they are the 
 chief source of animal heat.— Careful provision for the constant disengage- 
 ment of this heat. — Purposes served in external nature by the breathing 
 of animals. 
 
 I. What is it to Breathe ? 
 
 1°. To breathe, iu the usual acceptation of the term, is to 
 draw in atmospheric air through the mouth and nose into the 
 lungs, and after a brief interval to throw it out again. 
 
 The lungs, into which the air is thus drawn, consist of two 
 rounded oblong, somewhat flattened, masses of very cellular 
 substance, situated in the cavity of the chest, and communi- 
 cating with the atmosphere through the windpipe or trachea. 
 The general form of the human lung is represented in the 
 annexed figure. 
 
 The air or wind pipe (a b, fig. 89), as it descends from the 
 throat, branches off into large (bronchial) tubes (c c) ; and 
 these again and again into smaller, still smaller, and finally 
 into hair-like vessels (d). Through these the air penetrates 
 
THE LUNOS. 
 
 499 
 
 into the remotest parts of tlie cellular substance. Around 
 each visible extremity nearly 18,000 cells are clustered (17,790, 
 RoucHoux), each of which 
 is connected through these 
 minute tubes with the exter- 
 nal air. The cells vary in 
 size ; they have a diameter 
 of from one-seventieth to one 
 two-hundredth, or, on an aver- 
 age, of about one-hundredth 
 of an inch. The total num- 
 ber of them is reckoned at 
 600,000,0001 Their walls 
 are very thin ; they are mere 
 air-vesicles. 
 
 The lungs, as this struc- 
 ture implies, are very elastic, 
 and consequently the volume 
 of air they contain very vari- 
 able. The average quantity 
 which, by an effort,the lungs 
 of an adult can be made to 
 exhale or expire after the 
 
 J . • • . • '11 Human Liung. 
 
 deepest mspiration possible, ^^^^ ,^^^ . j_ ^,„» 
 
 is rather more than 6i tubes or air-passages j d,H 
 • 11 • 1 *j Lung. 
 
 pints ; and the quantity they 
 
 draw in at an ordinary, natural, but full inspiration, may be 
 as much as 2 J pints : an ordinary tranquil respiration, made 
 without effort, takes in only 1 pint. 
 
 At the easy average of 18 inspirations a-minute, this 
 makes the bulk of air drawn in and thrown out again to 
 amount — in common life — to about 18 pints a-minute, 1000 
 pints an hour, or 3000 gallons a-day. Some estimate it as 
 high as 4000 gallons a-day for an average man in average 
 circumstances, and as high as 5700 gallons a-day for an 
 athletic man undergoing severe exertion. The air that enters 
 the lung at an inspiration is called the tidal air, that which 
 remains in it after an expiration is called the stationary air. 
 The impurities of the latter diffuse them partly into the 
 former at every breath. 
 
 But the breathing process is not wholly confined to the 
 
 Human Lung. 
 
 ceo, Bronchial 
 Hair-like vessels ; 
 
eOO "WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR. 
 
 lungs, both the intestinal canal and the sMn being associated 
 with the absorption of oxygen and fhe removal of the carbonic 
 acid gas and water produced by oxidation. 
 
 Three distinct and sensible chemical alterations are pro- 
 duced by the breathing animal upon the air which enters and 
 surrounds it. 
 
 First, If the breath of an animal, as it escapes from the 
 mouth, be received in a dry cool vessel, or upoh a clean 
 mirror, the surface of either will be rendered dim by a thin 
 coating of moisture. In like manner, if the naked hand or 
 arm be enclosed in a' clean dry glass vessel, a deposit of dew 
 will gradually be formed upon its inner surface. Both from 
 the lungs, therefore, and from the skin, watery vapour is con- 
 tinually, though insensibly, given off into the surrounding 
 atmosphere. As it comes out, the air contains more moisture 
 than when it went into the body. This is the first change. 
 
 Secondly, If the expired air from our lungs be passed through 
 lime-water, it speedily renders the liquid milky (see p. 3). 
 
 Now, if we put a quantity of lime-water into a close bottle, 
 and draw common atmospheric air through it, as in the annexed 
 figure (fig. 90), we shall see that for a hng time the water 
 
 wiU remain bright and 
 =• ^^' transparent. A very large 
 
 volume of air must be 
 drawn through before the 
 clearness of the water sen- 
 sibly diminishes, and still 
 more before it becomes 
 perceptibly milky. This 
 shows that though carbonic 
 acid is present in the air, 
 it is so only in very small 
 proportion. 
 
 But if, instead of drawing atmospheric air through the 
 lime-water, we hlow through it the air which comes from the 
 lungs, as in figure 91, we shall see the bright clearness of 
 the liquor disappear almost immediately. In a very few 
 minutes it wiU have become opaque and milky. The air, as 
 it comes from the lungs, contains, therefore, more carbonic 
 acid gas than as it went in. This is the second change. 
 In like manner, if any part of the naked body be surrounded 
 
THE EXPIHED AIK. 501 
 
 for a while by a close vessel, and the air within the vessel be 
 subsequently examined, a slightly larger proportion of car- 
 bonic acid will be found in it than is usually present in an 
 equal bulk of the surrounding atmosphere. Thus, from our 
 lungs and from our skin, wo are continually, though in- 
 sensibly, breathing out carbonic acid, and adding to the pro- 
 portion of this gas which naturally exists in the air in which 
 we live. 
 
 Thirdly, If either the air which comea from our lungs, or 
 that in which a naked limb has been for some time closely 
 confined, be chemically examined, it will be found to contain 
 a smaller percentage of oxygen than is present in common 
 atmospheric air. The lungs, therefoVe, are continually drink- 
 ing in oxygen from the air. This is the third change. 
 
 Thus the chemical alterations which atmospheric air under- 
 goes through the agency of the breathing animal are, — that it 
 is rendered moister than before — that the proportion of car- 
 bonic acid is increased — and that the percentage of oxygen 
 is diminished. 
 
 2°. To what extent do these changes take place ? Can we 
 estimate it in numbers ? 
 
 a. The quantity of water which, is thrown out into the air 
 from the lungs of a healthy man is very variable. It is modi- 
 fied by season and climate, by individual constitution and 
 state of health, by the amount of exercise taken, by the 
 quality of the food, by the quantity of liquid consumed, and 
 by a variety of other circumstances. Generally speaking, 
 however, the quantity given off from the lungs and skin 
 together is equal to about one-third of the weight of the 
 wliole food, solid and liquid, which is taken into the stomach. 
 
 Now the skin alone of a full-grown man exhales in twenty- 
 four hours, and in ordinary circumstances, from one and a half 
 to two pounds of water in the state of insensible perspiration. 
 The difference between this weight and that of one-third of 
 the whole food, solid and liquid, represents the quantity of 
 water daily discharged from the lungs. It is not far from the 
 truth to say that, for every pound and a half discharged from 
 the skin, about one pound is given off from the lungs. 
 
 b. We have already seen that the air we breathe contains, 
 in its natural state and at ordinary elevations, about 4 gallons 
 of carbonic acid gas in ovory 10,000 of air (p. 5). This is 
 
502 WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOE. 
 
 its condition as it enters the lungs. As it returns it con- 
 tains on an average 4 gallons in 100 ! In cases of disease 
 the proportion of carbonic acid sometimes mounts np to as 
 much as 7 gallons in 100. The quantity of this gas dis- 
 charged from the lungs, therefore, in twenty-four hours, must 
 be very considerable. 
 
 Like that of watery vapour, this quantity varies with many 
 circumstances. Size, age, sex, food, climate, constitution, 
 health, exercise, all modify it. A considerable difference re- 
 sults also from the amount of sunlight to which the human 
 being is exposed, much less carbonic acid being given off in 
 darkness than in daylight In a fuU-grown man the average 
 weight of carbonic acid given off is rather more than 2 lb. 
 in twenty-four hours. 
 
 This gas contains in every 100 lb. 28 lb. of carbon (pure 
 charcoal) and 72 lb. of oxygen. Hence the average weight 
 of carbon which escapes in this form from the lungs and sMn 
 of a full-grown man is . nearly 9 ounces in the twenty-four 
 hours. Of this only about 40 grains are given off by the skin. 
 
 c. The proportion of oxygen gas which atmospheric air 
 contains is very nearly 21 gallons in every 100. After it 
 has visited the human lungs, however, this proportion is re- 
 duced to 17 in 100, and is sometimes lower. The lungs extract 
 from one-seventh to one-fifth of its oxygen. The absolute 
 weight of the oxygen thus taken up in a day also varies with 
 many circumstances. It is generally equal, in the case of 
 an adult man, to abont 1 lb. 10 oz., or one -fourth of the 
 weight of his whole food, solid and liquid. But whatever 
 increases the quantity of carbonic acid given off, generally 
 increases, and nearly in an equal degree, that of the oxygen 
 absorbed. 
 
 Such is this most vital process of respiration, considered in 
 itself ; and such is the chemical influence in kind and quantity 
 which a full-grown man by his breathing insensibly exercises 
 over the composition, of the atmosphere which surrounds 
 him. 
 
 But for what end does man breathe ? What good follows 
 to himself, or what useful purpose is served in external 
 nature, by the changes which his breathing produces upon 
 the air in which he lives ? These questions we must consider 
 in their order. 
 
USES OF THE INHALED OXYGEN. 503 
 
 IL For what good to himself does man Breathe ? 
 
 To obtain a clear answer to this question we must examine 
 the function of respiration more closely. 
 
 The oxygen which enters into the circulation of the body 
 through the lung-surface is equal in weight, as we have seen, 
 to one-fourth of all the solids and liquids introduced into the 
 stomach. It exceeds in weight that of the dry solid food 
 taken alone. This oxygen is the main source of the good 
 which man derives from breathing. This good is twofold. 
 For the oxygon absorbed during breathing is the means by 
 which that part of the food which has been digested, absorbed, 
 and assimilated, is oxidised or burnt, thus keeping up, as in 
 a steam-engine, the heat and activity of the body. And, 
 secondly, the large bulk of air inhaled and then expired, 
 carries away from the body the useless products of this burn- 
 ing, the carbonic acid gas and water vapour which we axe 
 continually pouring into the air. 
 
 We must now learn, in the next place, the nature of the 
 substances thus burnt or oxidised in the body ; then we must 
 ascertain where this combustion takes place ; and, lastly, we 
 must discover what becomes of the products of combustion — 
 how they arc disposed of. 
 
 1°. As to the nature of the material which the oxygen of 
 the air, taken into the lungs, combines with and burns, one 
 fact is certain — it is combustible. Now the water and salts 
 which we consume in our food are not combustible ; while 
 the starch, the sugar, the fat, the albumen, and other car- 
 bon-containing ingredients of our food, are combustible. 
 To these latter compounds we must look for the fuel of 
 the body. 
 
 2°. These substances, changed by digestion and absorbed 
 into the circulating blood, which they continually renew, are 
 burnt — that is, oxidised throughout the body. How much of 
 the heat and mechanical energy of the body is derived from 
 the direct burning of tlie substance of the muscles themselves, 
 and how much from the burning of the combustible constitu- 
 ents ever present in the blood and juice of flesh, has not been 
 determined. But that the oxygen of the air is carried into 
 all parts of the circulation is known. It is carried chiefly in 
 association or loose combination with the most important con- 
 stituent of the blood. That constituent is a red substance, 
 23 
 
sot -WHAT WE BREATHE AND BREATHE FOR. 
 
 hcemaglohin^ which forms the chief part of the red corpuscles 
 of the blood. 
 
 3°. But if the carbon-containing substances derived from 
 man's food are burnt throughout his body, and if this burn- 
 ing takes place because of oxygen brought from the lungs, 
 how and in what forms, may we ask, are the products of this 
 burning, being no longer of use, conveyed out of the body ? 
 The very Jmmaglobin which has brought the oxygen carries 
 away the chief product of the burning — ^namely, carbonic acid 
 gas. The 8 or 9 ounces of water, too, which are daily pro- 
 duced by the burning of the hydrogen of the body-fuel, are 
 also mainly removed in the return current of blood, and dis- 
 charged from the lungs in the expired air. The waste of all 
 the substances which contain carbon and hydrogen, but no 
 nitrogen, is thus disposed of; but the nitrogenous compounds, 
 which are also burned in the circulatory system, produce 
 something else besides carbonic acid gas and water. The 
 chief of these other products is called urea. Not being 
 capable of passing away as vapour, it can only be removed 
 from the blood in a liquid form. It is, in fact, a white crystal- 
 line substance, very soluble in water, and is discharged from 
 the body daily, to the extent of about 1^ ounce, in the 
 urine. The blood secretes urine into the glandular organs 
 called the kidneys just as it secretes sweat into the sweat- 
 glands of the skin. Thus the solid waste of the nitrogen- 
 compounds of the blood, left when the major part of their 
 carbon and oxygen is burnt, is washed out of the blood, and 
 leaves the body chiefly as urea. This urea contains in every 
 100 parts — 
 
 Nitrogen, 46.7 
 
 Carbon, 20.0 
 
 Hydrogen, 6.6 
 
 Oxygen, 26.7 
 
 100.0 
 In other words, it contains just three times as much nitrogen 
 as the compounds from which it was formed. These (albu- 
 men, fibrin, &c.) contain 15.8 parts of nitrogen in 100. Of 
 these we bum or consume each day 4^ ounce, from which 
 are produced about 1^ ounce of urea, with small quantities of 
 other nitrogenous compounds, as uric acid. 
 
 1 Sea the chapter on " The Colouri! we Admire." 
 
SOURCE OF ANIMAL HEAT. 505 
 
 I have Btated in a previous part of this chapter that the 
 absolute quantity of carbonic acid gas given ofif from the lungs 
 is variable, and that the kind of food we at different times make 
 use of is one of the causes of such variation. Even when the 
 absolute quantity of oxygen drawn in from the air is the 
 same, the quantity of carbonic acid gas returned to it may 
 differ as much as three-tenths, or nearly one-third of the 
 whole, supposing the food-substance with wliich the oxygen 
 combines in the body to be at one time starch, and at another 
 fat. 
 
 The indirect and physiological good. — But these chemical 
 operations are attended by an indirect physiological effect 
 which is essential to the existence of life. 
 
 From what has been stated above, it does not appear that 
 any good purpose is served by the constant production in the 
 blood-vessels and discharge from the lungs of carbonic acid 
 gas and watery vapour. We can see the good which the 
 oxygen does to the animal in forming the material of its 
 tissues, and in subsequently removing the waste matter of 
 these tissues as they wear away ; but in the simple formation 
 of carbonic acid and water we see none. 
 
 The good in this case arises, not from the mere chemical 
 change itself, but from a certain physical circumstance that 
 accompanies it. 
 
 It is known that animals differ in the amount of sensible 
 warmth which they naturally exhibit. Some, like fishes, 
 have a temperature very little higher than that of the me- 
 dium in which they live : they are cold-blooded. Others, like 
 man and most quadrupeds, are considerably warmer than the 
 air which surrounds them : they are warm-blooded. The 
 internal heat of a healthy man, for example, in temperate 
 climates, is about 98J° Fahr. In hot climates, and when 
 he is attacked by fover, it rises to 100° F., and upwards. 
 The horse has an internal heat of 101° F., amphibious 
 animals of about 101^° F., ruminating animals of 104° F., 
 and birds of 106° F., while iu reptiles the mean heat falls 
 to about 80° F. 
 
 But an animal, tlie body of which is always warmer than 
 the air or other medium in which it lives, must have a source 
 of heat within itself independent of extornal nature. 
 
 And when we consider how much heat must be continually 
 
506 "WHAT WE BKEATHE AND BREATHE TOE. 
 
 radiating from the surface of a warm animal into the cooler 
 air, how much is expended in converting into vapour the 
 water which continually escapes from its skin in the form of 
 insensible perspiration, and from its lungs in invisible steam 
 — how much ia warming up the food and air which enter 
 cold into its stomach and lungs, and are discharged again at 
 a temperature nearly equal to that of the body itself — and 
 that this escape of heat is incessant, and in a degree unifoim, 
 — all these circumstances compel us to the conclusion that 
 this internal source of heat must be both large and constant. 
 
 And cold-blooded animals like fish are still not quite cold ; 
 they need supplies of heat and of energy — of the power of 
 doing work. They get this by burning their food-materials 
 in the oxygen of the water: not the oxygen which is a part 
 of the chemical compound water, but the oxygen dissolved in 
 the water, which usually amounts to about one-eighth of a 
 part by volume. 
 
 And this connection between the production of carbonic 
 acid gas and that of heat is placed beyond all doubt when we 
 attend to the physical circumstances by which the change of 
 sugar, starch, albumen, and fat into carbonic acid and' water 
 are accompanied in the external air. If we burn one of these 
 substances in the air, or in pure oxygen gas, it disappears, 
 and is entirely transformed into carbonic acid gas and water. 
 This is what takes place also within the body. 
 
 But in the air this change is accempanied by a disengage- 
 ment of heat and light — or, if it take place very slowly, of 
 heat alone, without any visible light. Within the body it 
 must be the same. Heat must be given off continuously as 
 the starch, sugar, and fat of the food are changed within the 
 body into carbonic acid and water. In this we have the 
 continuous natural source of animal heat. Without this 
 supply of heat the body would soon become cold and stiff. 
 The formation of carbonic acid and water, therefore, con 
 tinually goes on ; and when the food ceases to supply the 
 materials, the body of the animal itself is burned away, so to 
 speak, that the heat may still be kept up. And so a fat 
 animal in good condition can subsist longer without food 
 than a lean one. 
 
 The good purpose served by the production of carbonic 
 acid and water within the body is now apparent : it keeps 
 
HEAT AND WOHK. 607 
 
 the body warm, and supplies it continually with the power 
 of doing both internal and external work. 
 
 It is received as universally true, that whenever a body 
 unites chemically with oxygen, some heat is given off, or 
 becomes sensible. 
 
 There is both in the substance burnt and in the oxygen 
 with which it combines a certain amount of stored-up power 
 or energy; and of this a part, differing in amount with different 
 combustibles, and with the completeness of the combustion, 
 is Bet free — -potential energy becomes acttial. Now one form of 
 actual energy is heat — another form is manifested in work 
 done. Work is done in breathing, in driving the blood 
 through the body: work is done outside the body when it 
 moves from place to place, or when the hand lifts a weight. 
 If you can get heat out of anything, you can get work also, 
 for heat and work are convertible. The same heat which 
 will warm 1 lb. of water 1° Fahr., is equal to the task of 
 raising a weight of 772 lb. to the height of 1 foot. That is 
 the mechanical equivalent of heat. And we may therefore 
 express the total heat producible by the complete burning 
 of the chief combustible food-constituents, in the form of 
 so many tons raised one foot higL Here is such a set of 
 figures : — 
 
 By bornlDg 1 lb. of Tons are raised 1 foot high. 
 
 Starch 2427 
 
 Grnpe-sugar . 2033 
 
 Oil 5649 
 
 Gluten, ulbumeu, or ilbriu, 2643 
 
 From the last figure we must deduct one-seventh, for 
 gluten, &c. cannot be burnt completely in the body. And we 
 must not forget also that only one-fifth of the energy or power 
 of doing work is available for work outside the body, the rest 
 being used in inside work or as heat. 
 
 The continuous formation of carbonic acid gas and water 
 within the body of the breathing animal arises, then, from the 
 urgent necessity of a constant supply of heat and energy. 
 And in it we find the explanation of two remarkable cir- 
 cumstances, in which, were man concerned, we should say 
 that an anxious solicitude was manifest on the part of the 
 contriver and adjuster. 
 
 The first is the wonderful provision that is made within 
 
508 
 
 WHAT WE BEEATHE AND BREATHE FOE. 
 
 tlie animal for bringing the whole blood into frequent com- 
 mimication with the oxygen of the atmosphere. This is 
 seen in the structure and connection of the lungs and the 
 heart. 
 
 The structure of the human lungs has been abeady de- 
 scribed (p. 499), and it has been stated that they contain 
 about 600 millions of cells, varying in diameter from the 
 two-hundredth to the seventieth of an inch. The internal 
 surfaces of all these cells form together an area of about 
 160 square yards of thin cell-waU ! Over the whole of this 
 surface minute blood-vessels branch out, so as almost entirely 
 to cover it. And along these tiny vessels the blood is con- 
 tinually flowing, and, as it flows, absorbing through their 
 walls the oxygen of the inspired air. 
 
 Then the heart is contrived and constructed to keep up 
 this flow. The structure of the heart is shown in fig. 92. 
 
 Fig. 92. 
 
 Pulmonary veins ^ 
 
 'R\ght auricle 
 
 Valve 
 Lower vena cava •• 
 
 Right ventricle • 
 
 FuImonai7 veins 
 
 *• Left ventricle 
 
 Section of the Hmnan Heart. 
 
 Keturning from the extremities to the cavities here shown in 
 the right side of the heart, the blood is thence driven into 
 the lungs by a series of muscular contractions and expan- 
 
CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. 
 
 509 
 
 eioiis, aided by valves opening one way. Returning from 
 the lungs to the cavities on the left side, it is driven thence 
 along the arteries, which convey it again to the most distant 
 parts of the body. 
 
 The mutual adjustment and structural relations of the heart 
 and lungs to each other will be better understood by an in- 
 spection of fig. 93. 
 
 This shows the situation of the heart between the two 
 
 Fig. 93. 
 
 Right auricle 
 
 iQterior of the Lunga, showing their connection with the Heart and the 
 hago Blood-vessels. 
 
 lobes of the lungs. The double arrow in the upper vena 
 cava, and the single arrow in the lower vena cava, show how 
 the blood is conveyed through these two channels into the 
 right auricle of the heart, and the arrow ascending from the 
 
510 WHAT WE BKEATHE AND BKEATHE FOE. 
 
 right yentricle, how the blood flows from it towards the 
 lungs. The unshaded branching vessels which connect the 
 lungs with the unseen left auricle carry ba<^ the blood from 
 the lungs to the heart, while the ascending arrow between 
 the upper vena cava and the right ventricle shows the course 
 of the aorta through which the blood from the heart proceeds 
 on its new journey towards the extremities.^ 
 
 The weight of the entire blood of a fuUrgrown man is about 
 one-thirteenth of his weight, or 12 lb. in 154. Of this the 
 lungs, ill a state of health, contain about half a pound. The 
 heart beats on an average 70 times- a minute. Every beat 
 sends forward 6 ounces of the fluid. It rushes on in the 
 great arteries at the rate of 50 feet or more a minute, and a 
 quantity of blood equal to the whole amount is calculated to 
 pass through the lungs in less than h^ilf a minute I 
 
 How anxiously, if I may so speak, the oxidation of the 
 blood is thus provided for ! — first, by the large surface over 
 which it is made to spread within the lungs ; second, by 
 the complicated machinery of the heart, which keeps it in 
 motion ; and third, by the extraordinary rapidity, and con- 
 sequent frequency, with which it is compelled to flow over 
 the wide lung-surface. 
 
 The second circumstance accounted for, is the large pro- 
 portion of starch, sugar, or fat, which exists in nearly all the 
 varieties of vegetable food on which we live. These, and 
 especially the starch and sugar, are not required, as the 
 gluten of bread and albumen and fibrin are, directly to build 
 up the substance of the body. They are converted into car- 
 bonic acid gas and water in order that the heat and force of 
 the animal may be kept up. They form in every kind of 
 vegetable food, therefore, which in any part of the world serves 
 as " the staff of human life," by far the largest portion of ils 
 weight. If it is carefully provided that oxygen shall never 
 
 1 The Wood, in circnlating, comes from the extremities, — 
 
 1 . To the venae cavse. 
 
 2. To the right auricle. 
 
 3. To the right ventricle. 
 
 4. To the pulmonary artery. 
 
 5. To the lungs. 
 
 6. To the pulmonary veins. 
 
 7. To the left auricle. 
 
 8. To the left ventricle. 
 
 9. To the aorta. 
 10. To the arteries. 
 
 H. To the capiUary or hair-lUce 
 
 12. To the veins, -which lead it all 
 back to the vense cavse. 
 
 Tlirough nearly the whole of these stages its course may te traced hy the 
 aid of the woodcuts in the text. 
 
HEAT OF PLANTS. 511 
 
 be wanting in the blood, equal caro has been taken that 
 the vegetable feeder shall always convey into its stomach 
 those substances with which the oxygen can most usefuUy 
 combinQ. 
 
 In the food of flesh-eating animals, fat serves the same 
 purpose as starch does in that of the vegetable feeders ; and 
 in the relish for fat flesh which such animals display, we 
 see a new provision for securing its introduction into their 
 stomachs. 
 
 It is necessary to add to what has been said on this point, 
 that though starch and sugar and fat are the substances 
 which are generally converted into the carbonic acid we give 
 off from our lungs, yet that we can live and breathe, though 
 with less comfort, for some time without .them. It is a 
 iurthor provision for the maintenance of human life, that 
 in case of emergency the gluten of the plant and the fibrin 
 of the animal flesh can be made not only to furnish fresh 
 muscle but may be consumed as fuel like starch and fat, 
 and may be converted within the body into carbonic acid 
 and water, and in this foim be discharged in our breath. 
 Hence the strength-supporting virtues of tlie dried flesh, 
 containing probably little fat, on which the bold riders of 
 the Pampas are for the most part sustained. 
 
 It is interesting, as giving support to the view above ex- 
 plained in regard to the source of animal heat, that in certain 
 cases a sensible warmth is produced in plants by a similar 
 chemical change. The leaves of plants in general give off 
 oxygen gas in the sunlight, and absorb carbonic acid gas. 
 But to this law the parts or petals of flowers present an ex.. 
 ception. They give off carbonic acid and absorb oxygen, as 
 the lungs of animals do, and the flowers alone, and their 
 appendages, of all the parts of a living plant are sensibly 
 warmer than the air which surrounds them. In most cases 
 they are only one, or one and a half degree warmer than the 
 air, but in rare instances they become sensibly warm to the 
 touch. This is the case witli plants of the Arum family, in 
 one of which — the Arum cordifolium — the flower has been 
 observed to have a heat of 121° F., while that of the air was 
 only 66° F. ; ahd once at Kew, the air in the flower-spathe of 
 a plant got so hot in this way as to expand and explode its 
 eheath with a loud report 1 As in the animal, it is to the 
 
512 WHAT WE BREATHE AND EEEATHE FOE. 
 
 union of the oxygen absorbed from the air with some etaroh- 
 like ingredient in the sap of the flower-stalks and sheath, 
 that the production of this warmth is to be ascribed. This 
 is proved by the fact that the greater the quantity of oxygen 
 absorbed by the flower, the higher the temperature it reaches 
 — (Gareeau). 
 
 III. What pukpose in external NatubE is served by the 
 Breathing op Animals ? Our consideration of this point need 
 only be very brief. 
 
 The animal is not an independent part of the works or 
 system of nature. Oxygen is not difiused through the at- 
 mosphere in nicely-adjusted proportions, solely that warm- 
 blooded animals, may breathe it ; nor are the nicely-adjusted 
 functions of life maintained within these animals solely for 
 their own benefit. They breathe not less for the support of 
 the vegetable kingdom than for their own. 
 
 We have already seen that the air which surrounds us con- 
 tains about four ten-thousandths of its bulk of carbonic acid 
 gas, and that all the green leaves which flourish on the face 
 of the earth are ceaselessly, during daylight, sucking in from 
 the air this thinly-difiused gas. In a very few years, work- 
 ing as they do now, existing plants would absorb the whole, 
 were no new supplies poured into the atmosphere to make good 
 the rapid loss. It has been calculated that an acre of beech- 
 forest annually consumes 3 J tons of carbonic acid gas, or one- 
 eighth of the total amount present at one time in the air above 
 an acre of surface. The breathing of animals is one of the 
 main sources from which fresh supplies come. The carbonic 
 acid they pour continuously from their lungs and skin, while 
 life lasts, takes the place of that which plants as unweariedly 
 extract from it. And thus, while the circle of natural opera- 
 tions within the animal is complete in itself, and in every 
 move it makes the animal seems to work only for its own 
 good, it is all the while unconsciously labouring for the bene- 
 fit of an entirely different order of existences external to it- 
 self. On its restless activity, it is true, its own life depends, 
 but this life itself is only part of a larger circle of operations 
 in which material things obediently revolve in the frilfilment 
 of a greater purpose. 
 
 Thus the breathing of man has an internal and an external 
 
BREATHING AFFECTS THE AIK. 513 
 
 ond : within, it oxidises and warms the body, gives it energy 
 and motion, and renews and purifies its parts ; without, it 
 contributes to the maintenance of the general system of ani- 
 mated nature. To man, as a mere living animal, the former 
 end is the more immediately interesting and important ; to 
 man, as a philosophic observer of nature, the latter is not 
 only the grander of the two, but the more morally and in- 
 tellectually beautifol. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST. 
 
 What we digest. — Staple elements of food, whether animal or vegetable. — 
 How we digest.— What takes place in the mouth.— The saliva ; quantity 
 discharged into the mouth ; -its composition and functions. — Properties of 
 Tptyalin. — ^The saliva is alkaline ; always on the watch for the entrance of 
 food into the stomach. — Structure of the alimentary canal. — The stomach 
 and its appendages. — ^What takes place in tlie stomach. — ^The starch, fat, 
 and gluten, are brought into a liquid state. — Dissolving action of the 
 pepsin. — Absorption from the stomach itself. — What takes place below 
 the stomach. — Introduction of liquids from the gall-bladder and pancreas. 
 — Supposed action of the bile. — Properties and uses of the pancreatic 
 juice. — Intestinal juice. — ^The universal solvent. — Absorption by the lac- 
 teals. — Changes of the chyle in the lacteals. — Mesenteric glands. — Ab- 
 sorption by the veins. — Digestion in the large intestines.— Acidity in the 
 ccecum. — Final discharge of food-residues from the intestines, — ^Why we 
 digest — it is to form blood. — Purposes served by the blood. — Composition 
 of the whole man, and of his blood. — Bodily functions discharged through 
 the aid of the blood. — Bodily waste. and motion connected. — Special 
 provisions for digestion in carnivorous and herbivorous races. — ^Digestion 
 in the sheep.— Purpose of digestion the same in all animals. 
 
 What we digest, how we digest, why we digest — how wide 
 and interesting a field is embraced by these three topics ! 
 
 L What we Digest. — This topioh as already been suflScient- 
 ly dwelt upon in considering " The Bread we Eat," and " The 
 Beef we Cook." Whether we sustain ourselves by means of 
 vegetable or of animal food, we introduce nearly the same 
 substances into the stomach. These dififerent forms of food 
 consist in the main, respectively — 
 
 The bread — of gluten, starch or fat, and saline matter. 
 The heef—o! fibrin, fat, and saline matter. 
 
CSE OF SALIVA. 615 
 
 And, as we have seen, gluten and fibrin on the one hand, and 
 starch and fat on the other, serve similar purposes, and may 
 take the place of each other almost indifferently in a nutri- 
 tious food. These, therefore, along with the saline matters 
 contained in both animal and vegetable food, are the main 
 substances we digest. It is true that vegetable food contains 
 also insoluble substances called cellulose or lignose — the 
 materials of the cell-walls and vessels of plants. Speaking 
 of these as woody fibre, for convenience' sake, we shall find 
 that in the bran of the bread we eat, and in the green veg- 
 etables and potatoes we consume, it is present in notable 
 quantity ; and it forms a very large part of the hay and other 
 dried vegetable food with which cattle are fed. This woody 
 fibre, however, passes through the animal, for the most part, 
 useless and undigested. The digestive organs extract, from 
 among the useless materials which the food may contain, the 
 three staple forms of matter above described. We have only 
 to follow these substances into the body, therefore, and see 
 what becomes of them. 
 
 II. How WE Digest. — The process of digestion involves 
 three successive series of operations, mechanical and chemi- 
 cal. The first of these takes place in the mouth, the second 
 in the stomach, and the third in the intestines. « 
 
 1°. What takes place in the mouth. — We have already seen 
 that in ripe firuits and other kinds of vegetable food prepared 
 by nature for immediate eating, the solid nutritious matter 
 they contain is very minutely divided, and is intermixed with 
 a large proportion of water. We have seen, also, that the 
 first object of the cook, in a great number of our ordinary 
 culinary operations, is to bring the raw food into the same 
 minutely divided and highly diluted condition. But all the 
 food we eat is not so prepared, either by nature or by art. The 
 first operation we perform upon it, therefore, is to grind it, if 
 necessary, by means of the teeth, and to dilute and season it 
 by means of the warm, fluid, salt-containing saliva. It is 
 then swallowed, and allowed to descend to the stomach. 
 
 This operation appears to be altogether mechanical ; and 
 yet the chemical history of the saliva, which takes so g^eat a 
 part in the operation, and the relations of this saliva to the 
 food, are both interesting and important. The saliva is 
 
616 WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST. 
 
 secreted in glands which open into the interior of the mouth 
 (fig. 94), and which, in some animals, are of large size. 
 The quantity of liquid which these glands discharge into 
 the mouth, and thence into the stomach, is very variable. In 
 the case of the full-grown man it is sometimes as low as 
 8 and sometimes as high as 21 ounces in the twenty-four 
 hours. According to some authorities as much as 70 ounces 
 may be formed. 
 
 The saliva consists for the most part of water, and there- 
 fore, as I have said, ■ its first function is to dilute the solid 
 food. But this water holds in solution about half a per 
 cent of organic and saline matter. In the 21 ounces some- 
 times swallowed in a day, there are about 20 grains of 
 this saline matter. But this saline matter, half of which is 
 chlorides, is accompanied by a peculiar organic matter, 
 an unorganised ferment, to which, from its occurring only 
 in the saliva, the name of ptyalin is given. Like the 
 diastase described in a previous chapter, ptyalin possesses 
 the property of changing the starch of the food into sugar. 
 This property it exhibits in perfection, when the starch is 
 dissolved or cooked, and when the temperature of the liquid 
 approaches 98° F., when used alone — according to others, 
 only when mixed with the saline constituents of the saliva. 
 It forms less than one five-hundredth part of the whole weight 
 of the saliva. Not more, therefore, than a few grains of it 
 are swallowed by a healthy man in the twenty-four hours ; 
 yet this small quantity is really of much consequence to the 
 easy and comfortable digestion of the food. Hence it is that 
 experience has recommended to all good livers a careful mas- 
 tication of their food, that all parts of it may be thoroughly 
 mixed with the saliva, and thus subjected to its chemical 
 action. 
 
 Two other facts regarding the saliva are of much interest 
 as wonders of the human frame, independent altogether of 
 their intimate relation to the process of digestion. One of 
 these is, that the saliva has generally an alkaline ^ character — 
 that this alkalinity is greater during and immediately after 
 eating, and gradually lessens, tiU after long fasting the 
 
 ^ Substances are cdhxliTie "which have the taste of pearl-ash or common soda 
 or which restore the colour of vegetable blues that have been reddened by an 
 acid. 
 
USE OF SALIVA. 
 
 517 
 
 Baliva becomes acid — that it is greater, also, after sub- 
 stances have been eaten which are difiBcult of digestion — and 
 that, when the saliva discharged into the mouth is spat out 
 instead of being swallowed, acidity and heartburn often en- 
 sue — (Wkight). These circumstances argue not only a close 
 connection between the process of digestion and the alkaline 
 character of the saliva, but an immediate watchfulness, as it 
 were, over the immediate wants of a particular bodily organ. 
 
 The other fact is, that as soon as food is swallowed, the 
 saliva begins to flow more copiously than before. This is 
 the case even if the food be swallowed without chewing. 
 Or if food be introduced by an artificial opening into the 
 stomach, without passing through the mouth at all, the saliva 
 will forthwith begin to _. „. 
 
 discharge itself into the 
 mouth, with its alkaline 
 character, and hasten 
 down the throat to assist 
 in the digestion. It ap- 
 pears strictly correct to 
 say that the saliva is con- 
 stantly on the watch to 
 be useful, when we recol- 
 lect how the mouth will 
 often "water" at the mere 
 mention of savoury arti- 
 cles of diet. 
 
 When chewed and duly 
 thinned with saliva, and, 
 from the ropy character of 
 the latter, mingled with 
 a certain quantity of air, 
 and therefore of oxygen, 
 the food is roUed by the 
 tongue, and is swallowed 
 or forced down the gullet 
 or cesophagus on its way io the stomach. The annexed fig., 
 94, shows the gullet cut open, and its position behind the 
 trachea or windpipe. 
 
 The figure shows also the position of two of the salivary 
 sacs or glands which lie beneath the tongue, and from which 
 
 Ryold bona 
 
 Thrroid gland 
 
 (Esophag\is 
 
518 
 
 WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST. 
 
 the saliva flows into the mouth when food is introduced 
 into it. 
 
 2°. What takes place in the stomach. — The stomach, into 
 which the food descends through the gullet, is an oblong 
 rounded bag, capable, when moderately distended, of con- 
 iaining two or three pints. The annexed fig., 95, shows 
 
 Pig. 95. 
 
 lArge intestlnOB' 
 
 Spleen 
 
 ^^Small lnte£tifies 
 
 Small Intestines 
 
 the form of the human stomach,' and of the neighbouring 
 organs which are concerned in the process of digestion. It 
 exhibits, also, their relative positions and their comparative 
 sizes. The parts, as here shown, are a little distorted, from 
 the necessity of turning up the liver in order that the gaU- 
 
tJSE OF GASTRIC JUICE. 619 
 
 bladder, the pancreas, and the tipper part of the intestines 
 might be more distinctly seen. , 
 
 The food after it reaches the stomach is mixed np with 
 more water if it has not been already sufficiently diluted. It 
 is intermingled, at the same time, with certain Hquids which 
 flow out of minute openings on the inner surface — the mucous 
 membrane, as it is called — of the stomach. And after these 
 admixtures, it is digested for an indefinite period, at a con- 
 stant temperature of about 98 J° F. 
 
 But during this digestion it undergoes certain chemical 
 and mechanical changes. Thus — 
 
 First, The starch, through the continued agency of the 
 saliva, and especially of the ptyalin it contains, is gradually 
 converted for the most part into the variety of sugar called 
 glucose or grape-sugar. It then dissolves, and is ready to 
 be conveyed towards its further destination,* 
 
 Secondly, The fat, without undergoing any known chemical 
 change, is subdivided into exceedingly minute globules, and 
 is intermingled intimately with the other half-fluid portions 
 of the food. With these it forms in this way a kind of 
 emulsion, and is then also ready to pass on. 
 
 Thirdly, The gluten and fibrin, and similar nitrogenous 
 nutrients, which are solid when swallowed, are also reduced 
 in the stomach to the fluid form. But this is effected by 
 means of a new agency. 
 
 Within the mucous membrane which lines the interior of 
 the stomach, many little cavities or hollows are situated. 
 From the surfaces of some of these, a liquid, which is known 
 by the name of the gastric juice, flows into the stomach. 
 This liquid contains saline matter, a quantity of free acid 
 which renders it slightly sour, and a peculiar organic sub- 
 stance to which the name of pepsin has been given. This 
 last substance is present in the gastric juice only in minute 
 proportion. Like the ptyalin of the saliva, however, it exer- 
 cises a powerful and important action upon the food. While 
 
 • The saliva of some animals appears to be much more powerfully solvent 
 than that of man ; in some cases it is even acid instead of alkaline. It may 
 be safely assumed that its function is not always to dissolve starch, but it 
 may even have the power of dissolving limestone, like the saliva of a Medi- 
 terranean shell-flsh, Dolium galea, which contains both hydrochloric and sul- 
 phnric acid. 
 
520 WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST. 
 
 the ptyalin changes the starch, first into sugar, and afterwards 
 partially into lactic acid, the pepsin, with the aid of the free 
 acid, reduces the fibrin of flesh to the liquid state. The curd 
 of milk and the white of egg are also readily changed by the 
 gastric juice into soluble forms. Upon gelatinous substances 
 it exercises a speedily dissolving action ; and upon the gluten 
 of wheat, though a little more slow, its final effect is the same. 
 These dissolved albumens, fibrins, and caseins are, however, 
 not merely dissolved ; they are so altered by the pepsin fer- 
 ment and the acid that they can pass through membranes 
 and cell-walls which before they could not do. They are 
 now called peptones. Of the gastric juice as much as 60 to 
 80 ounces are supposed to be poured into the stomach of a 
 well-fed grown man every twenty-four hours. 
 
 Thus, by the conjoined chemical agency of the saliva and 
 the gastric juice — aided by the uniform warmth of the 
 stomach — ^the fat, the starch, and the gluten of the food are 
 all brought into a half-fluid state. The saline matter of the 
 food is in part changed and dissolved by the same ageilcies. 
 The whole forms a greyish, gruel-like, slightly acid food-pulp, 
 which has been called chyme. 
 
 This chyme now flows through the narrow outlet fi-om the 
 stomach — the pylorus (see fig. 95) — into the upper part of 
 the small intestines, which, from its length of twelve inches, 
 has been called the duodenum. 
 
 All the food, however, which enters the stomach does not 
 thus linger in the stomach itself, or thus pass downwards 
 through the pylorus. 
 
 What we swallow in the liquid state — our gruels and 
 gravy-soups, for example — requires no dissolution or break- 
 ing down in the stomach, though they experience the other 
 changes named — starch being in part turned into sugar, and 
 albumen, &o., into peptones. They pass on, therefore, with 
 little delay, and for the most part descend through the 
 pylorus into the duodenum in a comparatively short period 
 of time. 
 
 And again, from the moment that our solid food begins to 
 dissolve in the stomach, it begins also to be absorbed through 
 the sides of the stomach itselE Minute blood-vessels spread 
 over the whole internal surface of the stomach, drink in 
 liquid parts of the food through their thin walls, and carry 
 
INTESTINAL JUICE. 521 
 
 them away to be mingled with the general blood. Thus, a 
 variable proportion of the food never reaches the pylorus, or 
 deacends into the duodenum. Thus, also, the process of 
 nourishment begins almost as soon as the food is introduced 
 into the stomach. The strength is kept up by one part of it, 
 while the rest is undergoing the necessary processes of chem- 
 ical preparation. 
 
 3°. What takes place after it leaves the stomach. — A glance 
 at the woodcut (fig. 95) shows a smaU vessel or tube pro- 
 ceeding from the gall-bladder, and entering the duodenum a 
 little below the pylorus, or outlet of the stomach. Another 
 vessel, not seen in the figure, comes in from the pancreas or 
 sweetbread. The former pours bile into the intestine; the 
 latter, a thin saliva-like liquid, called the pancreatic juice. 
 At the same time, from the surface of the intestine itself, a 
 peculiar half-liquid slimy mucus exudes, which is called the 
 intestinal juice {auccus entericus). With these three hquids 
 the food-pulp or chyme almost immediately mixes as it passes 
 onwa"rd from the stomach. When so mixed it loses its acid 
 character, some (often all) of the starch stiU unchanged is 
 here converted into sugar, and the albumens into peptones, 
 and it becomes milky in appearance. It is now changed into 
 chyle. 
 
 The first chemical effect of the bile is to remove the acidity 
 of the food-pulp. Its subsequent action is not well under- 
 stood, but its presence is known to be necessary to healthy 
 and nutritious digestion. It restrains the tendency of the 
 food to fermentation, and to that form of decay, or decomposi- 
 tion, which is indicated by flatulence and the occurrence of 
 diarrhcea. It also provokes the surface of the intestines to 
 discharge more copiously the intestinal juice, and it tends to 
 keep the bowels in movement. 
 
 The pancreatic juice resembles the saliva very much in 
 appearance. Like the saliva, also, it contains saline matter, 
 and a peculiar organic compound, which, however, is different 
 from the ptyalin of saliva. In common with ptyalin, this 
 compound body possesses the property of converting starch 
 into sugar, and thus continues in the bowels the transforma- 
 tion of the starch which the ptyalin had begun in the stomach. 
 It exercises a peculiar action, however, upon the fat of the 
 food, reducing it to a more minute state of division than before, 
 
622 WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST. 
 
 converting it into a more perfect emulsion (a property it 
 shares with the bile), and giving to the chyle its character- 
 istic milky appearance. Its special duty is believed to be to 
 promote the digestion of oily and fatty food. 
 
 The intestinal juice aids the action of the fluid of the pan- 
 creas. It has the property of changing starch into sugar, and 
 at least assists in emulsifyiag the fat. 
 
 This latter action is inferred from the fact, that the solution 
 of the whole food is much more complete and rapid when it is 
 mixed with all these fluids in succession, or to- some extent 
 together, than when treated with one of them only. They 
 complete the chemiqal action of each other, so that the result- 
 ant action of the saliva, the gastric juice, the intestinal juice, 
 the bile, and the pancreatic fluid, is that of a kind of " uni- 
 versal solvent," by which all that the food contains of a 
 nutritious quality is melted together, as it were, and fitted 
 to enter the absorbent vessels. 
 
 And now the chyle being formed, a new variety of absorp- 
 tion begins. While within the stomach, the fatty portions of 
 the food were still too little reduced to admit of their being 
 taken up in suitable quantity by the absorbent vessels. The 
 liquid which these took up was the watery lymph. But the 
 fats broken up by the bile and the pancreatic juice are ab- 
 sorbed by what are called the villi of the intestines, and pass 
 into the lacteal vessels. These gather a mUky fluid. Through- 
 out the whole of the smaller intestines, the same operation 
 goes on. The intestinal juice is continually poured out and 
 mixed with the food as it descends. It is more and more 
 digested and exhausted of its nutritious matter, and lacteals 
 continue to convey from it, at every point in its descent, fresh 
 supplies of the milky chyle. 
 
 On its way through the lacteals, the chyle undergoes 
 further chemical changes. To promote these changes it is 
 detained here and there by being obliged to pass through 
 several knots or glands, where many of the lacteals meet 
 together, and intermingle their contents. Finally, all the 
 lacteals terminate in the thoracic duct (fig. 96) — a vessel 
 which in man is about as large as a goose-quill — and by this 
 duct the chyle is conveyed into the jugular vein. Thence 
 it is forced forward to the lungs, where it assumes a red colour, 
 and contributes continually to the formation of new blood. 
 
LACTEALS AND LYMPHATICS. 
 
 523 
 
 The following fig., 96, shows how the lacteals are dia- 
 toibuted upon the intestine, — how they subsequently coUect 
 
 Fig. 96. 
 
 together in glands or knots, as they pass along the mesentery 
 Or membrane to which the intestines are attached, and how 
 they finally terminate in the thoracic duct. 
 
 But besides this absorption of the milky fluid, called chyle, 
 which is conveyed to the blood-vessels by the lacteals above 
 described continuously from the internal surface of the intes- 
 tinal canal, another fluid, to which the name of lymph is 
 given, is also absorbed. Lymph is taken up in minute ves- 
 sels, which abound in the viscera, and occur to a small 
 extent in the muscular flesh. The lymph in these lymphatic 
 ▼essels, absorbed from the surrounding juices, passes like the 
 absorbed chyle in the lacteals to the thoracic duct. In this 
 way nourishing materials, partly of a different kind finm those 
 
524 WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST. 
 
 which flow along the lacteals, mingle with the rest of the 
 blood, are conveyed to the heart, and are finally employed for 
 the support of the living body. But the lymphatics carry 
 some waste or half-waste matter with them, so that their 
 contents are not wholly nutritive. 
 
 What is the chemical nature of the substances which are 
 tlius taken up by the minute absorbent vessels, or what pro- 
 portion they bear to the quantity of nutritive matter carried 
 off by the lacteals — in regard to both these points we are 
 yet in the dark. All that enters the veins in this way is 
 immediately mixed with the blood, which the veins are 
 bringing back from the extremities. Hence it is very diffi- 
 cult to make out satisfactorily what portion of the constituents 
 of this blood is drawn from the food contained in the intes- 
 tinal canal. That the quantity, however, is large, and its 
 nature important to the health of the animal, there is every 
 reason to believe. 
 
 When the food has passed through the small intestines and 
 reached the coecum (see fig. 95), the nutritious matter it 
 contains is nearly exhausted in consequence of the different 
 forms of absorption above described. In the colon digestion 
 and absorption do occur, for life may be sustained by food 
 injected therein. A change has taken place, however, in the 
 chemical character of its contents. When the food -pulp 
 escaped from the stomach, it was slightly acid. The ad- 
 mixture of the bile and the other alkaline secretions render 
 it alkaline at about half-way down the smaller intestines. 
 But in the coecum it becomes slightly acid again, chiefly from 
 the presence of lactic acid and fatty acids due to fermentation 
 and the decomposition of fats. The residual food is detained 
 there for some time, that it may undergo a final digestion 
 before its useless residue is altogether discharged from the 
 bowels. 
 
 Such is a sketch of the process of digestion, — of the way 
 in which it takes place — of the complicated apparatus and 
 organs which take part in it — and of the chemical agents 
 which are specially prepared and always ready to assist in it. 
 One long preliminary cooking process goes on from the 
 mouth downwards all the way to the colon, and from every 
 part of this long canal tiny lacteals and absorbing veinleta 
 carry off contributions of cooked food either to the general 
 
USES OF THE BLOOD. 525 
 
 store of chyle, which is collected in the thoracic dact, or to 
 toe venous blood which is hunying back to the heart. How 
 effectual all this digestion is in exhausting what we eat of its 
 nutritive matter, may be judged of from the fact, tliat a healthy 
 grown man, fed with ordinary diet, rejects in his solid excreta 
 only about 300 grains of carbon out of the 4900 grains which 
 he daily consumes in his food, so perfect are the processes of 
 assimilation and combustion which go on in the body ! 
 
 III. Why we Digest. — This question is, in a certain re- 
 stricted sense, already answered by the preceding statements. 
 We digest our food that we may prepare materials for the pro- 
 duction of blood. 
 
 Of what substances, then, does this blood itself consist ? 
 
 If 100 lb. of human blood be rendered perfectly dry, by 
 a heat not much exceeding that of boiling water, it will be 
 reduced in weight to somewhat less than 22 lb. It loses 
 about 78f per cent of water. 
 
 This dry matter consists mainly of the colouring matter 
 called hcemaglohin, of albumen, and related substances. It con- 
 tains a little sugar and fat, and about f of a per cent of saline 
 matter, made up of chlorides, phosphates, and sulphates. As 
 blood is so rich in nitrogenous matter, which forms one-fifth 
 of its weight, loan flesh is better adapted for its formation 
 than most kinds of vegetable food. 
 
 The composition of the blood varies slightly with the age, 
 sex, constitution, state of health, &c., of the individual. 
 
 We digest our food that blood may be formed from it. This 
 answer does not go far enough in explaining the purpose 
 served by digestion. The blood being formed as the result 
 of the processes above described, what purpose does it serve ? 
 An explanation of this purpose wiU give the true answer to 
 the question. Why we digest ? 
 
 The blood serves a double purpose. First, it supplies the 
 materials which are necessary to build up and to repair the 
 several parts of the body ; secondly, it enables the body, 
 without final loss of substance, to discharge the functions on 
 which its life depends. 
 
 First, It builds up and repairs the body. To understand 
 this part of its office, it is only necessary to consider of what 
 substances the body and blood respectively consist. 
 
526 WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WK DIGEST. 
 
 We have already seen that both animals and plants consist 
 for the most part of water. A model man, weighing 154 lb., 
 may be roughly estimated to consist of — 
 
 Water, 109 lb. 
 
 Dry matter, 45^ „ 
 
 And this dry matter consists of-^ 
 
 Organic or combustible matter, chiefly in flesh, fat, skin, brain, 34 lb. 
 Mineral or incombustible matter of bone, &c., 11 ,, 
 
 The proportion which the fat bears to the dried flesh varies 
 in different individuals, and in the case of man has seldom 
 been experimentally determined : it is said to amount to 
 4 or 5 lb. in a vigorous adult man of 11 stone. The fibrin, 
 albumen and allied nitrogen compounds, will probably equal 
 29 1b. 
 
 Now the blood which is to ■ sustain the substance of the 
 body is itself included in the above general composition of 
 the whole man. This blood weighs, in the liquid state, nearly 
 12 lb. in a healthy full-grown average man ; and it contains 
 but a few ounces of fat and mineral matter, with about 2 lb. 
 of albumen, fibrin, and allied substances. 
 
 Thus it is clear that the blood present at any one time in 
 the body would, require to be many times renewed before it 
 could renew or rebuild the whole of the muscle, fat, and bone 
 of the body. 
 
 It will strike the reader who compares the absolute quantity 
 of dry matter contained in the blood with that which forms 
 the body, how very small a store of food the animal carries 
 within itself. The blood contains by weight only one-four- 
 teenth of the dry matter of the body, so that the strength of 
 the latter could be sustained only for a very short period 
 without supplies from other sources. 
 
 And yet, though the strength must fail, it is remarkable 
 how long life will cling to the wasting body. An animal 
 does not die of starvation tiH it has lost 40 per cent of its 
 weight, and more than a third of its heat. The lamp of 
 
 1 How small a quantity of solid matter is consistent with life in a grown 
 man, may be judged of from the case of a stepmother ill-using and starving a 
 boy of ten years of age till he weighed only 25 lb. 1 He was in appearance 
 merely skin and bone. Supposing him ±o be only two-thirds water instead of 
 three-fourths, the solid matter in his living body would be only about 8 lb. ! 
 
FUKL OF THE BODY. 527 
 
 life continues slowly and faintly to bum. It expires at 
 last, partly from the failure of fuel, and partly from the 
 stoppage of the circulation by the increasing coldness of 
 the extremities. But — 
 
 Secondly, The blood enables the body, without final loss 
 of substance, to discharge those functions on which its life 
 depends. And it is in considering how much is implied 
 in this duty of the blood, that the necessity of constant 
 and large supplies of food from without becomes most 
 apparent. 
 
 Wliile man Uvea he breathes and moves. What demand 
 for nutritive matter does the exhibition of these character- 
 istic appearances of life involve? 
 
 In the preceding chapter we have seen that the animal 
 eats a large portion of food in order that it may combine it 
 with the oxygen taken in by the lungs, and then breathe it 
 away again in the form of carbonic acid and water. But 
 before it can be so combined with oxygen, it must be 
 digested and conveyed into the blood. Thus it may be 
 said with truth, that we digest in order that we may breathe. 
 
 And as this breathing is continually going on, the blood 
 must as constantly supply the materials out of which the 
 carbonic acid and water may be produced. But that it may 
 do BO without lessening its own substance, new streams of 
 chyle must be ever flowing into it, and new food digested, 
 that this chyle may be formed. Hence the necessity and 
 use of that large quantity of starch or fat which a fuU-grown 
 man must daily eat if he is tp continue to breathe, and yet 
 retain the weight of his body undiminished. 
 
 Again, the living man moves. Look at him externally, 
 and he is never wholly at rest. Internally, could we look at 
 him, he is everywhere and always in motion. Even when 
 sunk in sleep, there is scarcely an organ of iiis body which, 
 if not moving itself, is not the seat of incessant motion. Now 
 it is believed that every movement of the body — every stir- 
 ring of a limb — every change, for example, in the position of 
 my fingers as I write — every involuntary beating of my heart 
 — every thought that passes through my brain — is accom- 
 panied by a change of matter greater or less in quantity at 
 the particular spot where the movement takes place. A 
 portion of the substance of the muscle, of the bone, of the 
 24 
 
528 WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST. 
 
 brain, of the juice of flesh, of the constituents of the blood 
 itself, becomes chemically changed — oxidised — unfit, there- 
 fore, for the position it previously occupied as a part of the 
 perfect bodj'. All this altered or waste matter is continu- 
 ally undergoing removal through the veins, and its place 
 is as continually supplied by new matter extracted from the 
 arterial blood. 
 
 That all bodily movement is attended by waste of the 
 bodily substance is a received opinion. An animal, when 
 fasting, wUl lose from a fourteenth to a twelfth of its whole 
 weight in twenty-four hours. This loss does not faU alto- 
 gether upon the fat, but extends also in part to the tissues 
 and general substance of the body. It is so great that the 
 whole blood is unable altogether to replace it. 
 
 But even when an animal is fully fed, so that it can dis- 
 charge the requisite quantity of carbonic acid from its lungs 
 without in any way feeding upon itself, BtUl, as I have said, 
 a waste and renewal of the tissues and substance of the body 
 everywhere goes on. It matters not whether this waste is a 
 consequence of the perpetual movement of its parts, or arises 
 from some other cause. It is known to proceed so rapidly 
 that, supposing it all to fall on the actual substance of the 
 body, it would involve its renewal in an average period of 
 thirty days ! Of course the rapidity of the general change 
 of substance varies with the indi-vidual, his habits, his food, 
 and his employment. The several parts of the body, also, 
 will waste with different degrees of rapidity. If the amount 
 of movement or labour perforrped by each part, for example, 
 be the measure of the degree of waste — then, where much 
 thinking is done, the brain will be more speedily renewed 
 — where much bodily toil is undergone, the muscles called 
 into action by the kind of toil will be oftenest changed and 
 rebuilt — and where listless indolence and. inactivity possess 
 both body and mind, muscles and nerves alike will partake 
 of a correspondingly slow change of substance. 
 
 Thus it may be said again, and with equal truth, that man 
 digests in order that he may move ; or he digests that he may 
 repair the constant waste which is ascribed to the restless- 
 ness of the material particles which compose his ever-moving 
 body. This waste the blood makes up ; and the process of 
 internal cooking must be continually going on, in order tliat 
 
THE DIGESTIVE APPARATUS. 529 
 
 the blood may be able to discharge thin duty without caus- 
 ing any permanent loss of substance to the body itself. 
 
 The questions we proposed to ourselves at the commence- 
 ment of the present chapter are now answered. 
 
 What we digest consists essentially of the starch, fat, sugar, 
 albumen, gluten, and mineral matter, which, as we have seen 
 in a previous chapter, aU varieties of nutritious food contain 
 in greater or less proportion. 
 
 As to how we digest, it is through the united agency of 
 the warmth of the body — of a curiously-constructed alimen- 
 tary canal and its appended organs — and of various chemical 
 substances poured into the food from the sides of this canal 
 and from its subsidiaiy organs. 
 
 And the purpose for which we digest is, more immediately, 
 to pour into the thoracic duct and absorbent veins the mate- 
 rials for the production of blood ; but, more remotely, to build 
 up the full-grown living man, and to enable him to breathe, 
 move, and perform all the functions necessary to life, without 
 sensible or permanent loss of his own substance."^ 
 
 Those three most interesting questions I have answered 
 with special reference to the constitutional history of man. 
 Were they asked in reference to other races of animals, the 
 answers to the first two would be somewhat different. In 
 fact, the nature of the food-;-of the thing to be digested — de- 
 termines the form of the apparatus in which the digestion 
 takes place, and also, in some degree, the chemical substances 
 by which it is promoted. Thus in the carnivorous races — 
 living upon flesh, which is more easily converted into chyle 
 — ^the stomach is small, and the alimentary canal compara- 
 tively short. In the lion, for example, the stomach is small 
 and narrow, almost a canal, and the intestines only three times 
 the length of the body. In man, again, using as he does, a 
 mixed food, the stomach is single but large, and the intestines 
 seven or eight times the length of the body. But in herbiv- 
 orous animals the canal is long, and the stomach not only 
 large, but sometimes complicated in structure. In such as 
 ruminate, or chew the cud, this is particularly the case, as may 
 be seen in the following figure, which represents the fourfold 
 
 ' A more complete account than could be included here of the whole pro- 
 cess and results of digestion will be found in the late G. H. Lewes's Physiol- 
 ogy of Common Life, i. 190-238. 
 
530 
 
 WHAT, HOW, AND WHY WE DIGEST. 
 
 Btomach of the sheep. In the case of this animal, the food 
 which is cropped or swallowed hastily passes unchewed into 
 the large first stomach or paunch. Here it is moistened with 
 a fluid admixture, and when required, is passed on to the 
 
 Fig. 97. 
 
 (Xsopbagus 
 
 second stomach, and thence bac]^ to the mouth to be masti- 
 cated. When chewed it is swallowed again, and proceeds at 
 once to the third stomach or many-plies, and thence forward 
 to the fourth stomach or reed, where the true gastric juice is 
 mixed with it. From this latter it passes, as in man, through 
 the pylorus into the intestines, which are twenty-eight times 
 longer than its body. In the ox, the stomach is not only 
 complex, as in the sheep, but the intestines are forty-eight 
 times the length of the body. 
 
 The reason of all this complication in the digestive appa- 
 ratus of the ruminating animal, is the difficulty of grinding 
 down, and then of extracting, the whole of the nutritive matter 
 from the kind of vegetable food on which the animal lives. 
 Hence the food is longer detained in the alimentary canal, 
 and is subjected to a more thorough process of subdivision 
 and exhaustion, before it is allowed to escape from the body. 
 
 The chemistry of comparative digestion is indeed rich in 
 interest and instruction ; and, did my space permit, it were 
 
DIGESTION. 531 
 
 easy to multiply illustrations of the way in which the instru- 
 ments and means of digestion are adapted in every animal to 
 the circumstances in 'vi^Jiich it is placed, to its habits of life, 
 and to the chemical nature as well as the bulk of the food it 
 is intended to consume. 
 
 In all animals, however, the end or purpose of digestion is 
 the same, — to provide materials for building up its body to a 
 fiill size, and afterwards for enabling it to discharge its various 
 living functions, without permanent loss of its own weight or 
 substance. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE BODY WE CHERISH. 
 
 The body and its habits an assemblage of chemical wonders.— Change of the 
 food in its passage from the mouth to the lacteals.— Globules or cor- 
 puscles of the chyle. — The blood-corpuscles ; their form and composition. 
 — Mineral matter within and without the corpuscles. — The corpuscle is an 
 independent microcosm.— Selecting power of the parts of the body. — How 
 the whole system is kept in working order. — Activity of the vessels which 
 remove waste matter. — Provisions for comfortable warmth. — Craving for 
 special kinds of food. — How this is artificially met. — The nature of the 
 water we drink may modify natural cravings and national diet. — Instinctive 
 choice of beverages and condiments. — Case of salt ; how instinct regulates 
 the use of this substance. — Examples in South-western Africa and in 
 Siberia. — Susceptibility of the body to the action of very minute portions 
 of matter. — ^The narcotics, the beverages, the odours, and the miasms. — 
 Influence of light upon the body. — The structure, functions^ and special 
 composition of the grey and white parts of the brain. — The rete mucosum,. 
 — The chemistry of all parts of the body deserving of intelligent and rever- 
 ential study. 
 
 Neaely all the functions and habits, natural and acquired, 
 the chemical history of which has formed the subject of the 
 preceding chapters, have a relation more or less direct with 
 the welfare and comfort of the body. Besides ministering to 
 its necessary wants, we nourish and fondly cherish it. And 
 in attempting to pleasure and pamper, we often injure it. 
 This arises from our possessing, for the most part, too imper- 
 fect a knowledge of its vital wants and functions. We are 
 too little famiHar, also, with the substances we daily use or 
 occasionally indulge in, or with which, in external nature, we 
 cannot avoid coming into contact. And with this ignorance 
 
DIGESTION. 533 
 
 of tLe things themselves, is necessarily associated a similar 
 ignorance of the efifects they are likely to produce upon the 
 system. 
 
 This want of knowledge is by no means surprising, seeing 
 that the whole grown-up man — the body and its habits to- 
 gether — may be described as an assemblage of chemical 
 wonders. Besides the main features in his chemical history 
 which have been already illustrated, there are a thousand 
 others of a less general kind, the study of which is not only 
 rich in the discovery of wise contrivances, so to speak, but is 
 pregnant also with practical instruction. To some of these 
 minor points I propose to devote the present chapter. 
 
 We have already seen how many curious circumstances 
 attend the food in its progress from the mouth to the blood- 
 vessels. The teeth grind it fine, and the tongue mixes it 
 with saliva. This saliva, on the watch to be useful, rushes 
 out and makes the mouth water whenever savoury food is 
 spoken or even thought of. It flows most copiously, however, 
 wliile wo chow and while wo are digesting. In doing so, 
 the saliva not only moistens the food, but mixes up with it 
 the Bnhstenoe ptyalin, which converts its starch into sugar, and 
 is essential to tho healthy progress of digestion. Then from 
 the coats of the stomach exudes the gastric juice — also most 
 copiously when there is most work to do. This fluid brings 
 with it the peculiar substance pepsin, which renders soluble 
 the gluten of wheat and the fibrin of flesh in the food. When 
 this solution is accomplished, the gastric juice ceases to flow, 
 and the liquid food moves forward to the smaller intestines. 
 Here the sour chyme is mixed with three fluids, which are 
 waiting its approach. A valve opens, and the bilo comes out 
 to meet the food — a juice flows forward from the pancreas, 
 Hke a new saliva — and from the surface of the intestines, as 
 it passes along, a third liquid issues to temper and chemically 
 change it. The chyle, now milky and alkaline, is taken up 
 by the lacteals. These minute vessels' are distributed along 
 the whole course of the intestines, extracting, at every step 
 in its progress, new portions or constituents from the food, 
 mixing them all together as the vessels meet in the glandular 
 knots, and pouring the mixture into the one common reser- 
 voir — the thoracic duct. And to insure a thorough extraction 
 of all feeding matter, a new change takes place when the food 
 
534 
 
 THE BODY "WE CHERISH. 
 
 descends into the larger intestine. It becomes acid again, 
 and delivers to the still busy lacteals new materials with which 
 to give the final tempering to the milky chyle as it flows to- 
 wards the true blood-vessels. 
 
 All this has been explained. But it wiU amply repay us 
 if we follow a little further the chemistry of this incipient 
 blood. 
 
 Seen under the microscope, the milky contents of the tho- 
 racic duct have very much the appearance of blood. Number- 
 less rounded discs present themselves, which, by their pecu- 
 liar granulated appearance, are recognised as the colourless 
 corpuscles which characterise the blood (fig. 98 b). As soon 
 
 08, ** The human red corpuscle, showing its natural form and appearance when brought 
 fully into focus, in which case the centre always appears light. Scattered over 
 the field are seen one or two white corpuscles (ft)." 
 
 99. *' The same seen united into rolls, as of miniature money in appearance." 
 
 100. "The blood-corpuscles of the elephant, red and white, which are the largest 
 hitherto discovered among the Mammalia." All magnified 670 times. — (From 
 Hassan's Microscopic Anatomy.) 
 
 as these enter the veins, however, and are thence driven over 
 the lungs, they become coloured. By some chemical action 
 in the lungs, they are made to assume a red colour, and are 
 no longer distinguishable from the true red corpuscles of the 
 blood. 
 
 Digestion may now be said to be completed, and true blood 
 is formed. This blood is itself a most interesting study. 
 Under the microscope the blood of man and other mammif- 
 erous animals is seen to consist of minute flattened disc-like 
 bodies (corpuscles) of a red colour, floating in a colourless 
 liquid. These bodies vary in size and shape in difierent 
 animals. Those of man have an average diameter of l-3200th 
 
CONSTITUENTS OF BLOOD. 535 
 
 of an inch, and a thickness of l-12,400th, bebg larger than 
 those of any of our domestic animals. Those of the elephant 
 are the largest yet kiiovm among mamnals (fig. 100). In 
 oviparous vertebrates they are oval in form, and in the frog 
 much larger than in man. When dried they form in man, on 
 an average, about 13 per cent of the whole weight of the 
 newly-drawn blood- In a moist state they form little more 
 than half its weight ; 100 parts of the moist corpuscles con- 
 tain 57 of water and 43 of solids, the main constituents of 
 the latter being hcemaghbin, a colourless substance {ghhuUn), 
 which belongs to the same class of chemical compounds as 
 gluten, albun^en, and fibrin, and a small portion of saline 
 matter. Among the most interesting facts connected with 
 the corpuscles is the relation which this saline matter bears 
 in kind to that of the whole blood. 
 
 We have already seen that the blood contains a consider- 
 able proportion of saline or mineral matter — about 8 parts in 
 1000 of fresh blood ; so that, when dry blood is burned, it 
 leaves about 4 per cent of ash. The chief ingredients of this 
 ash are common salt and chloride of potassium ; the rest con- 
 sists of potash, soda, lime, magnesia, oxide of iron, phosphoric 
 acid, and sulphuric acid. Of these substances, the potash, 
 the phosphoric acid, and the iron, 9,re principally contained 
 in the corpuscles ; while the common salt especially abounds 
 in the colourless liquid or serum in which the corpuscles are 
 seen to float. 
 
 Countless absorbent vessels are continually bringing new 
 liquids, and pouring them into the blood, and almost as 
 many are continually removing from the blood certain por- 
 tions of. its contents, and yet this relative position of its 
 saline constituents is continually maintained. The cor- 
 puscles allow some of these substances to pass abundantly 
 into their interior, while others of them are in a great 
 measure excluded. This separation is probably effected with 
 a view to the after-formation of flesh, since the animal flesh 
 agrees with the corpuscles of its blood in containing much 
 potash and phosphoric acid, with comparatively little com- 
 mon salt. 
 
 It is very interesting to observe how, in so important a 
 fluid as the blood, the several substances it contains thus 
 separate themselves into distinct groups with a view to 
 
636 THE BODY WE CHERISH. 
 
 after uses. Each corpuscle is, in fact, a minute microcosm, 
 within which chemical changes take place independent, in 
 a sense, of all around it. These dhanges occur under a 
 dominant direction working towards a rigidly definite end, 
 and are therefore called vitaL At the same time, a jealous 
 discriminating power, as it were, guards the ' corpuscles by 
 which this substance is admitted and that one refused a 
 
 But, indeed, a discrimination of this kind appears to reside 
 in all parts of the body. All are endowed with the power of 
 selecting from the universally nourishing blood the chemical 
 compounds which are specially required for the formation of 
 their own substance, or the discharge of their special func- 
 tions. Thus the bones specially select and appropriate 
 phosphate of lime, while the muscles take phosphate of 
 magnesia and phosphate of potash. The cartilages build in 
 soda, in preference to potash. The bones and teeth specially 
 extract fluorine. Silica is almost monopolised by the hair, 
 skin, and nails of man, and by the horns, hair, and feathers 
 of animals. Iron abounds chiefly in the colouring matter 
 of the blood {hmtnaglobin), in the black pigment of the eye, 
 and in the hair. Sulphur exists largely in the hair, and an 
 organic compound of phosphoric acid in the brain. Thus, to 
 each part of the body certain chemical substances seem to 
 be most specially appropriated, and to each part a peculiar 
 and special power has been given of selecting out of the 
 common storehouse those materials tsrhich suit it best to 
 work withal. 
 
 And what is still more admiriaWe, the formation and re- 
 newal of each part of the body serves the definite purpose of 
 preparing the blood for the production or renewal of the 
 next part it visits as it flows along. Thus the blood is 
 continually changing as it proceeds in its course, leaving, 
 and taking up something at every new spot, and by these 
 changes being always rendered more fit for the next duty 
 it has to perform— (Paget). If we look at the gases dis- 
 solved in the blood we shall find a beautiful illustration of 
 this fact. Let us compare the arterial blood refreshed and 
 purified in the lungs with the venous blood^ from a muscle 
 at rest: — 
 
 ^ See, for another analysis of the gases of blood, p. 488. 
 
ItKMOVAL OF WASTE. 537 
 
 Measures of 
 Oxygen. Carbonic acid gaa. 
 100 measures of arlerial blood contain, . . 17 30 
 
 100 measures of venous blood contain, . . 6 35 
 
 Nor is it less interesting to observe how every function 
 of the body is On the alert, as it were, to keep the whole 
 Bystem in working order. 
 
 That the blood may subserve its various uses, its natural 
 composition, though continually changing, as I have said, 
 must not be materially altered. It may vary in composi- 
 tion within certain small limits ; but when changed beyond 
 these limits, the functions of the whole body begin to bo 
 deranged. Hence such a change is carefuUy provided 
 against. 
 
 If, for example, much water is poured into the stomach, 
 the chyle is diluted, the laoteals convey a thin fluid to the 
 'blood-vessels, and the blood itself becomes more watery than 
 usual. But instantly to remedy this, the lungs, the skin, 
 and the kidneys of the healthy man become more active, the 
 excess of water is carried olf, and the blood is thickened 
 again to its usual condition. And so some kinds of food 
 tend to increase the quantity of fat in the blood, others tliat 
 of albumen, others that of common salt, &c., beyond the 
 average proportion ; but the ever-ready removers begin their 
 more active work before any such excess becomes sensible 
 in the healthy man, and continue it till the natural condi- 
 tion is restored. 
 
 But the unsleeping activity of the vessels which remove 
 from the blood what it -ought nowhere to contain in very 
 sensible proportion, is most remarkably shown by the 
 rapidity with which they carry off those refiise substances 
 which are derived from the natmral waste of the tissues. 
 The lacteals are continually conveying new materials to the 
 blood, to rebuild the wasting portions of the body. Of 
 course the changed substance of the wasted tissues is poured 
 uito the blood quite as fast. But so diligent are the vessels 
 and organs whose duty it is to remove this now useless 
 matter, that more traces of it only can ever be detected in 
 the blood of a healthy man. The kidneys, especially, are 
 on the alert to pick it up, to hurry it away from the blood 
 as rapidly as it appears, and to discharge it by way of the 
 
638 THE BODY WE CHERISH. 
 
 urine. The kidneys are thus the chief cleansers of the vital 
 fluid, so far as its non- volatile or fixed impurities are con- 
 cerned. In immediate importance to life they stand next to 
 the lungs. We may cease for days to carry food into the 
 body without serious injury to life ; but let the removers 
 intermit their operations for a single day, and the blood 
 would become loaded with poison, and the animal precipi- 
 tated into dangerous disease. 
 
 The natural cravings of the animal appetite for special 
 kinds of food are rich in curious chemical phenomena. The 
 formation of blood, and the maintenance of the animal heat, 
 require the introduction into the stomach of certain chemical 
 forms of matter (gluten, fat, starch, &c.) in certain propor- 
 tions. The adult man should on the average take for his 
 daily ration not only a certain amount of food-substances 
 {nutrients), but he should adjust their relation to one another. 
 The amount per day may be somewhat as follows : — 
 
 lb. oz. 
 
 Water . . . 5 8| 
 
 Albumen, fibrin, &c 4 J 
 
 Starch, sngar, &c., llj 
 
 Fat, 3i 
 
 Common salt, 0| 
 
 Phosphates, potash-salts, &c., .... o| 
 
 The total dry substance here amounts to 1 lb. 3J oz. 
 
 The ratio or proportion, assuming the water to be 100, 
 will stand thus — 
 
 Water Flesh-formers, Heat-givers, „ ,. 
 
 '**^'^- as albumen. as starch. °^*^- 
 
 100 5 22 1 
 
 If for a length of time the suitable proportions be disre- 
 garded, first the comfort of the body suffers, and subsequently 
 its health. Such changes often proceed slowly, and become 
 sensible only after many years elapse; but the slightest 
 derangements make themselves felt at last, so as seriously 
 to affect the constitutions of whole families and tribes of 
 men. 
 
 It is very striking, therefore, to observe how, by a kind of 
 natural instinct, the inhabitants of every country have con- 
 trived to mix up and adjust the several kinds of food within 
 their reach, so as to attain precisely the same physiological 
 
MEAT AND DIUNK. 639 
 
 end. The Irishman mixes cabbage with his potatoes ; the 
 Englishman, bacon with his beans, or milk and eggs with his 
 starchy foods ; the Italian, rich cheese with his macaroni ; and 
 the natives of India, gram and other pulse rich in gluten 
 with their rice and millet. These, and other methods men- 
 tioned in previous chapters, exhibit so many purely chemical 
 ways of preparing mixtures nearly similar to each other in 
 composition and nutritive value. In the most nide diet, and 
 in the luxuries of the most refined table, the main cravings 
 of animal nature are never lost sight of. Besides the first 
 taste in the mouth, there is an after taste of the digestive 
 organs which requires to be satisfied. An indifferent cook 
 may gratify the first ; he is no mean physiological chemist 
 who can at the same time fuUy satisfy the second. 
 
 Even the water we drink is an important element in a 
 well-considered and properly-adjusted diet. It by no means 
 follows in all cases, perhaps not even in the majority, that 
 the purest water is the best for the health of a given family, 
 or for the population of a given district. The bright spark- 
 ling hard waters, which gush out in frequent springs from 
 our chalk and other limestone rocks, are rehshed to drink, 
 not merely because they are grateful to the eye, but because 
 there is something exhilarating in the excess of carbonic 
 acid they contain and give off as they pass through the 
 warm mouth and throat ; and perhaps because the lime they 
 hold in solution neutralises acid matters irom the stomach, 
 and acts as a grateful medicine to the system. To abandon 
 the use of such a water, and to drink daily in its stead one 
 entirely free from mineral matter and dissolved oxygen and 
 carbonic acid gas, so far from improving, may injure the 
 individual or local health. 
 
 And so the nature of the water of a country may even have 
 something to do with the choice of a national diet. The 
 human body, for example, requires a certain proportion of 
 lime to be contained in or mixed vrith its food. If the com- 
 mon diet do not contain a sufficient proportion of this mineral 
 ingredient, the common water of the country may supply the 
 deficiency ; and thus a national mode of living may spring 
 up, the salutary properties of which depend partly upon 
 the food and partly upon the water. In another district or 
 country, where the drinking-water is different, the same 
 
540 THE BODY WE CHERISH. 
 
 solid food, eaten alone, may be unsuited for the maintenance 
 of health. 
 
 In this way it will appear that the reasons for the adoption 
 of a peculiar national diet may lie much deeper than political 
 economy can generally go. It may depend upon refined 
 chemico- physiological and chemico-geological relations, the 
 discovery of which we may be very long indeed in arriving at. 
 
 It is the same with artificial beverages as with articles of 
 ordinary drink and diet. An nnthought-of chemical instinct 
 has guided men in the selection of these also. The ancient 
 Abyssinian and the modem Arabian had their cofiee, the 
 Chinese and Tartars their tea, the South American aborigines 
 their mate, and the Mexicans their cocoa, ages before any 
 chemical knowledge existed as to the nature of the substances 
 contained in them. What constitutional cravings common 
 to us all have prompted to such singularly uniform results I 
 Through how vast an amount of unrecorded individual ex- 
 perience must these results have been arrived at I 
 
 And so with what we call condiments, similar instincts 
 have their play. The wild buffalo frequents the salt-licks of 
 North-western America ; the wild animals in the central parts 
 of Southern Africa are a sure prey to the hunter who conceals 
 himself beside a salt spring ; and our domestic cattle run 
 peacefully to the hand that offers them a taste of this deli- 
 cious luxury. Yet salt, though often used as a flavourer or 
 regarded as nothing more, is really an essential part of our 
 food, — its sodium supplying that element to the bile, its 
 chlorine famishing hydrochloric acid for the gastric juice. 
 From time immemorial it has been known that without salt 
 man would miserably perish; and among horrible punish- 
 ments, entailing certain death, that of feeding culprits on 
 saltless 'food is said to have prevailed in barbarous times. 
 Maggots and corruption are spoken of by ancient writers as 
 the distressing symptoms which saltless food engenders ; but 
 no ancient or unchemical modem could explain how such 
 sufferings arose. Now we know why the animal craves salt, 
 why it suffers discomfort, and why it ultimately falls into 
 disease if salt is for a time withheld. Upwards Of half the 
 saline matter of the blood consists of common salt ; and as 
 this is partly discharged every day through the skin and 
 the kidneys, the necessity of continued supplies of it to the 
 
THE USE OF SALT. 541 
 
 healthy body becomes sufficiently obvious. The bile also 
 contains soda as a special and indispensable constituent, and 
 so do all the cartilages of the body. Stint the supply of salt, 
 therefore, and neither will the bile be able properly to assist 
 the digestion, nor the cartilages to be built up again as fast 
 as they naturally waste. 
 
 And yet what shows this craving for salt to arise out of 
 a refined species of instinct similar to that which may have 
 fixed many national dietaries, is the fact that neither man 
 nor animals are everywhere eager for or even fond of salt. 
 Mungo Park describes salt as " the greatest of all luxuries 
 in Central Africa."^ But the Damaras, in South-western 
 Africa, never take salt by any chance ; and even Europeans, 
 travelling in their country, never feel the want of it. But 
 the well-water in Damara land is nearly always brackish or 
 saline, though it appears to taste rather of carbonate of soda 
 than of the chloride. Their neighbours, the Namaquas, set 
 no store by salt ; the Hottentots of Walfisch Bay " hardly 
 ever take the trouble to collect it;" and even the wild 
 "game in the Swakop do not frequent the salt-rocks to lick 
 them, as they do in America." ^ One tribe of New Zealand- 
 ers hold salt in abhorrence. 
 
 In ttie colds of Siberia, also, as in the heats of Africa, a 
 similar disregard of salt sometimes prevails. " Most of the 
 Eussians at Berezov eat their food without a particle of salt, 
 though that condiment can easily be obtained at a trifling 
 cost — a sufficient quantity of it being always kept at the 
 government magazine, and sold at a moderate price. Indeed, 
 were the price of salt even much higher, it could make no 
 difference to the wealtliier class of the inhabitants, who can 
 so well afford every indulgence, and procure for their table 
 the most expensive luxuries. But salt is not at all in iise, 
 
 1 " It would appear strange to a EiU'opean to see a child suck a piece of 
 rock-salt, as if it were sugar. This, however, I have frequently seen ; although 
 in the inland parts the poorer class of inhabitants are so veiy rarely indulged 
 with this precious article, that to say a man eats salt with his victuals, is the 
 same as saying he is a rich man. I have myself suffered great inconvenience 
 from the scarcity of this article. The long use of vegetable food creates 
 80 painful a longing for salt, that no words can sufficiently describe it." — 
 MuNQO Park. 
 
 ' Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South A&ica, by Francis Galton, 
 p. 183. 
 
542 THE BODY WE CHERISH. 
 
 and hence I am led to the conclusion that their taste is such 
 as not to require with their food that condiment, which is 
 everywhere else considered indispensable. Their soups, veg- 
 etables, and even roast meats, are prepared and eaten with- 
 out salt." 1 
 
 The explanation of these cases, so inconsistent with our 
 general experience, is found in the refined instinct of the 
 body itself. When the food we usually eat conveys a suf- 
 ficiency of salt into the body, it has no occasion for more. 
 It therefore feels no craving for it, shows no liking to it, and 
 takes no trouble to obtain it. And doubtless, in the kind of 
 food and drink consumed in the Damara country, and by the 
 Kussians of Berezov, either more salt, or more of sodium and 
 chlorine, in other combinations, than is usual among us, is 
 conveyed into the stomach, or their habits render less salt 
 necessary to them, or cause less of it to be daily removed 
 from their bodies. 
 
 Nor is the refined delicacy of the instinctive perception of 
 the living body, in this case, more wonderful than that mar- 
 vellously delicate susceptibility to the influence of minute 
 quantities of matter which we have seen it to be, in so many 
 instances, capable of displaying. The narcotics which exer- 
 cise so remarkable a power over us act upon the system in 
 quantities which are inappreciably small. The beverages 
 we prepare exhilarate and strengthen by almost infinitesimal 
 doses of the active ingredients they contain. The odours we 
 enjoy come floating to the nostrils in molecules, of incon- 
 ceivable minuteness and tenuity ; while neither by weight 
 nor by measure can we estimate the fatal miasmata which 
 carry fever and plague wherever they penetrate. 
 
 Equally delicate and mysterious is the relation which our 
 bodies bear to the passing light. How our feelings, and 
 even our appearance, change with every change of the sky I 
 When the sun shines, the blood flows freely, and the spirits 
 are light and buoyant. When gloom overspreads the heavens, 
 dulness and sober thoughts possess the mind. The energy 
 is greater, the body is actually stronger, in the bright light 
 of day; while the health is manifestly promoted, digestion 
 hastened, and the colour made to play on the cheek, when 
 the rays of sunshine are allowed freely to sport around us. 
 1 Bevelations of Siberia, by a Banished Lady, vol. ii. p. 195. 
 
THE BRAIN, 
 
 543 
 
 Want of Bpaoe forbids me to advert at length to the solid 
 materials of which the most important organs of the body 
 consist. Yet the chemistry of these is everywhere equally 
 delicate and refined. How wonderful, for example, the vary- 
 ing colour of that soft, pulpy, gelatinous matter {corpus papil- 
 lare) which rests on the mucous network (rete mucosum) be- 
 tween our outer and inner skins 1 Black in the African negro, 
 red in the North American Indian, yellow in the Asiatic, 
 and white in the European, it gives the characteristic colour 
 to each race of men. It is structurally the same in all, but 
 for wise ends it differs chemically in each, so as to adapt 
 each race for the conditions in which it is destined to live. 
 And so for other wise ends, no doubt ; but among these, to 
 give beauty to the female countenance, the nearly pure white 
 of the European neck changes chemically again, and becomes 
 the bright and blushing rose on the blooming maiden's cheek. 
 
 And then the brain, the distinctive organ of the human 
 race, what chemical novelties and peculiarities it exhibits. 
 Cut across, the cerebrum, as shown in the annexed fig., 101, 
 
 Fig, 101. 
 
 In th4 above illustration, the shaded parts represent the giey 
 substance of the cerebrum. 
 
 is seen to consist of a mass of white or medullary matter, 
 bordered towards the outer edge by little inlets of a grey 
 substance. In structure these two' parts differ. The grey 
 matter consists mainly of cells or vesicles grouped together 
 
544 THE BODY WE CHEKISH. 
 
 in mass. The white portion, again, consists of minute fibres, 
 which proceed from the grey matter of the covering, and in 
 part connect it with the grey masses lying in the interior. 
 Then, as to function, the grey matter, though so small in 
 quantity, is supposed to be the seat of the intellect. Soften- 
 ings, tumours, and abscesses, may exist in the white part of 
 the brain — a portion of it may even be extracted without 
 seriously or universally aiFecting the mental powers ; but 
 compress the grey part ever so little, or otherwise alter or 
 disturb it, and you at the same time seriously interferefwitt 
 the processes of thought, and disturb the intellectual sanity 
 of the individual. 
 
 Then, further, as to chemical composition, the whole brain 
 and nervous tissue are distinguished by containing a large 
 proportion of several chemical compounds of fat-like char- 
 acter, in some of which sulphur, and in others phosphorus, 
 is present. These compounds are not yet thoroughly under- 
 stood. The phosphorus, above named as one of their con- 
 stituents, is present in an oxidised form as a complex phos- 
 phoric acid. To illustrate this, the following example will 
 suffice : Lecithin is a conspicuous constituent of brain and 
 nerves. It is a white, slightly crystalline substance, easily 
 soluble in alcohol, and readily decomposed by a heat below 
 boiling water, and by almost every chemical reagent. Now 
 lecithin is a complex substance, containing, it is believed — 
 
 Carbon, . . 44 atoms. Hydrogen, . . 90 atoms. 
 
 Nitrogen, . . 1 atom. Phosphorus, . . 1 atom. 
 
 Oxygen, 9 atoms. 
 
 When it is decomposed it usually unites with water, and may 
 then form in succession — 
 
 /" 1 of newrin and 1 of 
 1 of lecithin) distearyl - ghyc&rvn- 
 
 yielda \ phosplumc acid— (2 ot stearic acid and 
 V. which yields J 1 of ^lycerin-phos- 
 
 ^ phono add — ^which /l of glycerin 
 
 yields J and I of 
 
 oric 
 
 The variety and complexity of the work done in the brain 
 and nervous centres, of the processes of sensation, volition, 
 and thought, are clearly related to the presence and change of 
 such brain-constituents as lecithin. In chemical constitution, 
 as in physical structure, the nervous substance is full of com- 
 
COMPOSITION OF NEEVOUS MATTER. 545 
 
 plex arrangements. And in each important part of the brain 
 and nerves, the proportions, of the several ingredients differ 
 from that which prevails in the other parts — no doubt that 
 each may be better fitted to perform its proper work. Thus, 
 the proportion of fat in the white is nearly three times as 
 great as in the grey part, and that of water less in a corre- 
 sponding degree. And again, the grey matter leaves a larger 
 percentage of ash or mineral matter when burned, and its 
 fatty part contains more phosphorus. Similar differences 
 also prevail in the proportions of these constituents, both 
 organic and mineral, in different portions of the white matter 
 of the brain itself and of the numerous nerves, at different 
 periods of life, and when imder the influence of different dis- 
 eases — so that in this marrow-like nervous matter, chemical 
 adjustments are to be found as intricate and refined as in any 
 other portions of our bodily economy. 
 
 I could have wished also to advert to the construction and 
 chemical composition of the parts of the eye, to the chemical 
 as well as physical adaptation of these several parts to the 
 optical functions they perform, and to the composition and 
 use of the tears by which it is occasionally bedewed ; to the 
 teeth, coated and often interwoven with a flinty enamel of an 
 altogether peculiar nature ; to the fluids that moisten the 
 nostrils and ears, or that flow from the fat cells of the skin, 
 each fluid chemically adjusted to its special work ; and to 
 many other topics of a similar kind connected with the chem- 
 istry of our everyday life. It is sufiioient for my present pur- 
 pose, however, to have shown that the molecular mechanism, 
 so to call it, of tlie body we cherish, is not less wonderful 
 than its anatomical structure — and that, though a little more 
 profound and diflSoult to comprehend, it is not less worthy 
 of being studied by the intelligent, the cultivated, or the 
 reverential mind. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 THE CIECULATION OF MATTBE. 
 A KECAPITULATION. 
 
 Employment of matter for successive uses ; popular ideas regarding. — Shake- 
 speare's Hamlet. — Human saltpetre. — The circulation of water. — ^Ascent 
 of vapour iu tropical regions. — Evaporation from the leaves of plants. — 
 Expulsion from the lungs and skin of animals. — Chemical circulation of 
 water. — Circulation of carhon. — Quantity of carbon in the atmosphere ; 
 how it is continually renewed. — ^Decay. of shed leaves and bark, and yearly 
 ripening herbage. — Breathing of animals. — Belations of air, plant, and 
 animal, as regards this carbon. — ^Burying of carbon in the earth ; restora- 
 tion to the air by the burning of coal. — Carbon confined in limestone 
 rocks ; how the earth breathes this out again. — Circulation of nitrogen. — 
 Gluten of plants. — Forms in which nitrogen exists in plants, in the soil, 
 and in animals.— Restlessness of matter within the animal body. — ^Eapid 
 waste of the blood and tissues ; agency of oxygen in this waste. — ^Produc- 
 tion of urea; change of this in the soil. — General scheme of the circulation 
 of nitrogen ; we cannot restrain it. — How part of the nitrogen escapes, and 
 revolves in a wider circle. 
 
 That the same portion of matter may, in the operations of 
 nature, be employed for various successive purposes, living 
 and dead, has long been familiar to the popular mind. Phil- 
 osophers of almost every age have speculated on the changes 
 of matter, and poets have found scope for their imaginations 
 on a subject at once so interesting and so indefinite. It is 
 only from the results of modem scientific investigation, how- 
 ever, that clear and positive ideas have been obtained as 
 to the nature, the necessity, and the connection of these 
 natural changes. We now know not only that matter does 
 
MATTER CHANGES ITS FORM. 547 
 
 constantly change, but that it constantly circulates in a 
 round of iinceasing change. It has been shown that the 
 transformations it undergoes are necessary to the existing 
 condition of things ; that they take place in a fixed and pre- 
 determined order; and that they are again and again renewed 
 in an endlessly revolving succession. 
 
 There is a degree of rude sublimity in the curious reason- 
 ing of Hamlet, when he says : " Alexander died ; Alexander 
 was buried. Alexander retumeth into dust ; the dust is 
 earth ; of earth we make loam ; and why of that loam, where- 
 to he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel ? 
 
 ' Imperial Cseaar, dead, and turned to clay, 
 Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. 
 that that earth which kept the world in awe, 
 Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw ! ' " 
 
 And yet the matter-of-fact touch of modem knowledge turns 
 the whole of this into an absurd conceit. The body of man 
 crumbles into a handful of loose dust, it is true ; but this dust 
 is not earth, of which we can make loam to stop a gap or 
 flaw withal ; and thus, in the incorrectness of his facts, we 
 forget the merits of the poet. 
 
 More might be made by a true poet of the fact related by 
 Mr Squier, that the Eomish priests at Leon, in Nicaragua, 
 sell the burial-ground around their churches, for the use of 
 their occupants, for periods of from ten to twenty-fiye years ; 
 " at the end of which time the bones, with the earth around 
 them, are removed and sold to the manufacturers of nitre." ^ 
 So that to the unexpected, warlike, and base use of making 
 " villanous saltpetre," are the best and most peaceful of the 
 Nicaraguan citizens yearly converted. 
 
 The words of Shakespeare and the fact of Squier may both 
 suggest to us many reflections ; but there is nothing positive 
 in either of them, beyond the meagre moral, that what forms 
 part of the living, cherished, almost worshipped body to-day, 
 may be employed for most unexpected, and what appear most 
 vile, purposes to-morrow. This limited truth formed the sub- 
 stance of all the ancients knew, and of all the modems could 
 say until very recently, regarding the changes and future fate 
 of the animal body after the living spirit had left it. But 
 this branch of natural knowledge has been so wonderfully 
 
 I Squier's Nicaragua, i. 884. 
 
548 THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER. 
 
 illustrated by the researches of the present and passing gen- 
 erations, that we can now follow the same particle of matter 
 through a long series of successive visible transformations. 
 To-day we can see it living in the plant^ to-morrow moving 
 in the animal ; next floating as a constituent portion of the 
 thin air, or rippling along as an ingredient of the clear brook; 
 then resting for a while in the lifeless soil, waiting tiU the 
 opportunity arrives for its commencing a new career. 
 
 It will not, I believe, be without interest to my readers; 
 after perusing the details of the preceding chapters, if I 
 briefly recapitulate in this place the substance of -what has 
 been already stated in regard to the changes of matter ; — 
 what is the nature of the transformations it undergoes ; by 
 what agencies they are brought about ; and for what import- 
 ant end. I shall begin with the simple, and advance to the 
 more complicated. 
 
 1. The Cikculation of Watek. — The simplest form of the 
 circulation of matter is that which is presented by the watery 
 vapour contained in the atmosphere. From this vapour the 
 dews and rains are formed which refresh the scorched plant 
 and fertilise the earth. The total yearly depth of dew which 
 falls we cannot estimate. On summer evenings it appears 
 in hazy mists, and collects on leaf and twig in sparkling 
 pearls ; but at early dawn it vanishes again unmeasured 
 — ^partly sucked in by plant and soil, and partly dispelled 
 by the youngest sunbeams. But the yearly rainfall is easily 
 noted. In our island it averages about 30 inches in depth ; 
 and in Western Europe generally, it is seldom less than 20 
 inches. Among our Cumberland mountains in some places 
 a fall of 200 inches a-year is not uncommon ; while, among 
 the hUls near Calcutta, as much as 550 inches sometimes 
 fall within six months. Here let it be noted that an inch 
 of rain corresponds to a weight of water of 101 tons per 
 acre. 
 
 Now, as the whole of the watery vapour in the air, were it 
 to fall at once in the form of rain, woidd not cover the entire 
 surface of the earth to a depth of more than five inches — (Dr 
 Pkout) — how repeated must the rise and fall of this watery 
 vapour be 1 To keep the air always duly moist, and yet to 
 maintain the constant and necessary descent of dew and rain. 
 
CIRCULATION OF WATER. 649 
 
 the invisible ruBh of water upwards must be both great and 
 constant. 
 
 The ascent of water in this invisible form is often immedi- 
 ate and obvious, depending solely upon physical causes. But 
 it is often also indirect ; and, being the result of chemical or 
 physiological causes, is less generally perceptible. Thus — 
 
 1°. Water circulates abundantly between earth and air 
 through the agency of purely physical causes. We see this 
 when a summer shower, falling upon our paved streets, is 
 speedily licked up again by the balmy winds, and wafted 
 towards the region of clouds, ready for a new faU. But, 
 on the greatest scale, this form of circulation takes place 
 from the surface of the sea in equatorial regions, heated 
 through the influence of the sun's rays. Thence streams 
 of vapour are continually mounting upwards with the cur- 
 rents of ascending air, and with these they travel upwards 
 to colder regions of air, or north and south, till lower tem- 
 peratures or colder climates precipitate them in dew, rain, or 
 snow. Beturned to the polar or temperate seas by many 
 running streams, these precipitated waters are carried back 
 again to the equator by those great sea-rivers which mysteri- 
 ously traverse all oceans, and, when there, are ready to rise 
 again to repeat the same revolution. How often, since time 
 began, may the waters which cover the whole earth have thus 
 traversed air and sea, taking part in the endless movements 
 of inanimate nature I 
 
 2°. Again, physiological causes, though in a less degree 
 than the physical, are still very largely influential in causing 
 this watery circulation. 
 
 Thus the dew and rain which fall, sink in part into the 
 soil, and are thence drunk in by the roots of growing plants. 
 But these plants spread out their green leaves into the dry 
 air, and from numberless pores are continually exhaling 
 watery vapour in an invisible form. From the leafy surface 
 of a single acre in crop, it is calculated that from 3,000,000 
 to 5,000,000 lb. of water are yearly exhaled in the form of 
 vapour in our island ; while, on an average, not more than 
 2,500,000, fall in rain. Whether the surplus thus given off 
 be derived from dews or springs, it is plain that this evapora- 
 tion from the leaves of plants is one of the more important 
 forms which the circulation of water assumes. 
 
550 THE CIKOULATION OF MATTER. 
 
 So animals take into their stomachs another portion of the 
 same water, and, as a necessary function of life, are con- 
 tinually returning it into the air from their lungs and their 
 insensibly leeking hides. About 2 lb. arday are thus dis- 
 charged into the air by a full-grown man, and larger animals 
 give off more, probably, in proportion to their size. Multiply 
 this quantity by the number of animals which occupy the 
 land surface of the globe, and the sum wiU show that this 
 also is a form of watery circulation which, though less in 
 absolute amount than the others I have mentioned, is yet 
 of much importance in the economy of nature. 
 
 3°. But water circulates also, in consequence of unceasing 
 chemical operations, in a way which, if less obvious to the 
 uninstructed, is, if possible, more beautiful and more interest- 
 ing than the mere physical methods above described. 
 
 We have seen that the main substances of plants — their 
 cellulose and starch and sugar — consist in large proportion 
 of water. 100 lb. of each of these three substances may be 
 regarded as consisting respectively of — 
 
 Cellalose and starch. Ciuie-sngar. 
 
 Water, 53J 58 
 
 Carlson 44^ 42 
 
 100 108 
 
 Now, as the plant grows, water from the soil or from the air 
 unites chemically with carbon, and forms the cellulose of its 
 stem, the sugar of its sap, and the starch of its seed. When 
 the plant dies and decomposes in the air, the water is again 
 set free from its woody stem. Or when the animal digests 
 the starch or sugar, the water which these contain is dis- 
 charged from its lungs and sldn. 
 
 Thus the living plant works up water into its growing 
 substance, the elements of which water the decaying plant 
 and the breathing animal again set free, as water ; and -thus 
 a chemical circulation continually goes on, by which the same 
 water is caused again and again to revolve. Within a single 
 hour it may be in the form of starch in my hand, be discharged 
 as watery vapour from my lungs, and be agaiu absorbed by 
 the thirsty leaf to add to the substance of a new plant. 
 
 II. The Cieculation op Carbon. — The above chemical 
 
CIRCULATION OF CARBON. 551 
 
 form of water- circulation will be rendered more clear by 
 tracing the still more beautiful circulation of carbon. 
 
 Carbonio acid gas is now familiar to my readers as that 
 sparkling air which, rising in countless bubbles, gives life to 
 the creaming tankard, to the tempting champagne, and to 
 the more innocent sodarwater. This gas, as I have already 
 explained, consists of carbon and oxygen only, and is an 
 essential constituent of our atmosphere. It exists, it is 
 true, only in small proportion in the air. Every 2500 
 gallons of the air at the level of the sea contain only 
 one gallon of the gas ; yet upon the constant presence of 
 this small proportion, the continuance of all vegetable life 
 depends. 
 
 This dependence appears more striking to us, however, 
 the more precise our ideas become as to the absolute quan- 
 tity of this substance which the entire air contains. The 
 whole weight of the atmosphere is about 15 lb. to the square 
 inch, and of this the carbonic acid forms somewhat less than 
 120 grains, containing about 33 grains of carbon. Now 
 living plants are continually sucking in this gas by their 
 leaves ; and the operation goes on so rapidly, that were the 
 entire surface of the earth dry land and under cultivation, 
 crops such as we generally reap from it would extract and 
 fix the whole of the carbon in the form of vegetable matter, 
 in the short space of twenty-two years ! And if a flourishing 
 beech-forest covered the whole earth, eight years would sufiSce 
 to exhaust the entire atmosphere of its carbonio acid gas. 
 Were this to happen, vegetation would cease. But such a 
 catastrophe is prevented by the constant restoration of car- 
 bonio acid to the air through the unceasing operation of 
 preservative causes. Thus — 
 
 1°. The trees of the forest yearly shed their leaves, or in 
 Australia their bark. Through tlie influence of the weather 
 these waste portions, and their roots also, in a measure decay 
 and disappear, restoring again to the atmosphere a portion 
 of the same carbon which the living tree had previously 
 extracted from it during the period of their growth. The 
 yearly ripening herbage also, and every plant that naturally 
 withers, on plain or hill — the grass of the burning prairie, 
 and the timber of inflamed forests — with all that man con- 
 sumes for fuel and burns for other uses; — every form of 
 25 
 
652 THE CIECULATION OF MATTER. 
 
 vegetable matter, in short, when exposed to the action of air 
 or &e, returns, more or less quickly, to the state of carbonic 
 acid, and disappears in the invisible atmosphere. Thus, 
 what is yearly withdrawn from the air by living plants, is so 
 far restored again by those which naturally perish, or which 
 are destroyed by the intervention of man, 
 
 2°. But man himself and other animals'assist in the same 
 chemical conversion. They consume vegetable food, with the 
 same final result as when it perishes by natural decay, or is 
 destroyed by the agency of fire. It is conveyed into the 
 stomach in the form in which the plant yields it. The green 
 herb, the perfect seed, and the ripe fruit, are eaten and 
 digested ; then forthwith they are breathed out again from 
 the lungs and the skin, in the form of carbonic acid and 
 water. But we can foUow this operation more closely, and 
 it will be both interesting and instructive to do so. 
 
 The leaf of the living plant sucks in carbonic acid from 
 the air, and gives off the oxygen contained in this gas. It 
 retains almost exclusively the carbon. The roots drink in 
 water from the soil, and out of this carbon and water the 
 plant forms starch, sugar, fat, and other substances. The 
 animal introduces this starch, sugar, or fat into its stomach, 
 and draws in oxygen from the atmosphere by its lungs. With 
 these materials it undoes the previous labours of the living 
 plant, delivering back again, from the lungs and the skin, the 
 elements of the starch and the oxygen in the form of car- 
 bonic acid and water. The process is clearly represented in 
 the following scheme : 
 
 Takes in Produces 
 
 T„^ Pr »^,T / Carbonic acid by its leaves ; / '^S'f S™" ."'. '«*™^i 
 THE PtANT I ^^^^^ , .^.^ ^^l ^ Starch &c., m its solid 
 
 •' (. substance. 
 
 ( starch and fat into the sto- ( Carbmic acid and wat^ 
 
 The Ahimal < maoh ; { f™"" *•>« ^^"^ »"<! tl^e 
 
 [O^gen into the Inngs. (^i^^e animal's body. 
 
 And this fat, laid up for a while in the body, is in its turn 
 also breathed away in carbonic acid and water. 
 
 Thus the circle begins with carbonic acid and water, and 
 
 ends with the same substances. The same materials the 
 
 same carbon, for example — circulates over and over again 
 now floating in the invisible air, now forming the substance 
 
CIRCULATION OF CARBON. 553 
 
 of the growing plant, now of the moving animal, and now 
 again dissolving into the air, ready to begin anew the same 
 endless revolution, — the plant, continually unhuming the burnt 
 products made by the animal, and vice versd. It forms part 
 of a vegetable today — it may be built into the body of a man 
 to-morrow ; and a week hence, it may have passed through 
 another plant into another animaL What is mine this week 
 is yours the next. There is, in truth, no private property in 
 ever-moving matter. 
 
 3°. Yet all the carbonic acid which is removed from the 
 air by the agency of plants, is not immediately restored by 
 the circulation above described. Two larger wheels revolve 
 to make up the deficiency. 
 
 It has been shown that when plants die and decay, are 
 burned into the air, or are eaten by animals, the carbon they 
 contain is delivered back again to the atmosphere in the 
 form of carbonic acid. But all tlie plants produced yearly 
 over the whole earth are not so resolved into gaseous sub- 
 stances in any given time. In all parts of the world, and 
 during all time, some portions of vegetable matter have 
 escaped this total destruction, and have been buried beneath 
 the surface of the earth, to be preserved in the solid form for 
 an indefinite period. With such comparatively indestructible- 
 forms of vegetable matter we are familiar in the peat-bogs of 
 Scotland and Ireland — sometimes from 60 to 100 feet deep — 
 and in the submarine forests which are seen in so many parts 
 of our island- shores. We are stiU better acquainted with 
 them, however, in those vast deposits of coal which a kind 
 Providence, long ago, brought together and covered up. 
 What is and has been thus collected and gradually buried 
 would necessarily cause a constant diminution in the small 
 quantity of carbonic acid contained in the air, were there no 
 natural means in operation for making up the yearly loss. 
 
 The means we are most familiar with for repairing this 
 waste, are those which man himself brings into operation. At 
 a certain period in his history, half-civilised man discovered 
 the use of coal. At a more advanced period he found out 
 how to dig deep and hollow out mines in search of it ; and, 
 at a stiU later period, how to employ it for a thousand bene- 
 ficial purposes. In burning coal, we cause its carbon to 
 unite with the oxygen of the air, and to disappear in the 
 
554 THE CIKCULATION OF MATTER. 
 
 state of carbonic acid. We restore it to the atmosphere again 
 in the state in which it existed there, perhaps a million of 
 years ago, when it was sucked in by the growing plants, and, 
 in the form of vegetable matter, afterwards buried beneath 
 the earth's surface. In raising and consuming coal, there- 
 fore, we are, to a certain extent, undoing and counteracting 
 the yearly lessening of the carbon in the air, which appears 
 to ensue from the yearly covering up of a portion of veg- 
 etable inatter. The 300,000,000 tons of coal which are 
 now yearly consumed throughout tlie globe, produce about 
 800,000,000 tons of carbonic acid gas. How far this quantity 
 serves to compensate for what is constantly buried up again 
 it is impossible to estimate. It must be acknowledged, how- 
 ever, that the coal-fires we bum are an important subsidiary 
 agent in promoting the circulation of carbon on the globe. 
 
 But we bum wood, and peat, and turf, in addition to coal 
 and gas — and we also consume oil, and wax, and many vege- 
 table and animal fats ; these all yield carbonic acid gas to the 
 air. More than this, every lime-kiln, every vat of fermenting 
 beer-wort, every heap of decaying leaves or of animal refuse, 
 contributes something to the world's stock of atmospheric 
 carbonic acid gas. 
 
 4°. Again, within the bosom of the great seas, tiny zoo- 
 phytes are at work, upon which nature has imposed, in 
 addition to the search for food and the care of their offspring, 
 the perpetual labour of building new houses. The common 
 shell-fish of our coasts toil continually for defence as well 
 as for shelter, repairing, enlarging, and renewing their own 
 dwelling-places ; and as they die, each drops its shell as a 
 feeble contribution to the beds of shelly limestone which are 
 here and there forming at the bottom of our deep seas. 
 
 In more southern waters again, still humbler animals build 
 up beneath the waves massive coral walls thousands of miles 
 in extent, which, now skirting long coast-lines and now en- 
 circling solitary islands, bid defiance to the angriest storms. 
 And these, too, as they die, generation after generation, leave, 
 in rooky beds of coralline limestone, an imperishable memorial 
 of their exhaustless labours. These rocks contain, chained 
 down in a seemingly everlasting imprisonment, two-fifths of 
 their weight of carbonic acid. This has been all withdrawn 
 either directly or indirectly from the atmosphere ; and thus, 
 
CIRCULATION OF CARBON. 555 
 
 through the rock-forming living things it containB, the sea 
 must ever be drinking in and storing up the carbonic acid of 
 the air. 
 
 And the same process has been going on almost continu- 
 ously since the world began. Vast coral-reefs lie buried be- 
 neath our beds of coal, and mountains of thick-ribbed shelly 
 limestone have been lifted from ancient seas before these 
 older reefs were formed. The labours of marine animals, 
 therefore, like the burying of vegetable matter, must through- 
 out all time have been causing a daily lessening of the 
 absolute quantity of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, — unless 
 some other natural operation has meanwhile been making 
 compensation for this constant removal. 
 
 5°. But the earth herself breathes for this purpose. From 
 cracks and fissures, which occur in vast numbers over the 
 surface of the earth, carbonic acid gas issues in large quan- 
 tities — sometimes alone, and sometimes along with springing 
 waters — and daily mingles itself with the ambient air. It 
 sparkles in the springs of Carlsbad and Seltzer ; rushes, as if 
 fifom subterranean bellows, on the table-land of Paderbom; 
 astonishes travellers in the Grotta del Cane ; interests the 
 chemical geologist in the caves of Pyrmont, and among the 
 old lavas of the Eifel ; and is terrible to man and beast 
 in the fatal •" Valley of Death," the most wonderful of the 
 wonders of Java. And besides, it doubtless issues still 
 more abundantly from the unknown bottom of the expanded 
 waters which occupy so large a proportion of the surface of 
 the globe. From these many sources, continually flowing 
 into the air or rising into the sea, carbonic acid is, and has 
 been, daily supplied in place of that which is daily with- 
 drawn, to be buried in the solid limestones of tlie globe. 
 Did we know after what lapse of time the earth would again 
 breathe out what is thus daily entombed, we should be able 
 to express in words how long this slowly revolving secular 
 wheel requires fully to perform one of its immense gyrations. 
 
 Thus, like the watery vapour of the atmosphere, its car- 
 bonic acid also is continually circulating. While tliat which 
 floats in the air, circles from the atmosphere to the plant, 
 from the plant to the animal, and from the animal to the air 
 again, — many times, it may be, during one single generation 
 — never really the property of any, and never lingering long 
 
656 
 
 THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER.' 
 
 in one stay, — the whole created carbon is slowly moving in a 
 greater circle between earth and air. It rises from the earth 
 at one end of the curve in the state of an elastic gas, it 
 amuses itself by the way in assuming for brief intervals 
 many successive varieties of plant-form and animal-form, 
 till it is finally buried in the earth again, at the other end 
 of the curve, in the state of blackened fossil plants, or beds 
 of solid limestone. 
 
 III. CiKCULATioN OF NiTROGEN. — We advance now to a 
 circulation a little more complicated in its character, and 
 one less thoroughly understood, but, if possible, still more 
 interesting to us, because it is more closely connected with 
 our own personal history, both physiological and domestic. 
 
 I have already described how, if a portion of wheaten flour 
 be made into dough, and this dough be washed with water 
 
 upon a sieve or on a 
 piece of muslin, as long 
 as the water passes 
 through milKy, there 
 will remain upon the' 
 sieve a tenacious ad-, 
 hesive substance like 
 bird - lime, which . is 
 known by the name 
 of gluten ; and how, 
 again, if the milky wa- 
 ter be allowed to settle, 
 a white powder collects 
 at the bottom, which 
 is common wheaten 
 starch. 
 
 By this process the 
 flour of wheat is separ- 
 ated into two very different chemical substances, — starch and 
 gluten. Of these two it chiefly consists, and in this respect it 
 is the type of all other vegetable productions which are used 
 as food. They all contain, as their principal constituents, two 
 classes of substances, which are represented respectively by 
 the starch and gluten of wheat. In tracing the circulation of 
 carbon, we have already seen what becomes of the starch of 
 
CIRCULATION OF NITROGEN. 557 
 
 plants when consumed by animals ; we are now to follow the 
 changes in which their gluten takes a part. 
 
 Gluten is distinguished from starch and fat by containing 
 nitrogen. This nitrogen is the kind of air which forms nearly 
 four-fifths of the bulk of the atmosphere. It exists also in 
 ammonia, — the well-known compound substance which gives 
 their pungent odour to the liquid hartshorn and smeUing-salts 
 of the shops, — and in aquafortis, familiar to chemists by the 
 name of nitric acid. These two compound bodies, ammonia 
 and nitric acid, exist and are formed in the soil, and from the 
 soil these substances are taken up by the roots of plants. In 
 the interior of the plant, these substances are subjected to 
 new influences ; new chemical changes take place, in which 
 they bear a part ; and by means of the nitrogen they contain, 
 gluten is formed. The many intermediate changes which 
 follow each other within the vegetable sap we do not as yet 
 understand ; but we do know that the nitrogen which existed 
 as ammonia and nitric acid in the soil, assumes, after these 
 changes, the final form of gluten within the plant. 
 
 And now I have only to recall to the minds of my readers 
 another chemical analogy, to enable them to foUow this same 
 nitrogen tlu-ough still further changes. In treating of the 
 natural relations which exist between animal and vegetable 
 food, I have shown that the fibrin or main constituent of the 
 animal muscle, and the white or albumen of the egg, are 
 nearly the same thing in composition and general properties 
 as the gluten of wheat. They all contain nitrogen in nearly 
 the same proportion, and probably in a similar state of chemi- 
 cal combinatioH. When the animal consumes vegetable food, 
 therefore, it introduces into its stomach the very substance of 
 its muscles and blood — the ready -formed materials out of 
 which its several parts are to be built up. It does this, in fact, 
 to build up and renew its several parts -by means of this 
 vegetable substance. The gluten of the plant is transformed 
 into the flesh and tissues of the living animal. 
 
 Thus the Jiitrogen of the soU, through the intermedium of 
 the plant, has attained to its highest dignity as a part of the 
 body of breathing and intellectual man. 
 
 But having attained this most perfect form, the restless 
 elements soon grow weary, so to speak, of their new dignity. 
 Not only is the living body in constant movement as a whole, 
 
558 THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER. 
 
 but all its parts, even the minutest, are in perpetual motion. 
 They are like the population of a great city, moving to and 
 fro, coming and going continually, weeded out and removed 
 hour after hour by deaths and departures, yet as unceasingly 
 kept up in numbers by new incomers ; — changing from day to 
 day so insensibly as to escape observation, yet so completely, 
 that after the lapse of a few years, scarcely a known face can 
 be discovered among congregated thousands. And so rapid 
 is the tear and wear of the animal machine, to change our 
 figure, in consequence of this incessant movement, that the 
 repairs which are constantly called for have been said to be 
 equal in extent to such as would renovate the greater part 
 of the framework in less than a month. New materials are 
 brought in for the purpose, while the old are thrown away and 
 rejected.'^ Scarcely has the gluten of the plant been com- 
 fortably fitted into its place in the muscle, the skin, or the 
 hair of the animal, when it begins forthwith to be dissolved 
 out again — to be decomposed and removed from the body. 
 Eestlessness, beyond our control, is thus inherent in the very 
 matter of which we are formed. 
 
 A brief summary will show how and in what forms this 
 taking down and lemoval of the bodily substance is so 
 rapidly effected. 
 
 The living animal absorbs, as we have seen, much oxygen 
 from the air by its lungs. This oxygen is employed to convert 
 the carbon and hydrogen of a certain part of its food into car- 
 bonic acid gas and water. This inhaled oxygen is, in fact, 
 the agent through which the change of matter is effected. 
 The muscle, for example, combines with oxygen, and, after 
 several intermediate transformations, is finally changed into 
 substances called urea, uric acid, &c., which pass away 
 through the kidneys. This urea and ui-ic acid return to the 
 soil, from which the nitrogen they contain originally came. 
 There they are gradually converted into ammonia, nitric 
 acid, and other substances such as the plant roots originally 
 took up, and which, now re-formed, are ready again to enter 
 into new roots, and thus to recommence the same round of 
 change. 
 
 But the animal does not extract and worji up all the gluten 
 of the vegetable food it eats. A part of it escapes digestion, 
 I See " What, How, and Why we Digest." 
 
CIRCULATION OF NITROGEN. 559 
 
 and is rejected in the animal droppings. This mingles with 
 the soil, and there, like the urea, &c., is changed into am- 
 monia and nitric acid. The same happens to the gluten of 
 vegetables which die, and, without entering the stomach, 
 undergo direct natural decay in the air or in the soiL 
 Animal bodies themselves die also at last, and, like the 
 vegetable gluten, pass through those successive changes 
 which we call putrefiiction and decay. As the result of these 
 changes, the nitrogen they contain is again made to assume 
 those forms in which plants are able to take it up, and to 
 convert it into their own substance. 
 
 Thus, after various turns of the wheel, most of the nitrogen 
 that entered the plant in the form of ammonia and nitric acid, 
 returns again to the soil in one or other of the same states. 
 Some of the matter revolves a time or two less, returning at 
 once from the plant to the soil without passing thi-ough the 
 animal at all, or at once from the muscle to the soil without 
 imdergoing the ordeal of the kidneys — but whether it runs 
 one, two, or three heats, nearly all arrives, sooner or later, at 
 the same goal, ready to start again on the same race. A 
 bird's-eye view of this circulation of nitrogen is presented 
 in the following scheme : — 
 
 Takes in Produces 
 
 {Nitrogen, in the forms of"! 
 ammonia and nitric acid, ^ Gluten and similar com- 
 from the soil. ) pounds, as albumen. 
 
 r a. Gluten into the stomach\ 
 
 in its vegetable food, «• Muscle and other tis- 
 and oxygen through the I ^"es. 
 m « / lungs. V 
 
 THE Animal \ j Animal muscle, &c., in-/ , ..,_,.., 
 
 to the stomach in its I i. Urea, &c., in the liquid 
 animal food, and oxygen! excretions, 
 through the lungs. ' 
 
 Urea, and other animal) Ammonia, nitric acid. 
 The Soil J excretions ; dead aui- > and other compounds, 
 ( mals and plants. ) containing nitrogen. 
 
 Thus we end where we began — the soil, the plant, and the 
 animal being involved in one never-ceasing, mutually-depen- 
 dent revolution. We need scarcely concern ourselves, there- 
 fore, for the destiny of the organic part — the tissues and 
 blood of our bodies. Its fate is decided by fixed and un- 
 erring law.s. When it has served our purpose, new and 
 immediate uses await it. We attemot in vain to detain it 
 
5G0 THE CIKCULATION 01' MAITEE. 
 
 from predeteniiined labours, or, by tlio arts of the embalmer, 
 to compel it to perpetuate a loved and honoured form. We 
 need not wait even, as in Hamlet's supposition, for the body 
 to crumble into dust. The fluids and tissues decompose 
 rapidly, and are quickly dissipated ; so that what is now part 
 of the body of a Csesar or a Venus, may literally within a 
 week become part of a turnip or of a potato. 
 
 Even here, however, or in respect, to this organic form of 
 matter, we obtain occasional glimpses of a still wider circle. 
 While the same portion of matter, on the whole, goes round 
 and round unceasingly, as we have described, a certain 
 portion of the ammonia and other volatile compounds of 
 nitrogen, which are produced by decaying animal and 
 vegetable substances, rises in the form of gas or vapour, 
 and escapes into the air. It rises also in unknown quantity 
 from the lungs and skins of animals, in their breath and 
 perspiration. This ammonia the rains of heaven wash out 
 and bring back again to the earth — thus restoring it to the 
 soil from which it originally came, and to the wants of 
 vegetable life. But these very rains also carry down a 
 portion of it directly into the sea, and, through the rivers, 
 sweep it from the land. Yearly, also, a part of the ammonia, 
 nitric acid, and other similar compounds, is by natural opera- 
 tions resolved into elementary nitrogen, and is thus lost to 
 living plants. 
 
 To make up for this waste, nitric acid is continually 
 formed in the air in minute quantity. The nitrogen and 
 oxygen of the atmosphere unite to form this acid through the 
 agency chiefly of electric discharges, which are continually 
 passing through the air. Ammonia also is given ofi" into the 
 atmosphere from many sources, as from all active volcanoes ; 
 and both of these compound substances the falling rain dis- 
 •Bolves and carries earthward, so that a part at least of the 
 failing supplies of nitrogen, in an available form of com- 
 bination, are continually kept up. Still the formation of 
 nitric acid in the air from its elements hardly occurs on a 
 sufficiently large scale for the needs of vegetable life. A 
 long series of experiments indicates that not more than 10 
 lb. of nitric acid and ammonia annually fall upon an acre in 
 the rain, while the wheat grain alone of an acre wants 30 lb. 
 The difference may be made up, in the absence of manure, by 
 
CIRCULATION OF NITROGEN. 561 
 
 some obscure chemical process which goes on between the 
 air and decomposing carbonaceous matter. When the latter 
 oxidises, especially under certain electrical conditions, the free 
 nitrogen of the air may, it appears, enter into union with 
 some of its elements. But the whole subject of the circula- 
 tion of nitrogen, and the adequate supply of it to vegetation, 
 is obscure. Broadly speaking, we may aiSrm that man is 
 powerless to effect the combination of nitrogen with hydro- 
 gen into ammonia, or of nitrogen with oxygen and hydrogen 
 into nitric acid. As the known sources of fresh ammonia 
 and nitric acid seem inadequate, and as some of the nitrogen 
 compounds are always being decomposed, there must be 
 some imperfectly recognised formation of these bodies going 
 on, or the organic world would have ended its career ere 
 this. Thus, from the great atmospheric reservoir a stream of 
 nitrogen of unknown bulk flows down yearly to the earth in 
 the forms of nitric acid, ammonia, and possibly other com- 
 pounds ; while a similar stream returns again yearly to the 
 air in the form of elementary gas, after Laving probably 
 many times gone through the cycle of changes in which 
 gluten and fibrin take a part. Within what conceivable 
 time could the nitrogen of the whole atmosphere take part 
 in this slow circulation?^ 
 
 ' For an excellent account of the circulation of nitrogen see the Quarteilj 
 Journal of Science for 1878. 
 
•CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE CIRCULATION OF MATTER. 
 
 A RECAPITULATION. 
 
 Circulation of mineral matter. — General form of tliis circulation from the 
 soil througli the plant into the animal, and thence to the soil again. — 
 Special form. — Circulation of phosphoric acid and of saline matter. — 
 Shedding of leaves and annual decay of vegetable productions. — Course 
 of mineral matter through the animal body. — Waste and death of the 
 body, and its return to the soil. — General view of this circulation. — Its 
 constancy and rapidity. — Vain attempts to preserve human dust apart. — 
 Mummies, Pyramids, and Etruscan tombs. — The valley of Hinnom. — 
 Customs in Thibet and the Himalayas. How the natural diminution of 
 mineral plant-food is counteracted.— Even the sea gives back its spoils. — 
 Interference of slow geological revolutions. — Lessons taught by all this. 
 — Small quantity of matter on which all life depends.— Lessons of con- 
 stant intelligent activity with a view to a definite end. — Purposes served 
 by every movement of matter in living bodies. — How the plant waits 
 upon and serves the animal. — Small change in the condition of things 
 which would banish life from the world. — Man forms no part of the 
 scheme of the universe. — His material insignificance the crowning lesson. 
 
 rV. The Circulation op Mineral Matter. — We must now 
 trace the revolutions through, which the dust also — the 
 earthy, inorganic, incombustihle, or mineral part of the 
 animal — passes. 
 
 When a portion of a plant is burnt in the air, the organic 
 or combustible part is dissipated, and disappears ; but a 
 small quantity of ash or mineral matter remains behind. 
 The wood -ash left when trees are burned is a familiar 
 example of this. In like manner, when any part of an 
 
CIRCULATION OF MINERAL MATTER. 563 
 
 animal is burned in the air, a portion of ash remains uncon- 
 sumed. I need scarcely add, that a portion of soil, treated 
 in a similar way, leaves an abundant residue of earthy 
 matter undissipated by the fire. 
 
 Now, in regard to the combustible part of the plant — 
 which is made up almost exclusively of carbon, nitrogen, and 
 the elements of water — differences of opinion are possible as 
 to whether the raw materials for building it up are derived 
 from the soil or from the air. They all exist both in air and 
 soil, and may be derived from the one or from the other. 
 But in regard to the mineral or incombustible part of the 
 plant, there can be but one opinion. Mineral matter does 
 not exist as a part of the atmosphere, and therefore the plant 
 must derive all, or nearly all, it contains of this kind of matter 
 from the soil in which it grows ; although leaves are capable 
 of absorbing mineral matters in solution in rain-water, and do 
 frequently so absorb traces of it. 
 
 Again, as all which the .animal body contains is derived 
 either directly or indirectly from vegetable food, the mineral 
 matter or ash it leaves when burned must have come to it 
 from the soil through the plant. And as, further, when the 
 animal dies, its body is sooner or later returned to the soil, 
 we have again another complete cycle, in which the earthy 
 matter of living things is the ever-moving body. It ascends 
 from the soil into the substance of the plant, thence into the 
 substance of the animal, and thence descends again into the 
 mother earth, to begin, as in our other examples, a new and 
 similar career. 
 
 But a more chemical examination of this mineral or earthy 
 matter will make our acquaintance with this cycle still more 
 interesting and instructive. 
 
 It is not any kind of earthy matter, indiflerently, which 
 the plant-root sucks up and builds into the substance of its 
 growing stem and leaves. It selects, as it were, only the 
 rarer and more precious materials of which the soil consists, 
 and from among these, again, such as natural waters can 
 more or less readily dissolve. Phosphoric acid, lime, mag- 
 nesia, and certain kinds of saline matter, of which we may 
 take common salt as the representative, are the most im- 
 portant of these substances. Generally speaking, these 
 ingredients exist but sparingly in the soil. The productive- 
 
564 THE CIECULATION OF MATTER. 
 
 ness of a tract of land, therefore, in so far as it depends upon 
 their presence, is kept up either by a constant natural cir- 
 culation of the same quantity ot these matters, or by the 
 addition of periodical supplies from some other source, equal 
 in kind and amount to those which the yearly herbage 
 carries away. 
 
 In uncultivated regions the natural circulation is short and 
 simple. In natural forests, for example, where the leaves 
 or bark are annually shed, and the trees periodically die, the 
 mineral matter quits the soil for the plant as it grows, and 
 again, when the plant decays, returns to the soiL It thus 
 makes but a short stage from the earth to the plant, and 
 from the plant back to the earth again. It is so also in 
 natural meadows. Yearly, in autumn, the grass ripens, 
 withers, and returns its mineral matter to the soil ; and 
 yearly, again, in spring, the young herbage grows up and 
 feeds on the relics of the previous year. 
 
 The circulation, though less direct, is not much more pro- 
 tracted when the vegetable produce, as in cultivated regions, 
 is almost entirely consumed by animals. It then enters into 
 their stomachs, is dissolved or digested, and converted into 
 blood. From this blood its several mineral constituents 
 are taken up by vessels provided for the purpose, to be 
 conveyed to the parts of the body where their services are 
 required. The saline portion is retained by the blood and 
 the tissues. The phosphoric acid in combination with lime, 
 forming phosphate of lime, is chiefly deposited in the bones, 
 and in combination with potash, as phosphate of potash, in 
 the muscles. 
 
 The importance of the former of these compounds — the 
 phosphate of lime — to the animal economy, becomes appa- 
 rent when it is recollected that dry bones leave, on burning, 
 two-thirds of their weight of a white ash, of which five-sixths 
 consist of phosphate of lime. But its comparative import- 
 ance appears still more manifest when we consider how large 
 a proportion it forms of the whole mineral matter of the 
 body. Thus, in a full-grown man, 
 
 The Vfhole mineral matter is about . . . H J it,. 
 The phosphate of lime about .... sl „ *" 
 
 And the other mineral matters, amongst which com- 1 
 mon salt exists to the extent of half .a pound, j * " 
 
CIKCULATION OF MINEEAI, MATTER. 665 
 
 But though the mineral matter of the vegetable, when 
 introduced into the animal's stomach, is thus distributed 
 to different parts of the body, and although it for the most 
 part becomes fixed, as it were, for a time in its most solid 
 parts, this does not necessarily imply its withdrawal from 
 circulation. For, as we have already seen, aU the parts of 
 the body, even the most solid, are in a constant course of 
 alteration and renewal. To this law of change the bones 
 are subject, like the softest parts, though in a minor degree, 
 80 that the phosphoric acid and lime which are carried into 
 them by the blood and built into their substance to-day, are, 
 at least to some extent, taken down and carried out again, 
 along with the other refuse and waste materials of the body. 
 And forthwith, as fast as they reach the soil, these mineral 
 substances commence a new career. 
 
 Finally, the whole body dies at once, and all the mineral 
 substances which it at the time contains, return directly to 
 tlie earth from which they came. There they undergo, chiefly 
 through the agency of the oxygen of the air, but assisted by 
 various ferments both organised and unorganised, a final 
 breaking -up or decomposition, by which they are again 
 brought into states of chemical combination, in which they 
 can enter usefully into the roots of plants. 
 
 Thus, what the plant took from the soil, the animal — 
 partly as it works and wastes during life, and partly when it 
 dies — returns to tho soil again without any long delay. New 
 plants are thus at liberty to work up again the old materials 
 and to despatch them forthwith on a new voyage. This 
 general succession of changes undergone by the mineral 
 matter, which takes a part in the established order of 
 vegetable and anjraal life, is briefly represented in tho fol- 
 lowing scheme: — 
 
 The Plant 
 
 Takes in Pioduces 
 
 {i>t..„.„i,„.;„ »„;j i!.„. -„™ ^The perfect substance of 
 
 Phosphoric acid, lime, com-J j ^^^ (f„„ ^^j^mg ^^^ 
 
 mon and other salts, from<^ v^^^^l substances to- 
 «18 soil. _.tv„v 
 
 gether). 
 
 (a. The edible parts of plants. '\ a. Perfect bone, blood, and 
 Tn« A»tw.T ) *• 1^8 digested food in its I tissues. 
 iHB ANIMAL ■; ^^^^ ^^^ oxygen through (b. Phosphates and other 
 
 V. the lungs. / salts in the excretions. 
 
 Tm, Qnir S Excretions of animals, dead 1 Phosphoric acid, lime, com- 
 xHB con, ■^ animals and plants. ) mon salt, &c. 
 
566 THE CIKCULATION OF MATTER. 
 
 It may be that a careful hunter after human dust might 
 scrape together as much of what thus returns to the soil 
 as would "stop a hole to keep the wind away." But our 
 chemical science teaches us that this animal earth is not 
 the kind of stuff that plastic clays are made of, and that such 
 vile uses are, after all, only imaginary slights, to which our 
 cherished ashes can never be subjected. They have other 
 appointed uses, from which, treat them as we may, they can- 
 not long be withheld. 
 
 The plant, on the one hand, is so wonderfully framed, that 
 it refuses to grow unless it can obtain the phosphoric acid, 
 &c., which it is bound to gather up and supply to the grow- 
 ing animal. And it does this so well, that a plant can some- 
 times find what a chemist cannot — can analyse a soil better 
 than he can. And the soil, on the other hand, is so poorly 
 provided with these and other most needful substances, that 
 plant and animal are both ordained to return without faU. 
 their borrowed materials to mother earth, when the term of 
 their own lives has come. A duty is laid also upon each 
 particle of matter, zealously to prepare for a new service as 
 soon as each earlier commission is performed. Thus, a con- 
 stant circulation of the same comparatively small quantity 
 of mineral matter is secured. Thus, also, we can claim no 
 personal property in any single atom of it. How idle it 
 seems, then, to the cold chemical eye to cherish either affec- 
 tion or reverence for dead ashes ! Do as we may, they can 
 never long be prevented from connecting themselves with 
 new forms of vegetable and animal life, in which we have 
 no concern. 
 
 And how visibly rapid, in the majority of cases, is the 
 passage of this substance of our bodies to new forms of life ! 
 Thousands yearly perish in the sea, and are at once s-wal- 
 lowed, digested, and built into the forms of marine animals. 
 Thousands more die and decay in waste places, where vege- 
 table forms soon cover and feed upon them. Armies of fight- 
 ing men strew, as they march over a thousand fields, the 
 relics of their wasting strength. A single battle restores to 
 the soil of a populous district, materials enough to build up 
 the bodies of its inhabitants for many succeeding generations. 
 
 Nor do graveyards hold it more securely. Of how many 
 bygone men and women has the mineral substance lived 
 
MATTER WILL CIBCULATE, 667 
 
 anew in the village sheep which crop the green herbage of 
 the tufted tombs I In how many affection-tended, ornamental 
 cometerios does the dust of those we love fatten the soil for 
 the cherished trees and shrubs 1 And how long is the con- 
 secratod ground itself secure against the changes of succes- 
 sive times — the demands of new roads, new streets, new 
 railways, and new sanitary enactments, or the still more 
 ruthless innovations of religious and political revolutions ? 
 
 Or embalm the loved bodies, and swathe them, as the old 
 Egyptians did, in resinous cerements, and you but preserve 
 them a little longer, tliat some wretched, plimdering Arab 
 may desecrate and scatter to the winds the residual dust. 
 Or jealously, in regal tombs and pyramids, preserve the forms 
 of venerated emperors and beauteous queens, — still some 
 future conqueror, or more humble Belzoni, will rifle the 
 most secure resting-place. Or bury them in most sacred 
 places, beneath high altars, — a new reign shall dig them up 
 and mingle them again with the common earth. Or, more 
 careful still, conceal your last resting-place where local his- 
 tory keeps no record, and even tradition cannot betray you, — 
 then accident shall stumble at lengtli upon your nninown 
 tomb, and liberate your still remaining ashes. 
 
 How touching to behold the vain result of even the most 
 successful attempts at preserving apart, and in their relative 
 places, the solid materials of the individual form ! The tomb, 
 after the lapse of time, is found and opened. The ghastly 
 tenant reclines, it may be, in fuU form and stature. The 
 very features are preserved — impressed, and impressing the 
 spectator with the calm dignity of their long repose. But 
 some curious hand touches the seemingly solid form, or a 
 breath of air disturbs the sleeping air around the full-pro- 
 portioned body — when, lol it crumbles instantly away into 
 an insignificant quantity of impalpable dust ! 
 
 Who has not read mth mingled wonder and awe of the 
 opening of tlie almost magical sepulchre of an ancient 
 Etrurian king. The antiquarian dilettanti, in their under- 
 ground researohes, unexpectedly stumbled upon the un- 
 known vault. Undisturbed through Boman and barbaric 
 times, accident revealed it to modern eyes. A small aper- 
 ture, made by chance in the outer wall, showed to the 
 astonished gazers a crowned king within, sitting on his chair 
 
568 THE CIKCULATION OF MATTER. 
 
 of state, with robes and sceptre all entire, and golden omar 
 ments of ancient device bestowed here and there around his 
 person. Eager to secure the precious spoil, a way is forced 
 with hammer and mattock into the mysterious chamber. But 
 the long spell is now broken — the magical image is gone. 
 Slowly, as the vault first shook benealii the blows, the whole 
 pageant crumbled awayi A light smoky dust filled the air ; 
 and, where the image so lately sat, only the tinselly frag- 
 ments of thin gold remained, to show that the vision and 
 the ornaments had been real, though the entire substance of 
 the once noble forni had utterly vanished.^ 
 
 For a few thousand years some apparently fortunate kings 
 and princes may arrest the natural circulation of a handful 
 of dust. But in what are they better than Cromwell, whose . 
 remains were pitilessly disturbed — ^than Wycliffe, whose ashes 
 were sprinkled on the sea — than St Genevieve, whose remains 
 were burned in the Place de Gr6ve, and her ashes scattered 
 to the wind — than Mausolus, whose dust was swallowed by 
 his wife Artemisia — than the King of Edom, whose bones 
 were burned for lime — or than King Pepin, and all the royal 
 line of Bourbons, whose tombs were emptied by a Parisian 
 mob ? ^ In Turkey, as about Smyrna, abandoned cemeteries 
 
 1 See Mrs Hamilton Gray's Sepulchres of Etrnria. The fragments of the 
 gold ornaments are in the collection of Lord Kinnaird at Rossio Priory. 
 
 2 "They burnt on the Place de Grive the remains of St Genevieve, the 
 popular patroness of Paris, and threw her ashes to the wind. ... A 
 decree of the Convention had commanded the destruction of the tombs of the 
 kings at St Denis. The Commune changed this decree into an attack against 
 the dead. . . . The axe broke the gates of bronze presented by Charle- 
 magne to the Basilica of St Denis. . . . They raised the stones, ransacked 
 the vaults, violated the resting-places of the departed, sought out beneath the 
 swathlugs and shrouds embalmed corpses, crumbled ilesh, calcined bones, 
 empty skulls of kings, queens, princes, ministers, bishops. Pepin, the 
 founder of the Carloviugian dynasty, and father of Charlemagne, was now Imt 
 a pinch of grey ash, which was in a tnoment scattered bi/ the wind. The 
 mutilated heads of Tm'enne, Duguesclin, Louis XII., Francis I., were rolled 
 on the pavement. . . , Beneath the choir were buried the princes and 
 princesses of the first race, and some of the third — Hugues Capet, Philip the 
 Bold, Philip the Handsome. They rent away their rags of silk, and threw 
 them on a bed of quicklime. . . . They ilung the carcass of Henry IV. 
 into the common fosse. His son and grandson, Louis XIII. and XIV., fol- 
 lowed. Louis XIII. was but a mummy ; Louis XIV. a black indistinguishable 
 mass of aromatics. Louis XV. came last out of his tomb. The vault of the 
 Bourbons rendered np its dead — queens, dauphinesses, princesses, were 
 
CIUCDLATION OF MINERAL MATTER. 569 
 
 speedily relapse into their original condition of woods and 
 fields — the tombs disappearing beneath vegetation, dust, and 
 forgetfialness. Horses and cows browse amongst them at 
 will. All these ashes are dissipated at last. Their empty 
 tombs may remain — the houses of the dead, like the houses 
 of the living, long surviving, as melancholy mementoes of the 
 tenants for whom they were erected.' 
 
 There is a barbaric philosophy, therefore, as well as an 
 apparent knowledge of the course of nature, in the treatment 
 of the dead which prevails in Thibet and on the slopes of the 
 Himalaya. In the former country the dead body is cut in 
 pieces, and either thrown into the lakes to feed the fishes, or 
 exposed on the hill-tops to the eagles and birds of prey. On 
 the Himalayan slopes, the people of Sikkim burn the body and 
 scatter the ashes on the ground. The end is the same among 
 
 carried away in armfnls by the workmen, and cast into the trench." — Lamar- 
 tino, History of the Girondists, boolt Ui. § 23. A brief interval of prond 
 separation, and they wore mingled with the common dust 1 
 
 From all this desecration only the remains of Turenne escaped. Rescued 
 by a patriotic admirer from the hands of the destroyers, they were at first con- 
 cealed in an obscure corner of the Jardin des Plantes, and afterwards consigned 
 to the care of M. Alexandre Lenoir, among other curiosities he had collected 
 in the Museum of the Petits Augnstins. In September 1799 they were trans- 
 ferred from this place by Napoleon, then consul and a conqueror, to a splendid 
 tomb prepared for them beneath the dome of the Invalides, and there deposited 
 with much state — "where," says M. Thiers, "the body now reposes, and 
 where it was soon to be rejoined by his companion in glory, the illustrious 
 and virtuous Vauban, where he was destined to be joined one day by the 
 author of the great things we are here relating ; where he will certainly re- 
 main, surroiuided by this august company, throughout the ages which Heaven 
 may reserve for France." 
 
 How rash this prophecy of the illustrious historian, all past history may 
 testify. (See also Alison's History of Europe, and Sir Thomas Browne on 
 Um Burial.) 
 
 ' How suggestive are the following remarks of M. de Saulcy on the rock- 
 tombs of the valley of Hinnom I — "The immense necropolis, traces of which 
 are to be met with at every step in the valley, dates from the period when 
 the Jebnsites were masters of the country. After them the Israelites de- 
 posited the remains of their fathers in the same grottoes ; and the same tombs, 
 after having become at a still later period those of the Christians who had ob- 
 tained possession of the Holy City, have, since the destruction of the Latin 
 kingdom of Jerusalem, ceased to change both masters and occupants. Even 
 the scattered bones are no more found in them ; and from the city of the dead 
 the dead alone have disappeared, while the abodes are still entire." — De 
 Saulcy's Joamey Bound the Dead Sea, ii. 2S3. 
 
570 THE CIECUIiATION OF MATTER. 
 
 these tribes of men as among us. They briefly anticipate the 
 usual course of time — a little sooner verifying the inspired 
 words, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." 
 
 There remain now only one or two other observations to 
 complete our history of the revolutions of mineral matter. 
 
 Notwithstanding the constant return of plant and animal 
 to the parent earth, all the mineral matter they contain does 
 not remain where they are deposited. Kains and rivers daily 
 remove from the soil a portion of the materials which are so 
 essential to the perpetuation of animal and vegetable forms, 
 and transport them to the sea. Thus the natural store of 
 mineral food becomes daily smaller, and the land, in conse- 
 quence, less fitted for the growth of plants. 
 
 But for this contingency also there is a provision. The 
 solid rocks which compose the crust of the earth contain all 
 these essential forms of inorganic matter in minute proportion. 
 As these rocks crumble and mingle with the soil, they yield 
 constant small supplies of each ingredient — of phosphoric acid, 
 lime, magnesia, &c. These the springs which trickle through 
 the rocks, from above or beneath, dissolve and diffuse wherever 
 they go. Thus, in many localities, a moderate supply is day 
 by day brought by evaporation of the soil water to the surface- 
 soil, to replace that which, by natural causes, is constantly re- 
 moved. And the great seas help in this work of restoration. 
 They heave their lofty waves into the air and break in foam, 
 that the rough wind may take up and bear back again to the 
 land a portion of the salty spoUs with which the rivers are 
 ever enriching them. The weeds of the sea cast upon the 
 shore, when dug into the soil by the careful farmer, restore 
 nitrogen and valuable mineral matters once brought down by 
 the rivers and apparently lost for ever in the deepJ So also 
 the fish withdrawn from the sea ; and the guano which is 
 brought from Peru and other hot regions, the solid excrement 
 and carcasses of miUions of fish-eating birds, and of seals and 
 other marine animals — this guano brings back to the soil of 
 England maybe the very phosphorus and nitrogen which it 
 lost a decade or a century ago J 
 
 And then, lest these small daily restorations should not 
 succeed in perpetually maintaining the necessary richness of 
 the soil in mineral plant-food, slow but vast processes of 
 ohaiige are in constant operation ; and sometimes periods of 
 
SMALL AMOUNT OF CIHCULATING MATTEK. 571 
 
 convulsion come at last to their aid. Great physical revolu- 
 tions from time to time intervene. Now all at once, and now 
 by Bloyr degrees, the bottom of the sea becomes dry. Land 
 and water change places, as they have often done during the 
 geological history of the globe. And after each change, new 
 races of plants forthwith begin to take up what rivers and 
 rains had carried down into former sea -beds. The same 
 mineral matter begins to play over again the same part as 
 before, in the constant succession of animal and vegetable 
 life I In this we see another long cycle through which cer- 
 tain ingredients of the solid earth are ever slowly moving. 
 
 Thus all the varieties of matter which are essential to the 
 existence of living forms are in a constant state of circulation. 
 Each has its appointed round of duty, at one point or other 
 of which it is sure to be found. And while the motions of 
 all the wheels are prescribed, and a restless activity imposed 
 on every particle of matter, all contingencies are guarded 
 against which might interfere with the final accomplishment 
 of the one simple design. 
 
 How profound, yet how interesting and intelligible, is all 
 this 1 How instructive the lessons it reads us ! Thus — 
 
 1°. On how small a quantity of matter, for example, does 
 it show us that all life depends. And no more material is 
 used than is actually required, and only some fourteen kinds 
 of elementary matter out of the sixty-six sorts of which our 
 world is made up. Still the amount of matter in circulation, 
 though relatively small when compared with the whole earth, 
 is large when viewed by itself. Thus the daily consumption 
 in food of the one element nitrogen by the whole population 
 of the globe can scarcely be less than 135 tons, while the 
 carbon will be twenty times as much. Over and over again, as 
 the modeller fashions and refashions his clay, plant and animal 
 are formed out of the same material. Over and over again it 
 is transformed in the earth and in the air, as soon as it has 
 been liberated for a time from the domain and dominion of 
 life. Nature, in the words of Pope — 
 
 " Builds life on death, on change duration founds, 
 And bids the eternal wheels to know their rounds." 
 
 In the face of this clear knowledge, how crude, how untrue 
 to nature, how irrational, how misleading are the views which 
 
572 THK CIRCULATION OF MATTER. 
 
 some have promulgated with regard to the final resurrection of 
 man ! As if the same matter which forms our body, when we 
 are laid in the grave, and which, after a brief residence there, 
 makes its way, through some nutritive plant, into the body 
 of another man, and forms part of his body still when he is 
 buried — as if this matter, which is neither his nor mine, has 
 already " been slave to thousands," and may be buried with 
 ten thousand bodies more, before the resurrection comes — as 
 if this very matter were meant to form the clothing of the 
 disembodied spirit, when, in visible form and sensible iden- 
 tity, it shall be raised on the day when " small and great " 
 appear before the dread tribunal! 
 
 The words of the passage, " It is sowri a natural body, it 
 is raised a spuritual body ;" and of this one, " The dead shall 
 be raised incorruptible ; " — these alone should be sufficient to 
 deter the theological expositor from propounding ideas so 
 gross in regard to the changes we are to undergo at that 
 mysterious time. That which is formed of matter, such as 
 circulates in living heings now, can neither be a spiritual body, 
 nor free from the changes which are commonly implied by 
 the word corruption. 
 
 2°. Again, the moral lesson is not imimportant which this 
 steady but unceasing movement of the material particles of 
 living bodies holds up to us. No stoppage long hinders it. 
 No delay diverts its attention or causes it to forget its duty. 
 Like the stone which we suspend in the air, it is ready to 
 drop the instant the cord snaps by which it is upheld. Is all 
 senseless matter to be thus perpetually labouring — and are 
 we intelligent beings to idle away a precious but limited life ? 
 To work whUe we live — to take as large and as useful a part 
 as possible in the great system of nature — is one of the moral 
 lessons which the chemist reads in the movements, so plain 
 to him, in apparently dead rocks and earth and air, not less 
 than in the lifeless bodies of the animal and the plant. 
 
 3°. But they teach him also to work steadily and with a 
 view to a definite and useful end. In contemplating the 
 moving wheels I have one after another introduced to my 
 readers, they must have felt inclined to stop and ask respect- 
 ing each, " Why does this wheel turn ? Why its unceasing 
 restlessness ? What purpose is effected, or is intended to be 
 effected, by its endless revolution ? " Generally the answer 
 
THE PLANT AND THE ANIMAL. 573 
 
 is, that the maintenance of life, animal and vegetable, de- 
 pends, as in a complicated piece of mechanism, npon the per- 
 petual movement of all the wheels at once. In detail, the 
 special answer is, that the turning of each wheel determines 
 the comfortable discharge of one or more of the necessary 
 functions of animal and vegetable life. 
 
 When, for example, the plant seems only to bo amusing 
 itself in forming starch and vegetable fat &om carbonic acid 
 and water, and the animal, in merely undoing what the plant 
 has dond — reconverting the starch and fat again into carbonic 
 acid gas and water — an unseen effect is being produced at the 
 same time, which is indispensably necessary to the continu- 
 ance of animal life, as it is now constituted. The change 
 which the starch and fat undergo in the animal body — as well 
 as the final change which the gluten consumed by the animal 
 undergoes— is a kind of burning. Part of the energy liber- 
 ated by this burning is employed in doing- work inside and 
 outside the body, while part is used in the form of heat to 
 keep the body warm ; the necessity of such internal warmth 
 to the maintenance of animal life is familiar to every one. 
 This wise purpose, therefore, is served by the way, as it 
 were, while the little wheel is turning by which carbonic acid 
 and water alternately disappear in starch and fat, and alter- 
 nately appear again in their gaseous and liquid forms. And 
 80, were we curiously to inquire what physiological or other 
 effects are produced during the turning of any other of our 
 wheels, either great or small, we should see good coming out 
 of each — a beneficent provision for the comfort of living ani- 
 mals, or for the healthy growth of vegetable forms, accom- 
 panying the sensible and chemical results of each revolution. 
 In this the phemist reads the lesson that his ever-moving 
 activity should have reference to a definite and good end. 
 
 4°. It is especially beautiful, as well as interesting, to see 
 how clearly the consideration above presented exhibits the 
 plant as the servant of the animal. Man placed upon the 
 earth, without the previous existence of the plant, were 
 utterly helpless. He could not live either upon earth or upon 
 air, and yet his body requires a constant siipply of the ele- 
 ments contained in both. It is the plant which selects, collects, 
 and binds together these indigestible materials, manufacturing 
 them into food for man and other animals. And these only 
 
674 THE GIKCULATION OF MAri'EK. 
 
 throw back again to their toiling slaves the waste or dead 
 materials which they cannot further use, to be worked up by 
 them anew into palatable and nutritious food. In this aspect, 
 the plant appears only as the appointed bond-servant of the 
 animal ; and yet, how willing, how beautiful, how interesting 
 a slave it is ! It works unceasingly, yet it is self- tasked. 
 It toils itself to death, yet, punctually as spring comes round, 
 it rises again in a new life — young, beautiful, and willing as 
 ever, rejoicing to renew its ■ destined toil. There is in it 
 none of the bitterness of human slavery to render 'the task 
 unsweet. In this, too, there is a lesson for us. 
 
 5°. And it is not the least striking of the reflections to 
 which this subject leads us, that an alteration in the natural 
 constitution of things of so small a kind as to be inappreci- 
 able to our senses, would at once instire the certain extinction 
 of animal and vegetable life. Let the All-powerful order that 
 the minute proportion of carbonic acid in the atmosphere 
 should be removed, and in a single hour vegetation would 
 stagnate — ^in a single week, probably, the iace of our fields 
 and forests would be changed, and before many months all 
 the green things of the earth would be dying or dead 1 And 
 yet the human organs would perceive no change in the nature 
 of the atmosphere, and the mass of mankind would first won- 
 der at the fatal plague which had so suddenly stricken all 
 vegetable forms, and after a brief period of stupefied and un- 
 defined dread, they, too, would perish as the plants for want 
 of sustenance. 
 
 6°. This thought again leads us to the contemplation of 
 those purely mechanical motions in which the heavenly bodies 
 continually exercise themselves, without, as a consequence, 
 undergoing any sensible chemical change of matter. On fii-st 
 becoming acquainted with the chemical revolutions of matter 
 above described, we might be inclined— indeed it is a very 
 natural first-sight question — to ask. What have these earthy 
 revolutions which concern us so much — what have they in 
 common with the majestic movements of satellites and pla- 
 nets in their orbits, and with that of systems in the ethereal 
 space ? What part do these lesser revolutions — annual many 
 of them, like that of the earth round the sun — what part do 
 they play in the system of the universe? The humbUng 
 answer is, that they take no sensible part in them at all. 
 
LIFE NOT NECESSARY. 575 
 
 The Biipposition of an insensible removal of the carbonic 
 acid of the atmosphere, and a consideration of its consequen- 
 ces, show that the existence of life, either vegetable or ani- 
 mal, is not a necessary condition of things even on our globe. 
 With an atmosphere so changed, the earth might roll on in its 
 place in the solar system — its attendant moon still encircling 
 it — for countless ages, without the change deranging, or even 
 altering in any degree, the most insignificant phenomenon 
 which is nightly seen in the starry heavens. Earthly life, 
 therefore, has no share in the general system of the universe. 
 It is a little episode, so to speak, in the great poem of creation. 
 The Deity willed that this comer of His vast work should be 
 the theatre of new displays of wisdom, of consummate con- 
 trivance, of a wonderful fitting-in of means to the accomplish- 
 ment of beneficent ends, and at last the seat of an intellectual 
 being, with capacity to study and comprehend and admire 
 His works — to praise, and love, and serve Him. It is solely 
 on this seemingly separate act of His will that vs depend 
 " for life, and breath, and all things." 
 
 And in thinking over this insignificance of man, and all liis 
 contemporary forms of life, how awful does it appear, that, in • 
 the event of a necessity arising, all this life could be stopped 
 at once — by the simple turning of a screw, as it were — and 
 that the disappeai'ance of all our race would, to the physical 
 universe, be of as little moment as the crushing of the tiny 
 insects, to which all the world they know is but a drop of 
 water I May the mere conception of such a catastrophe urge 
 upon us the paramoujit duty of rendering worthy of survival 
 that spiritual part of our being which no merely physical 
 power can destroy ! — This is the crowning lesson of all. 
 
 28 
 
INDEX. 
 
 AmrssiNiAK tea, 144. 
 
 Acsena sanguisorba, 145. 
 
 Acer sRccharinum, 196. 
 
 Acliillea Millefolium, effect of, on beer, 
 
 308. 
 
 Acom coffee, 158. 
 
 Acorus Calamus, 434. 
 
 Aoullico, what, 361. 
 
 Adulteration of flour and bread, 73. 
 
 iEgilops, wUd, supposed origin of our 
 wheat, 60. 
 
 Africa, the onion in, 450. 
 
 Agaricus muscarius, 379, 380. 
 
 Agave americana, 242. 
 
 Agave wine, 241. 
 
 Aguamiel, what, 242. 
 
 Aguardiente de Maguey, the, 242, 
 
 Air, the height and weight of, 1— its com- 
 position, 2 et seq.—th&t in water, 34 — 
 that in snow, i&.— purified by plants, 65 
 — its influence on decay, 458— as drawn 
 into the lungs, 602— its changes there, 
 603— tidal, 500— stationary, ib.-its com- 
 position on being expired, i&.— detection 
 of carbonic acid in it, ib, 
 
 Alabama, chalk soils in, 42. 
 
 Albumen, what, 69, 99~in beef-juice, OS- 
 resembles gluten, &c. , 557. 
 
 Alcohol, how formed from cane-sugar, 213 
 — and from milk-sugar, 224 — proportion 
 of, in beer, 219— in grape-wines, 234 — in 
 spirits, 247. 
 
 Alcoholic drinks, beneftts of, to the old, 
 &c., 257. 
 
 Alcohols, different speoies of, 250, 429. 
 
 Ale, distinction between, and beer, 301, 
 
 Alehoof, a substitute for hops, S91. 
 
 Alhagi, manua yielded by, 205. 
 
 Alimentaiy canal in man, the, 518, 529— 
 in aninmla, 530— passage of the food 
 through, 521, 633. 
 
 Alizarin, 493. 
 
 Alkarsin, what, 465. 
 
 Allium ursinum, 447 — Cepa, ih. — sativum 
 
 88, 450. 
 Alluvial soils, how produced, 40. 
 
 Allyl, what, 448 — sulphide of, and its 
 odour, ib. 
 
 Almonds, bitter, the Nile water claiified 
 by, 31— composition of the oil of, 417 — 
 
 the tree, ib. 
 
 Aloe, American, wine from the, 241. 
 
 Alpinia qfficinarum, 355, 
 
 Alumed bread, 74. 
 
 Amanita muscaria, or Agaricus muscarius, 
 379, 380. 
 
 Amanitine, what, 381, 882. 
 
 Ambergris, where procured, 438— how em- 
 ployed, 439. 
 
 Ambrein, a perfume, 438. 
 
 American aloe, an Agave, wine from the, 
 241. 
 
 Ammonia, presence of, in the air, 16 — ab- 
 sorbed by plants, 55>— produced during 
 fermentation of tobacco, 276 — given otl' 
 by animal droppings, 460 — contains 
 nitrogen, 556 — given off from volcanoes, 
 560. 
 
 Amok, a Javanese cry, 326. 
 
 Aiuomum Melegueta, 854. 
 
 Amygdalus communis, 416. 
 
 Amyl alcohol, 250, 429. 
 
 Aniylic ether, 429. 
 
 Auamirta cocculus, 303. 
 
 Andropogons, sweet-smelling grasses, 426. 
 
 Angostura, stupefying of fish by, 305 note. 
 
 Angreecum fragrans, 145. 
 
 Animal, the, when it feeds on itself, 528. 
 
 Animals, fed by plants. 66 — relation of 
 their breathing to external nature, 512 
 — the stomach of herbivorous, 529 — how 
 they change after death, 559. 
 
 Animal charcoal, a smell-remover, 473. 
 
 Animal decomposition, circumstances 
 affeoting it, 458. 
 
 Animal droppings, fermentation of, 45^— 
 their odours, 460^changes of, in the 
 soil, 559. 
 
 Animal heat, how produced, 506. 
 
 Animal odours, 435— those of the goat, 
 &c., 456. 
 
 Aaimal substances, action of quicklime 
 on, 482. 
 
 Anise-oil, 417. 
 
 Anthoxanthum odoratum, odoriferoos 
 principle of, 425. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 57T 
 
 Anthraceno, fWim coal-tar, 493. 
 Aotisoptics, action, Ilc^ of, 47L 
 ApeSf not Injured by morphia, 826. 
 Apomorphiue, an emetic, 824. 
 Apple, water in the, 85 — wine, 231— oil, 
 
 4S1. 
 
 Apples, varieties of. in Konnandy, 232. 
 
 Aquafortis, what, 428. 
 
 Arabian coffee, 149. 
 
 Arachla hypoga^a, 170. 
 
 Aral, lake, water of, 26. 
 
 Arauoaria imbrlcata, use of seed of, 80. 
 
 Anient spirits, distillation of, 245—con- 
 sumption of, in the United JCingdoni, 
 251 — consumption of, In the form of 
 beer, 262— and of wine, 268~their effects, 
 260 et «£({.— adulterations of, 269. 
 
 Areoa catechu, S46, 
 
 Areca Dicksoni, 848. 
 
 Aroca nuts, a vermlfUge. S50. 
 
 Argentine Republic, maw in, 187. 
 
 Arraca, distillation of, 287. 
 
 Arrowroot, why it does not nourish alone, 
 91. 
 
 Arseutc, white, the eating of, 401 — its 
 effects, ib. etKq. — its effects on animals, 
 408— how given to horses, tb.— physiol- 
 ogy of its action, 404, 
 
 Artomtaia, 68. 
 
 Artesian wells In Alabama, 42. 
 
 ArUllcial alizarin, 493. 
 
 Artilluinl sugar, 182. 
 
 Artificial vanillin, 424. 
 
 ArtooarpuB inclsa, 83. 
 
 Artocarpus integrifolla, 86. 
 
 Arum curdlfolium, liigU temperature of, 
 511. 
 
 Asafcotlda, how collected and uflcd, 449— 
 contains allyl, 450— used as a condiment, 
 ib. 
 
 Aspal, what, 179 note. 
 
 Asparagus, 00. 
 
 Aspornia odorata, 42S. 
 
 AsphyxiOitlng shells. 460. 
 
 Assassin, origin of tlie name, 888. 
 
 Association, influenco of, with regard to 
 smollH, 448. 
 
 Atheroaperma moschata, 145. 
 
 Atmosphere, the, its height and pressure, 
 1— Its composition, 2 el seg, — rising of 
 vapours into, 15— how washed, 17. 
 
 Atropa belladonna, narcotic effects of, 
 878. 
 
 Attar of roses, 413, 417. 
 
 Aurln, 496. 
 
 Austria, arscnic-ehting in, 401. 
 
 Auvergne, petrifying waters of, 20. 
 
 Ava or arva, a drink of the South Sea 
 Islands, 225, 858— its properties, 226*- 
 preparation of it, 227 ei seq. 
 
 Axis of a plant, 53. 
 
 Aymnras, melaucholy temperament of the, 
 139. 
 
 Azalea pontica, poison in the, ISO. 
 
 Axof, sea of, its water, 26. 
 
 Baoca oriextaus, the, 803. 
 
 Bacon, why eaten witli veal, &c, 98, 105 — 
 
 and with greens, 90, 
 Badger, mountain, yields hyraceum, 487. 
 
 Baking meat, loss by, 107. 
 
 Bala lake water, 24. 
 
 Balsams of Peru and Tolu, the, 221. 
 
 Baltic Sea, 20. 
 
 Banana fruit, changes in, during ripenln(% 
 81, 82— allowance of, to a labourer, 82 — 
 supply of food yielded by the tree, 81. 
 
 Bang or beng, what, 836. 
 
 Barks, for drug^ng fish, 305 note. 
 
 Bean, composition of the, 78 — as a substi* 
 tute for coffee, 158. 
 
 Beauty, effect of arsenic-eating on, 401. 
 
 Beaver, castoreum from the, 487. 
 
 Beef we cook, the, 94— difference between, 
 and bread, 95 — compared with cheese, 
 flour, Ac., 106, 107 — effects of heat on, 
 108 — tea, how prepared, 109. 
 
 Beer, malt, how prepared, 216— multiplica- 
 tion of yeast in, 217— its composition, 219 
 —alcohol in it, 218— from millet, &c., 222 
 — chemical changes during its prepara- 
 tion, 223 — how drunk in the Himalayas, 
 222— vinegar the acid of, 219, 285— glycer- 
 ine in, 219— dextrine in, <&.— ardent spir- 
 its consumed in, 252— why it intoxicates 
 less than spirits, 254— substances used 
 to adulterate it, 259— that of rice, 229— 
 distinction between it and ale, 295— a 
 physical drink, ib. —origin of the name, 
 801 note— the love of it travels with the 
 Englishman, 303— that of China, ib.— 
 how made heady, 307 — and with thorn- 
 apple, 877 — made of heather, 885 — fla- 
 voured with sweet-flag. 434. 
 
 Boot-root, average composition of, 60, 101 
 extraction of the sugar fh)m, 192— 
 proportion of sugar and saline maHers 
 in, 103— produce of, per acre, 194 — pulp, 
 ib. 
 
 Beet-sugar, history of the manufactnre of, 
 190 — manufactories and produce of, 191 
 — made In England, ib. See also Sugar. 
 
 Belgium, beet-sugar manufactories in, 194 
 — sugar consumed in, 199— produce of 
 hops in, 292. 
 
 Bengal, date-sugar manufactured in, 195 — 
 poppy-fields in, 311. 
 
 Benzoic acid, use of, 422 note. 
 
 Benzoin, what, 422 note. 
 
 Benzonitril, what, 420. 
 
 Berenice, her taste for odours, 442. 
 
 Berezov, salt not used at, 541. 
 
 Betel-nut, the, 346 — export of, firom Suma- 
 tra, 847 — how prepared, 848 — fondness 
 for it in the East, ib.— its effects, ib. — 
 its constituents, 349 — consumption of it, 
 350 — substitutes for it, <6.— its astrin- 
 gent principle, 849— numbers by whom 
 used, ib. 
 
 Betel -pepper, how collected, 351 — con- 
 sumption of it, ib. 
 
 Beverages we infuse, the, 114 — ^in different 
 countries, 115 — their general constitu- 
 ents, 171 — and effects, 172 — effects of 
 inteUectual activity on their consump- 
 tion, 175 — how men were led to use 
 them, 640. 
 
 Bicarbonate of lime present in hard waters, 
 29. 
 
 Bile, the, chemical effect of, on the food. 
 
578 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 521— where mixed with it, ib. — salt con- 
 tained in it, 540. 
 
 Bilsah, what, 271. 
 
 Bisulphite of lime, what, 193 note— its 
 effects on sweet juices, ib. 
 
 Bitter ale, hops for, 296. 
 
 Black Sea, water of the, 26. 
 
 Black tea, how prepared, 120 note— varie- 
 ties of, 123. 
 
 Bleaching by sulphurous acid, 478. 
 
 Blood, the, combines with oxygen, 488, 
 503— its purpose or uses, 503, 536 — its 
 flow, 508— its course through the heart 
 and luDgs, 510 — its weight, ib. — ^provi- 
 sion for its oxidation, 508— its composi- 
 tion, 526— the dry matter of it, z&.— its 
 formation, 627 — its proportion, 526 — 
 matters in it, ib. — materials supplied by 
 it, 527 — ^the corpuscles of it, 534— inter- 
 est of its study, 535— its colouring mat- 
 ter, 488, 503— globulin of, 535— its ash, 
 ib.— its serum, i6.— life-like properties 
 of its corpuscle, 536 — its resemblance to 
 flesh, ib. — changes it undergoes, i6.— 
 its permanence, 537 — production of heat 
 in it, 538. 
 
 Boa, uric acid In droppings of, 460 note. 
 
 Bodies of men and animals, internal tem- 
 perature of, 505. 
 
 Bodily movement, waste accompanying, 
 528. 
 
 Body, the, how sustained, 526 — its com- 
 position, i6.— comparative composition 
 of it and blood, 527— its tenacity of life, 
 526 — constant movement and waste of 
 it, 528— its rapid lenewal, i6.— rapidity 
 of its waste varies, 529— an assemblage 
 of chemical wonders, 533- action pf its 
 parts on the blood, 537 — preserved from 
 great alterations, ib. — its chemical in- 
 stincts, 538— why it requires salt, 540— 
 its susceptibilities, 542 — influence of 
 light on it, i6.— its chemistry, 543. 
 
 Boiling of meat, loss in, 107— how best 
 done, 108. 
 
 Bolivia, cultivation of the coca-leaf in, 
 359— garlic-smelling plants in, 451. 
 
 Bone, proportion of, in the body, 526. 
 
 Bones, what they appropriate, 536— their 
 change, 447— crushed, their action on 
 grass-lands, 58. 
 
 BorasBus, wine firom the, 239. 
 
 Bore-wells, water of, 42. 
 
 Borneo, opium-smoking in, 313 — camphor, 
 420. 
 
 Boston water, 124. 
 
 Bouquet of wines, the, 236, 433— small por- 
 tion of oil which causes it, 236, 441. 
 
 "Bnuza or millet-beer, 222. 
 
 Brain, action of tobacco on the, 281— its 
 composition and structure, 543— section 
 of it, i6.— phosphorus in it, 544— its 
 gi-ey and white matter, i6.— functions, 
 &c., of its parts, ib. — its ash, 545— chem- 
 ical adjustments in its parts, ib. 
 
 Bran, structure of, 70 — position of, in 
 wheat grain, 69— gluten in, 69-72. 
 
 Brandies or ardent spirits, 244. 
 
 llrassica, the wild, 60. 
 
 Brayera anthelmintica, 307. 
 
 Brazilian cocoa or Guarana, 169— holly^ 
 135— tea, 146. 
 
 Bread we eat, the, 68— difference between 
 new and stale, 71 — proportion of water 
 and gluten in wheaten, 72 — composition 
 of wheaten and rye, 74^-how it becomes 
 spongy, 70— its composition, 72 — ^pecu- 
 liar ferment in the bran of, 73 — wheaten, 
 compared with beef, 95. 
 
 Bread-fruit tree, food yielded by the, 84. 
 
 Bread-meal, a kind of earth, 407. 
 
 Breathing, action of coca on, 363— and of 
 arsenic, 404— what it is, 498 et seq.~iia 
 chemical purposes, 503 — its physiologi- 
 cal purposes, 505 — keeps the animal 
 warm, 506 — its purpose in nature, 512. 
 
 Brewers and grains of paradise, 356. 
 
 Brick-tea in Thibet, 119. 
 
 Bronchial tnbes, the, 498. 
 
 Broom-seeds, a substitute for coflfee, 158. 
 
 Broussonetia papyrifera, 90. 
 
 Buckwheat-flour, nutritive quality of, 76. 
 
 Bug tribe, smell of the, 457. 
 
 Bull-hoof, a substitute for opium, 331. 
 
 Burial-grounds, eflFects of, on well-waters, 
 30 — saltpetre made from, 547. 
 
 Burned clay, smells absorbed by, 476 
 
 Burnes, Dr, on use of opium, 329. 
 
 Burnet's disinfecting fluid, 481. 
 
 Butcher-meat, composition of, 95. 
 
 Butter, 103 — why eaten with white fish, 
 98— used as an unguent by the Greeks, 
 &C., 443. 
 
 Butyric acid. 432, and note. 
 
 Buyos, what, 348. 
 
 Cabbage, origin of the, 60— its nutritive 
 properties, 90. 
 
 C^sonia, love-drink given to Caligula by, 
 405 note. 
 
 Cafl'eine, proportion of, in tea, 128— in 
 coffee, 154— made from theobromine, 
 168. 
 
 Calabria, manna produced in, 202. 
 
 Camphors, various, 420. 
 
 Canaxia, maple-sugar produced in, 196. 
 
 Cancer in the lip, alleged origin of, 277 
 note. 
 
 Candle-works, smells from, 468. 
 
 Cane-sugar, see Sugar. , 
 
 Cannabene from hemp, 343. 
 
 Cannabis indica, 333— sativa, ib. 
 
 Canterbury hops, 296. 
 
 Canterbury water, 29. 
 
 Canton, price of tea at, 123. 
 
 Capraria bifolia, 138. 
 
 Caraways, distillation of, in England, 416. 
 
 Carbolic acid, 483. 
 
 Oarbon, whence derived by the plant, 54— 
 its circulation through the plant and 
 animal, 552— buried in coal, 653— and in 
 
 coral-reefs and limestone rocks, 554 
 
 breathed out as carbonic acid, 555. 
 
 Carbonate of lime in calcareous soils, 41. 
 
 Carbonic acid gas, jTreparation and pro- 
 perties of, 3— proportion of, in the air, 
 5— this adjusted to organic life, 8— in 
 the Java poison-valley, ib. note— its ab- 
 sorption by water, 32— formed during 
 fermentation, 33— absorbed by the leaves 
 
INDEX. 
 
 579 
 
 or plants, 54— exlialed fh>m tho lungs 
 aim skin, 601, 608— might soon l»o re- 
 moved from tho air, 551— effecta of svch 
 removal, 5&2— how restored, id. etseq. — 
 breathed out or the earth, 555. 
 
 Oarlsbad, the springs of, 555. 
 
 Carnivorous animals, stomach of, 629. 
 
 Carotiuas, waste lands in, .49. 
 
 Carriou plants, 452. 
 
 Carrot, cultivated, Its origin, 60- its coni- 
 imsitiou, 80 — roasted for coffee 158. 
 
 Cartilages^ the, 686. 
 
 Caryota areas, wine from, 240. 
 
 Caaein, what, 100. 
 
 Caspian Sea, water of the, 26. 
 
 Coatoreum, what, 437. 
 
 Catochu or Casliu. how used, 350. 
 
 Caterham water, 20. 
 
 Cats not injured by morphia, 325. 
 
 Cava, wliat, 225. 
 
 Cucropia pcltataf ash of, UHcd with coca, 
 303. 
 
 Celery, mannlte In, 204. 
 
 Cells, nuiuber of, in the lungs, 403. 
 
 Cerambyx moschata, 440. 
 
 Cereals in United States, 79. 
 
 Cerebellum, the, 643. 
 
 Cerebrum, the, 543. 
 
 CoHspools, how sweetened, 473. 
 
 Chaccar, what, 801. 
 
 Cliaco, what, 409. 
 
 Challc-rocks, Bcction of, 89— their influence 
 on the soil, 42. 
 
 Charcoal burns in oxygen, 2 — darkens 
 flowers, 50 —its action on smells, 471 — 
 on flesh, ib. — and on water, ib, — a deo- 
 doriser, 473— efficacy of animal, ift.— 
 action on nightsoil, t&.-~on cesspools, 
 graves. &c., ib. — value of peat, ib.— na- 
 ture of its action on smells, 474— respi- 
 rators, i&.— their use in hospitals, &c., 
 476. 
 
 Charles river, 24. 
 
 Clianns, reality of, 404— former notions on 
 them, ib, 
 
 Ghartreuso liqueur, 259. 
 
 Ghavacine, 863. 
 
 Chavica betle, S52. 
 
 Ohoddar clieeso, composition of, 104. 
 
 Cheek, blush of the, 543. 
 
 Cheese, varieties of, 108 c( se^.— compared 
 with milk, &c., 105— as a digester, 106 — 
 scented with melilot, 426. 
 
 Chemical arts, imporUnco of the, 201 — 
 combination, what, 20. 
 
 Chemioo-geological relation^, influence of, 
 on a national diet, 540. 
 
 Chemistry, influence of, on the sugar man- 
 ufacture, 201— applications of, in beet- 
 root sugar making, 190— and to artiflcial 
 perfumes, 441. 
 
 Chcnopodium Quinoa, 859. 
 
 Chenopodium vulvaria, 452. 
 
 Clieahiro cheese, 104. 
 
 Chica, how prepared, 220— influence of the 
 saliva in making, 221— ftom barley, &c, 
 ib. 
 
 Chick-pea, 78— roasted for coff'ee, 158. 
 
 Chicory, a substitute for coffee, 158— how 
 prcuarcd 159— topei^ of, 16(K-its active 
 
 ingredients, i&. — (Quantity consumed, ib. 
 — detection of it in coffee, 161 — its 
 ofl'ects, ib. — adulterations of it, ib. 
 
 Children, effects of opium on, 321 
 
 Chilian pine, use of the seeds of the, as 
 food, 80. 
 
 China, consumption of tobacco in, 266, 
 267 — and of opium, 329 — adulterations 
 of opium, 325— camphor, 420. 
 
 Chinese, preparation of opium by tbe, Sll 
 —its effects on them, 330. 
 
 Chinese beer, 306. 
 
 Cliiretta in beer, 302, 308. 
 
 Chlorides of iron, lime, and zinc, as smell- 
 destroyers, 481. 
 
 Chlorine, destroys sulphuretted hydn^n, 
 479 — as a smell-destroyer, ib. et aeq. 
 
 Chlorophyll or leaf-green, 401. 
 
 Chocolate, preparation of, 166— flavoured 
 with vanilla, 424. 
 
 Chocollatl, the Mexican name for cocoa, 
 164. 
 
 Christison, Dr, on tobacco, 277. 
 
 Churrus, what, 335. 
 
 Chuspa, what, 300. 
 
 Chyle, the, what^ 521 — changed iu the 
 lucteals, 522 — conveyed into the Jugular, 
 ib. — under the microscope, 534. 
 
 Chyme, the, what, 520. 
 
 Cider, making of, 232. 
 
 Cider-apples of Normandy, the, 232. 
 
 Cigars, how manufactured, 275 — diseases 
 ascribed to, 277 note— why preferred, 
 285, 2ea 
 
 Cinchona bark, drugging of fish with, 305 
 note. 
 
 Cinnamic acid, 422 note. 
 
 Cinnamon, oil of, 417— tree, ib. 
 
 Cinnamonium zeylanicum, 417. 
 
 Circulation of matter, the, see Matter. 
 
 Civet, fhigrance of, diluted, 436— tincture 
 of, 438. 
 
 Civet-cat, the, 437. 
 
 Clark's process for softening water, 29. 
 
 Chiy, Mr, on the use of opium in Preston, 
 321. 
 
 Clay, eating of, among the negroes, 406 — 
 in Java and Northern Europe, 400, 407 
 —among the Otoraacs, 407. 
 
 Clay soQs for wheat, &c., 67. 
 
 Cleansing of towns, best means of, 485. 
 
 Climate, influence of, on the effects of to- 
 bacco, 280. 
 
 Clove-oil, 416. 
 
 Cloves, distillation of, in England, 416. 
 
 Coca, what, 857— how collected, 359— its 
 cultivation, ib. — its ancient use, ib. — 
 general use of, in Peru, 360, 365 — used 
 as a circulating medium, 360 — how pre- 
 pared, 359 — its effects, 363 — virtues 
 ascribed to it, 366 — veneration for it, 
 365 — ^lessens desire for food. 366 — ^Von 
 Tschudi and Wcddell on it, i6. — im- 
 proves the breathing, 368 — condemned 
 by the Spaniards, tb.— recent testimony 
 regarding it, 369 — its use recommended 
 in Europe, ib. — its constituents, 369^— 
 how it acts, 370— resembles hemp aiid 
 opium, 371— total consumption of it, 
 372— revenue drawn ftom it, 373 — ^num- 
 
580 
 
 INDKX. 
 
 bers among wliom used, i6.— compared 
 with opium, 395— country of, 360. 
 
 Cocaine, 370. 
 
 Cocculus indicus, adulteration of beer 
 with, 303— figure of, i6.— its effects in 
 beer, 304 — its use forbidden, ib. — its 
 constituents and poisonous qualities, 
 305. 
 
 Coccus manniparus, 207, 
 
 Cocoa or chocolate, description of the tree, 
 163— brought to Europe by the Span- 
 iards, 165— its fruits and beans, ib.— 
 imports into'Great Biitain, i&.— beans, 
 how roasted, &c., 136— and used, ib. — 
 husk, 167 — nibs, 166 — its constituents, 
 167 — butter, 163— Brazilian, 169— its 
 effeets, 170— total consumed, 174— and 
 numbers by whom, ih. 
 
 Cocoa-nut tree, sugar from the, 195— soil 
 on which giown, 58. 
 
 Cocos nucifera, 237. 
 
 Codeine, what, 323. 
 
 Coecum, the food in the, 524— acid formed 
 in the, ib. 
 
 Coffea liberica, 150, 157. 
 
 Coffee, introduction of, 149— consumption 
 of, in Great Britain, ift.— varieties, &e., 
 of, 150 — usually inferior as drunk in 
 England, ib. — the tree, 151 — ^its effects, 
 152 — its constituents, ib. — compared 
 with tea, 155— effects of roasting, ib. et 
 sflg.- its alleged effects on gout, &c., 156 
 —varieties cultivated, 157 — substitutes 
 for it, ib.— its physiological effects, 156, 
 173 — total consumption, 150, 174— num- 
 bers by whom used, ib. — the aromatic 
 ingredient, 152— use of tiie leaf, 141— 
 and its constituents, 143 — tea, how pre- 
 pared, 141— its effects, 142. 
 
 Cognac, alcohol in, 247 — oil, 431. 
 
 Cold-blooded animals, how they breathe, 
 506. 
 
 Colegate hop, the, 296. 
 
 Coleridge on opium, 317, 
 
 Coleus plant, 492. 
 
 Colne valley water, 29. 
 
 Colocasia esculenta, 86. 
 
 Colocasia macrorhiza, 86. 
 
 Colon, the, its position, 518. 
 
 Coloiuing matters, 487— of animals, 488— 
 of plants, 491— fi-om coal-tar, 494. 
 
 Compound radicles, what, 465— their com- 
 binations, ib. eiseg. -their number, 466. 
 
 Condensed milk, 102. 
 
 Condiments, the onion tribe and asafoetida 
 as, 450 et seq. — selection of, 540. 
 
 Constantinople, opium-eating in, 314-316. 
 
 Constitution, influence of, on the effects 
 of tobacco, 279— effect of narcotics on, 
 396. 
 
 Convulsions, geological influence of, on 
 plant-growth, 570. 
 
 Cook, Captain, on the bread-fruit tree, 
 84. 
 
 Cooking beef, loss in, 107. 
 
 Copper in bread, 74— in birds, 489. 
 
 Coquero, what, 362. 
 
 Coral-rocks, carbon buried in, 555. 
 
 Com-flour, so-called, mere starch, 91, 
 
 Corn-plants, origin of, 60, 
 
 Corpus papillare, the, 543. 
 
 Correa alba, 145. 
 
 Corrosive sublimate, eating of, S27. 
 
 Cotton plant, soil suited for the, 58, 
 
 Coumarin, what, 426 — ^plants in which 
 found, ib. — its influence, ib. 
 
 Cow, how it gives off its phosphorus^ 461 
 —composition of its milk, 101. 
 
 Cream, 103. 
 
 Creasote, prevents decay, 471. 
 
 Cress, the oil of, 452. 
 
 Cresylic acid, 484. 
 
 Crocus sativus, 308. 
 
 Cuba, sugar manufectured in, 188 — to- 
 bacco of, 271. 
 
 Curd of milk, the, 100. 
 
 Curing of meat, the, 470. 
 
 Cutty pipes, why preferred, 286 
 
 Cyanide of kakodyl, 465. 
 
 Cyanogen, what, 465. 
 
 Cycas pectiuata, 79. 
 
 Cyperus esculentus, root of, used for 
 cocoa, 170. 
 
 Daily ration, 538. 
 
 Dalecarlians, beer of the, 308. 
 
 Damaras, the, never use salt, 541. 
 
 Dandelion, the, used for coffee, 158. 
 
 Danube water, 25. 
 
 Dari, 77. 
 
 Darnel, narcotic qualities of, 384, 
 
 Date and date-palm, the, 82 — sugar from 
 
 the palm, 194. 
 Datura melet, 377. 
 
 Datura sanguinea and stramonium, 376. 
 Datura tatula, 378. 
 Daturine, 378. 
 
 Dead bodies, associations with, 455. 
 Dead Sea, water of the, 26. 
 Deadly nightshade, narcotic effects of the, 
 
 383. 
 Decay, means of arresting, 470 et seq. 
 Decomposition, circumstances which 
 
 hasten, 458. * 
 Decortication of wheat, 73. 
 Delphinium glaciale, 436. 
 Delusions, effects of narcotics in inducing, 
 
 391, 392. 
 Deodorisers, what, 473, 485 — distinguished 
 
 from disinfectants, 477, 485. 
 De Quincey on the effects of opium, 314. 
 Be Sacy on the word assassin, 338. 
 De Saulcy on the valley of Hinnom, 569 
 
 note. 
 Detroit river, 24. 
 Dew, cause of, 11 — its fall, 12. 
 Dextrin in beer, 219. 
 Dextrose, 180. 
 Dhoora or Dhurra, 77. 
 Diastase produced during fermentation, 
 
 215— its action on starch, 21T, 249. 
 Dibs or dips, what, 179. 
 Diet, water an element of, 539— influence 
 
 of water on, ib. 
 Digestion, process of, 514 et seg.— promoted 
 
 by the saliva, 616— its purpose, 525— 
 
 necessary to breathing, 527 — and to 
 
 motion, 528— summary of its process, 
 
 &c., 529— its purpose the same in all 
 
 animals, 531— promoted by sunshine, 542, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 581 
 
 Dtgestire organs, the, 618. 
 
 Dlodorufl Siculud on sootihiiig coidials, 
 
 DipteiTX odoiata, 424. 
 Dltcovery of now plffments, 495. 
 Ditoose broi^;ht on by want of salt, 640. 
 IJisinfectantB, what, 476, 485 — the best, 
 
 486 — act chemically, 478— ^istingolBhed 
 
 trom deodorisera, 485. 
 DiatUUtion of spirits, 244 — diflTerent modes 
 
 of, 246, 246. 
 DisttUerles, the Scotch, mixtures of grain 
 
 employed in, 249 note. 
 Dobrudficho, use of salicine in the, 430 
 
 note. 
 Doga. not injured by morphia, S26. 
 Doj^banc, honey poisoned by, 181 note. 
 Domesticated animals, fat in, 95. 
 Dough, raised bv yeast, 70. 
 Drains, sweetening of, by charcoal, 478. 
 Drunkonuofls, innuenoe of tobacco on, 
 
 280. 
 Duncfl, sandy, waters of, 81. 
 Duodenum, the food in the, 521. 
 Durham, water used in, 24. 
 Dyspepsia in snuff-takers, 277 note. 
 
 Eahtii-ciicstnut and earth-nut used oa 
 cocoa, 170. 
 
 EatwoU, Dr, on the effects of opium, 329. 
 
 Eau d'ange, 412. 
 
 Eiiu-do-Oologne, 414. 
 
 Edinburgh, water used in, 24. 
 
 Eel, fat m the, 08. 
 
 Egg, conipoaition of the, 93 et aeq. — com- 
 pared with oUior nutriments, 100. 
 
 Eggs and bacon, why eaten togoUier, 100. 
 
 EsTpt, the onions or, 460. 
 
 Erfel, emissions of carbonic acid in, 656. 
 
 Bleocrio spark, the, effect or, on the air, 
 16. 
 
 Elements in plants, 19. 
 
 Elophaut, blood-corpuscles of the, 534. 
 
 Elettoria Cardamomum, 355. 
 
 El-mogan, what, 886. 
 
 Embalming, inefficiency of, 667. 
 
 Emetic hoHy, the, 882. 
 
 Emotions, origin of, 894. 
 
 Enamel of the teeth, the, 645. 
 
 Endive, wild, «ee Chicory. 
 
 Enflouroge, what, 415. 
 
 f^land, consumption of sugar in, 199 — 
 and of spirits, 261— of spirits per head, 
 252—18 it more temperate than Scotland, 
 &c. ? 264— consumption of hops in, 292 — 
 opium used in, S20 — opium -eating on 
 the increase in, 321 — tobacco used in, 
 272. 
 
 English farming, former defects of, 61. 
 
 EpQoblum angustifolium, 147. 
 
 Ergot of ryCj "f. 
 
 Ether-drinkmg in Ireland, 259. 
 
 EUier, oaprylic, 433— propylic, ih. 
 
 Ethereal perfumes, 427, 
 
 Ethers, suuple, with organic acids form 
 perfumes, 464. 
 
 EtnyL combined with sulphur and ar- 
 senic, 467. 
 
 EthyUc ether, 429. 
 
 Etrurian tomb, opening of an, 567. 
 
 Eucalyptus sn^r, 204. 
 
 Europe, use of coca recommended in, 869. 
 
 Excretine contained in nightsoil, 460 nota 
 
 Excretolic acid, 460 note. 
 
 Extractum camis, 110. 
 
 Extrait d'ambre, preparation of, 439. 
 
 Eye, adaptations in the, 645. 
 
 Eyes, the, action of acrolein on, 467. 
 
 Faiiah tea, 145— its odoriferous principle, 
 146. 
 
 Famham hops, 298. 
 
 Fat, proportion of, in domesticated ani- 
 mals, 96, 97— in wild ones, i6.— in Meri- 
 no sheep. 97— in flsh, <b.— in cocoa, 168 
 — removed from cocoa, 169— combines 
 wiiii oxygen in the body, 610— why re- 
 lished, 611— action of the stomach on, 
 619— proportion in the blood and body, 
 626. 
 
 Fat-cells of the skin, the, 545. 
 
 Fats, animal and v^etable. 111— solid and 
 liquid, 112— liquid, become soonest ran- 
 cid, 118— in the brain, 544— phosphorus 
 an ingredient of these, ih. 
 
 Feathers, silica, a constituent of, 536. 
 
 Females, effects of arsenic on, 401. 
 
 Ferment, peculiar, in bran, 73. 
 
 Fermentation of aloe-juice, 241 — of cane- 
 Jutce, i6. — of dough, 70— of grape-juice, 
 233— of palm-juice, 237— of sugar, 187, 
 237 — chemical changes during It, 216. 
 
 Ferments in the body, 306. 
 
 Fertility, influence of geological structure 
 on, 42— retreat of, toward the west of 
 North America, 49. 
 
 Ferula asafcetida, 449. 
 
 Fezzan, consumption of the date in, 88. 
 
 Fibre and fibrin or mnscuUn in fiesh, 95. 
 
 Fibrin or musculin, proportion of, in the 
 body, 626— resembles gluten and alba- 
 men, 96, 567. 
 
 Fig, nutritive quality of the, 83. 
 
 Filey, water at, 26. 
 
 Finland, earth mixed with the bread in, 
 407. 
 
 Fish, proportion of fat in, 97 — plants 
 whicli intoxicate, 305. 
 
 Flake cocoas of three qu^ties, 167. 
 
 Flesh, composition of, 95, et seq. — ^that of 
 wild animals, 96— how preserved in the 
 Pampas, &e.,469— effects of charcoal on, 
 471— dried, 511. 
 
 Flesh-formers in milk^ 101. 
 
 Flesh-meat, composition of, 94— compared 
 with oat-cake, 96 — its loss in cooking, 
 107— qualities of well-cooked, 108— salt- 
 ing of, 110— why nutritious, 111. 
 
 Flour, whole-meal, 72 — wheaten, composi- 
 tion of, 71 et seq. 
 
 Flowers, colour of, altera by charcoal, 
 &c., 59— give off carbonic acid, 611 — and 
 produce heat, ib.. 
 
 Fluorescence, 496. 
 
 Fluorine, contained in the bones and teeth, 
 636. 
 
 Flying bug of the Ganges, the, 457. 
 
 Food, nutritious, 90— why we mix, 91 — 
 why we add water to, 86— the desire for, 
 lessened by coca, 366— as fuel, 607 — ac- 
 
582 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 tion of the saliva- on it, 515 et seq. — in 
 thB giiUet, 517— action of the stomach 
 and intestines on it, 518 et seq. — is acid 
 in the stomach and ccecum, 520, 524 — 
 and alkaline in the small intestines, 521, 
 522— the rejected refuse, 525— its pro- 
 gress through the alimentary canal, 533 
 et seq. — craving for special kinds of, 539 
 —mixtures of, i&.— judgment in selec- 
 tion of, ib. 
 
 Formic acid, what, 432— in nettles, 64. 
 
 France, beet-sugar manufactories in, 190, 
 191— sugar consumed in, 199— ingredi- 
 ents of tobacco in, 287. 
 
 Frankincense, what, 222— added to wine, 
 259. 
 
 Fraxinus omus, 202. 
 
 Freezing, action of, with regard to decay. 
 470. 
 
 Fruit-sugars, 178. 
 
 Fungus, the intoxicating, of Siberia, 379 
 et seq. 
 
 Fusel-oil, 250. 
 
 Galakgals, what, 355. 
 
 Gall-bladder, the, 518. 
 
 Gallic acid, 234. 
 
 Galton on the disuse of salt in S.W. 
 Africa, 541. 
 
 Gambir extract, the, 351 — quantity pro- 
 duced in India, ib. 
 
 Game flavour, the, 455. 
 
 Gardner, Dr, on the coflfee-leaf, 141. 
 
 Garlic, smeU of, 447 — and salt as a cure 
 for thirst, 450 note. 
 
 Garlic-smelling plants, diffusion of, 451. 
 
 Gases, intermixing of, 6, 7— absorption of, 
 by water, 32, 34— in blood, 537. 
 
 Gen, what, 205. 
 
 Geneva, alcohol in, 247. 
 
 Geneva, lake, 25. 
 
 Geological convulsions, mineral matter re- 
 stored by, 570— structure, influence of, 
 on fertility, &c., 43. 
 
 Germany* beet -sugar manufactories in, 
 190, 191. 
 
 Germination, diastase produced during, 
 214. 
 
 Geysers, water of the, 23. 
 
 Gin, 247, 248 — flavoured with sweet flag. 
 434. 
 
 Glaphyria nitida, 145. 
 
 Glasgow, water supplied to, 24, 
 
 Glass-making, smells from, 468, 
 
 Glucina, what, 178. 
 
 Glucose, used in brewing, 182, 215. 
 
 Gluten, extraction of, from wheaten flour, 
 69— its position in the grain, 70 — pro- 
 portion of, in pulse, 78~does not nour- 
 ish alone, 92 — its resemblance to fibrin, 
 &c,, 96, 658— in tea, 131— in mat6, 140 
 —contains nitrogen, 657. 
 
 Glycerides, what, 112. 
 
 Glycerine, 112 — in beer, 219— distillation 
 of, 467. 
 
 Glycyrrhiza glabra, 208. 
 
 Goats' dung, influence of, on tobacco, 2SS 
 —its smell, 460. 
 
 Godfrey's cordial, effects of, 821. 
 
 Golding hops, 296, 
 
 Gommuti palm, wine from the, 237. 
 Gongooha, what, 138. 
 Gooseberiy, water in the, 85. 
 Goose-grass roots used for cofi'ee, 158. 
 Goumelia, seeds of t^e, used for coffeo^ 
 
 157. 
 Gout, effects of coffee on, 156. 
 Gout de terrain, the, in French ciders, 
 
 232. 
 Grain spirit, 249— distilleries, ib. 
 Grains of paradise, adulteration of beer 
 
 by, 355. 
 Gram, 78. 
 Gramoma, 58, 
 
 Granite soils, why poor, 46. 
 Granules of starch, 70. 
 Grape oil, nature of, 431— sugar, see Sugar 
 
 — wines, see Wines. 
 Grass-lands, eflfect of lime and bones on, 
 
 58. 
 Grasses, sweet-smelling, 426. 
 Gravel, effects of coffee on, 156. 
 Graveyards, effects of, on well-waters, 30 
 
 — evils of their being near houses, &c., 
 
 459— sweetened by charcoal, 473. 
 Grayling, odour of the, 440. 
 Great Britain, agricultural progress of, 
 
 51. 
 Greensand rocks, section of, 39 — soils, 
 
 suitable for hops, 293— waters, in Sur- 
 rey, 24. 
 Green teas, varieties of, 123 — adulterations 
 
 of, 133. 
 Grist, mixture for spirits, 249. 
 Grotta del Cane, the, 9 note, 555. 
 Ground-ivy, the, a substitute for hops, 
 
 301, 
 Gualtheria procumbens, 429. 
 Guano, enriching effects of, 58. 
 Guarana, theine contained in, 170 — bread, 
 
 ■i6. 
 Guarapo, what, 241. 
 Guinea corn, 77— grains, 364. 
 Gullet, position of the, 517. 
 Gum-tree, the, and its sugar, 204. 
 Gunjah, what, 836. 
 Gymnema sylvestre, 189 note. ■ 
 Gypsum in hard water, 29— its effects in 
 
 fertilising, 59— used in adulterating tea, 
 
 134. 
 Gyrinus natator, 439. 
 
 Haddock, fat in the, 98. 
 
 Hsemaglobin, 488, 536. 
 
 Hair, constituents of, 536. 
 
 Halidrys siiictuosa, 204. 
 
 Hamlet's soliloquy on the changes of mat- 
 ter, 447. 
 
 Hard waters, lime in, 28. 
 
 Harmin and Harmalin. what, 332. 
 
 Haroun-al-Raschid, a henfp- smoker, 338. 
 
 Hashash or haschisch, what, 336. 
 
 Hassall, his figures of the blood-corpus- 
 cles, 534. 
 
 Havre, sea-water of, 27. 
 
 Hay-fever cured, the, 426. 
 
 Heart, construction of the, 608— its posi- 
 tion, 609. 
 
 Heat,radiationof. lOefse?,- inwatcr 22— 
 how produced in the body, 607 et seq,— 
 
INDEX. 
 
 583 
 
 the materials for its production supplied 
 by the tooil, ib.—how distributed over 
 the body, 638— that of flowers, 511. 
 
 Heath-plants, narcotic properties of, 386. 
 
 Heather-beer of the Picts, the, 386. 
 
 Hebenon of Shalcespeore, the, 284. 
 
 Beotoo, what, 306. 
 
 Hpinp fW)m Afghanistan, 845. 
 
 Hemp plant, resinous substance In, 834, 
 844— now collected, 886— its properties, 
 i6.— plant dried and smoked, ift.- forms 
 In which it is used, 836 — its chemical 
 ooiutltuenta, 848 — its ancient use, 337- 
 flffiMSttt of the reaini 889 et seg. — M. 
 Moreau on it, 840 — en-oneous percep- 
 tions caused by it, 342— its effects vary, 
 {6.— De Baulcy^s trial of it, 343~volatile 
 oil of, i6,— compared with opium, 344— 
 and with coca, 871— quantity used, 845 
 —and numbers among whom used, 389. 
 
 Henbane, narcotic oflocts of, 383. 
 
 Herbivorous animals, stomach of, 529. 
 
 Heredity In plants. 64. 
 
 Herring, fbt in the, 98— brine, odour of, 
 45il— pies, 856. 
 
 Hidri, what, 401. 
 
 Highgato Hill, water near, SO. 
 
 Hinnom, valley of, 669 note. 
 
 Hippuric acid, huw prepared, 482— action 
 of heat on, 420. 
 
 Holland, use ol' Java tea In, 125. 
 
 Hollands, how flavoured, 248. 
 
 Honey, analysed, 180— foreign substances 
 in, w.— Narbonno, i&.— Moimt Ida, tb.— 
 Treblzond, i6.— niigiir, 181. 
 
 Hop, the, its introduction into England, 
 291— consumption of, in the kingdom, 
 292— imports, tb.-f produce abroad, t&. 
 —is tlie narcotic of England, <!».— its 
 cultivation. 203— plant and flower, 293, 
 296— soils for it, 294— its uses, 295— 
 varieties grown, ib. — those of Furnham 
 and Canterbury, littil— those of Worces- 
 ter, 298— their quality ns affected by 
 soil, ib.— voliitlle oil of. 299— sleep-giv- 
 ing qualities ot the pillow, t&.— constit- 
 uents, ib. et seg.—eR'ects of, on the sys- 
 tem, 300— substitutes fnr, t6. 306. 
 
 Hopped bpvr of China, the, 306. 
 
 Hops from foreigu countries, 292— in Eng- 
 lish countries, 294. 
 
 Horse-radish, oil of, 461. 
 
 Horses, olfects of arsonlc on, 403. 
 
 Hosjiitols, cliarcoal ruspiratovs in, 475. 
 
 Hottentots, neglect of salt by the, 641. 
 
 Huile da millo-fleurs, 414. 
 
 Human ashes, 566 et seg.— body, warmth 
 oftlie, 505— milk, 101. 
 
 Humboldt, account of the Otomacs by, 407. 
 
 Humeriadcs, odour of tlio, 441. 
 
 Humulus Lupulua, 295, 296. 
 
 Hungarian wme-oil, what, 432. 
 
 Husbandry, eflbcts of the nature of rocka 
 on, 42. 
 
 Hydi-ochloric acid gas, whut, 446— a smell- 
 destroyer, 478. 
 
 Hydrogen, preparation, &c., of, 19 — areen- 
 letted, 463— phosphuretted, i6.— seleni- 
 uretted, 462 — sulphuretteil, 444— tellu- 
 retted, 463— peroxide of, 14. 483. 
 
 Hyoscyamus, used for cofl'ee, 168— niger, 
 
 narcotic qualities of, 386. 
 Hyraceuin, wliat, 437. 
 
 Iceland, snuff-box of, 273. 
 
 Iceland moss, 93. 
 
 Ilex gongonha, 138— Paroguayensis, 136 — 
 
 tiieezans, 138 — vomitoria, 382. 
 Illusions artificially induced, 393. 
 Incense, resins used for, 421— action of 
 
 heat on, 422. 
 India, substitutes for the hop in, 306 — 
 
 opium produced in, 819. 
 Indian Archipelago, bread -fruit tree in 
 
 the, 86. 
 Indian-corn meal, composition of, 74 — 
 
 sugar, 198. 
 Indian opium, 324. 
 Indian poisoners, thom-apjilc seeds used 
 
 by, 377. 
 Indians, use of the thorn-apple by, 375— 
 
 of Peru, their temi>urauicnt, 862 — of 
 
 Bolivia, ib. 
 Indigo, colouringof tea with, 134. 
 Insanity, how produced, 303. 
 Insect odours, 439— smcUs, 457. 
 Inspirations, number of, 499. 
 Intestinal Juice, action of the, 522. 
 Intestines, position of the, 518— the lac- 
 teals In, 523— the large, action of, on the 
 
 food, 624. 
 Intoxicating fUngus of Siberia, the, 379 — 
 
 its efTects, 380— how used, tb.— liquors, 
 
 effects of, 268. 
 Iodine and iodoform as smell-destroyera, 
 
 481. 
 Ireland, consumption of ardent spirits in, 
 
 252 et seq. — it is more intemperate tiian 
 
 England, 254— influence of temperament 
 
 in, 255. 
 Iris, seeds of the, used for coffee, 157. 
 Iron, pi-esence of, in the blood, 535— in the 
 
 eye and hair, 536. 
 Isobutyl In horse-radish oil, 451. 
 Isomeric compounds, 416. 
 
 Jaggery, what, 194. 
 
 Jak fruit, 85. 
 
 Jamaica, substitute for opium in, 331. 
 
 James X. on tobacco, 267. 
 
 Japan camphor, 420. 
 
 Jasmin, oil of, 413. 
 
 Java, poisou-valley of, 8 note — sugar man- 
 ufacture in, 188— tea, 126— opium-smok- 
 ing in, 313 —eating of clay in, 406. 
 
 Javanese, influence of opimn on the, 326. 
 
 John BuU not a vegetable feeder, 92. 
 
 Jones's hops, 296. 
 
 Jordan river, water of the, 24. 
 
 Julian, Don Antonio, on the coca-leaf, 368. 
 
 Juniper-berries, uses of, 248. 
 
 Kaat, 116, 144. 
 
 Kainite, a manure, 59. 
 
 Kakodyl, properties of, 464— cyanide of, 
 
 465. 
 Salmias, snuff made from, 289. 
 Kalo, 86. 
 Eamtschatka, the intoxicating ftmgus in, 
 
 879. 
 
684 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Earaca, what, 237. 
 Kenguel, what, 15T. 
 Kent, hop-grounds in, 297 
 Kent water company, water of the, 24. 
 Kidneys, action of the, 537— their import- 
 ance, w. 
 Kief, what, 337. 
 
 Knaresborough petrifying spring, the, 29. 
 Kola, 143— nuts contain theme, 128. 
 Kol-cannon, what, 90. 
 Koulkass, 86. 
 Kousso, 307. 
 Kreatine, 109. 
 Kuskus of India, the, 426. 
 
 Laboratories, use of charcoal respirators 
 
 in, 475. 
 Labrador tea, 143— a substitute for the 
 
 hop, 307. 
 Lacteals, the, 522— action of, i6.— glands 
 
 of, ib. — terminate in the thoracic duct, 
 
 523 — in the intestines, ib 
 Lactic acid, 233. 
 Lactucarium, what, 332. 
 Lactucin, what, 332. 
 Lffivulose, 180. 
 Lagmi, what, 239, 240. 
 Laminaria saccharina, 204. 
 Lanarkshire cheese, composition of, 104. 
 Lancashire, fanning of, 61 note. 
 Landes, the, well-waters in, 31. 
 Lane on the effects of tobacco, 280. 
 Langsdorff, Dr, on the intoxicating fungus, 
 
 380. 
 La Paz, clay eaten at, 409. 
 Lattakia, tobacco of, 272. 
 Lava, soils formed from, 39. 
 Lavandula spica, 415— vera, ib. 
 Lavender grown at Mitcham, 415. 
 Lawes and Gilbert, experiments on fatten- 
 ing animals, 97. 
 Layard on the effects of tobacco, 280. 
 Leaf-green, 491. 
 Leaves, carbonic acid absorbed by, 7 — 
 
 pores in, 54— consumption of, as food, 
 
 89— those of cabbage, 90. 
 Leban, what, 225. 
 Lecithin in brain, 544. 
 Ledum palustre, 144 — a substitute for the 
 
 hop, 307. 
 Ledums, narcotic properties of the, 307. 
 Lemon-oil, 416— verbena in tea, 126. 
 Lentil, composition of the; 78. 
 Lepsius, Dr, on the manna of Scripture. 
 
 207. 
 Leptospermum, 145. 
 
 Lettuce, the, a substitute for opium, 331. 
 Liberian coffee, 150. 
 Liebig's extract of beef, 110. 
 Lie tea, what, 135. 
 Life, tenacity of, 526— functions necessary 
 
 to, 527— importance of the kidneys to, 
 
 537 — small portion of matter on which 
 
 dependent, 571 — by how small a change 
 
 it would disappear, 574. 
 Light, influence of, on the body, 542. 
 Lilium pomponium, 88. 
 Lime, m hard waters, 28— how held in 
 
 solution, 23 — its influence on pastures, 
 
 6&— why added to sugar-cane jnice, 186, 
 
 Lime-water, 3— action of carbonic acid on, 
 28. 
 
 Limestone rocks, carbon buried in, 554. 
 
 Lipchas eat tea-leaves, 132. 
 
 Liquid of Cadet, the, 465. 
 
 Liquorice root, 208— sugar, ib. 
 
 Lobelia, used for smoking, 337 note. 
 
 Loch Katrine water, 24. 
 
 Loire water, 25. 
 
 Loka river, water of the, 23. 
 
 Love-philters, on, 404. 
 
 Lungs, the, 498— cells in, 499— air drawn 
 into, i6.— changes it undergoes in them, 
 501 — moisture exhaled from, ib. — and. 
 carbonic acid, ib. — oxygen absorbed by, 
 503— their wonderful construction, 508 
 — ^their position, 509. 
 
 Lupulin, what, 300— its qualities, ib. 
 
 Lymph, what, 523. 
 
 Maceration, what, 515. 
 
 Macpherson, Dr, on the effects of opium, 
 329. 
 
 Macropiper metliysticum, 226. 
 
 Madden, Dr, on tobacco, 281— on opium, 
 314. 
 
 Madder, colouring matter of, 211. 
 
 Magdeburg, beet giown at, 192. 
 
 Magnesia, in the muscles, 536. 
 
 Maguey, the, 241. 
 
 Maize, composition of, 74 — beer, 219-— 
 spirits distilled from, 250— sugar, 198. 
 
 Malagueta pepper, 354. 
 
 Malaria, use of charcoal respirators in, 
 475. 
 
 Malays, influence of opium on the, 326. 
 
 Malic acid in wine, 234. 
 
 Malt, preparation of, 214 — beer, 215 — 
 adulterations of it, 259— liquors, effects 
 of the hop on, 300. 
 
 Malting, loss of weight in, 249. 
 
 Mammalia, blood-corpuscles of, 534. 
 
 Man, influence of, on natural fertility, 48 
 et seq. — his progress in supplying his 
 wants, 262— weakness of his will, 399— 
 the corpuscles of his blood, 534— body 
 in whieh he shall rise, 572— his insignif- 
 icance, 574. 
 
 Manchester, use of opium in, 320. 
 
 Manganates, 483. 
 
 Manila, sugar-cane used in, 195. 
 
 Manna, extraction of, 202— its composition, 
 203— import of, 204— of the gum-tree, ib. 
 other varieties, 205- of the Israelites, 
 206— its quality, 207, 
 
 Mannite, what, 203— found in sea-weeds. 
 &c., 204. 
 
 Manufactories, gases and smells from. 467. 
 
 Manure, effect of, on the sugar-beet, 193— 
 on tobacco, 288. 
 
 Manuring, the art of, 58, 
 
 Many-plies, the, 530. 
 
 Maple-sugar, see Sugar. 
 
 Marah, waters, of, 31. 
 
 Mare's milk, beer from, 224 
 
 Marl, fertilising effects of, 50 
 
 Marshy places, use of the charcoal respi- 
 rator m, 475. ^ 
 
 Mat6, what, 135— how used, 138— its cf- 
 lects, 139— its constituents, 140. 
 
INDEX, 
 
 585 
 
 Ifatlock petrifying spring, 29. 
 
 Matter, circulation of, 64&— knowledge of 
 the ancients regarding 1^ ib.— of water 
 in various ways, 648 et seq.— of carbon, 
 650 et acq.— of nitrogen, fi5«— of mineral 
 matter, 6(i2— lessono taught by It, 57X 
 etaeo. 
 
 Mauaolus, dust of, swallowed by his wife, 
 668. 
 
 Meat, cooking. 108— extract of, 110. 
 
 Mcconlc acid, 822. 
 
 Melaleuca, 145. 
 
 Mclilot, what. 425 — used for scenting 
 checHO, 426— permanonco of its odour, 
 440 
 
 Melitose, 204. 
 
 Helons, water In, 86. 
 
 Mephitis amorlcana, 466. 
 
 Mercaptan, what, 468. 
 
 Merino sheep, proportion of fiit In, 07. 
 
 Mesentery, tne, 623. 
 
 Methyl, kakodyl formed ftrom, 464. 
 
 Mothylic ether, 428. 
 
 Moxical, what. 242. 
 
 Mexican cocoa, 163. 
 
 Mezqulte, 68. 
 
 Miasms, rise Into the air, 16. 
 
 Hignonette^ where it flourishes, 416 — Its 
 odour, 440. 
 
 Milk, composition of, 101— a model food, 
 102— compared with beef, &o., 107— 
 with cocoa, 169— beer, 224— sugar, see 
 Sugar. 
 
 Mlllefoil, Intoxicating qualities of, SOS. 
 
 Mlllot-beer, 222. 
 
 AHlman on the manna of Scripture, 207. 
 
 Mind, effects of opium on the, S14 et sea. 
 
 Mineral matter, circulation of, 662— uiat 
 of plants and animals, i&.— kinds taken 
 up by plants, 603— returned to the soil 
 by animals, 665— summary views of Its 
 oiroiUation, ib.- circulates necessarily 
 and rapidly, 666— removed by rains ttom 
 the soil, 670— and returned to it, ib.-~- 
 proportion of it in tlie body, 626 — 
 smells, 444. 
 
 Mirbane, essence de, 410. 
 
 " Miserable," tlio cocoa-husk, 167. 
 
 Mitcham, liquorice grown at, 208 — and 
 lavender and peppermint, 416. 
 
 Mixture, a. what, 20. 
 
 Mocha coffee, 160. 
 
 Model man, the, 626. 
 
 Hograbins, the use of tobacco by, 286. 
 
 Moisture In the air, 6. 9— influence of, on 
 animal decomposition, 469 — escapes 
 from the lungs, 499— and quantity of 
 this, 601. 
 
 Momeea, what, SS6. 
 
 Moreau on the elTects of hemp, 840, 342, 
 
 • Morning Chronicle,' the, on the use of 
 opium in Preston, SSI. 
 
 Morocco, dried hemp-flowers of, 336. 
 
 Morphia or morphine, proportion of, in 
 different opiums, 322— found in the milk 
 and urine, 326— harmless to apes, &&, ib. 
 
 Morphine or mon>hia, 322. 
 
 Hoflchus moscliifenis, 4SS. 
 
 Moselle wine, acidity of, 236. 
 
 Motion, a function of life, 627. 
 
 Mouth, action of the, on the food, 515. 
 Mammies, drjrlng of bodies into, ^9— 
 
 those of the Kienzbeig, ib. note. 
 Muraci^a ocellato, a substitute for opium, 
 
 881. 
 Murwa, what, 222. 
 Muscario acid, SSI. 
 Muscarine, 882. 
 Muscles, constituents of the, 636— how 
 
 wasted, 658. 
 Musculine, see Fibrin. 
 Mu^hicongos, their snuff-box, 276. 
 Musk, 435— its odour, i6 — ft-om India, 436 
 
 —minuteness of its odoriferous parUcles, 
 
 440. 
 Musk-deer, the, 486. 
 Mustard, oil of, 461. 
 Myosin, 96. 
 
 Naphtoalene, 495. 
 
 Naples, waters In bay of, 23. 
 
 Narbonne honey, 180. 
 
 Narceine, 828. 
 
 Narcotic qualities of thorn-apple smoko, 
 379- of the poisonous flingi, tft.- of the 
 emetic holly, 382— of deadly nightshade, 
 888— of common henbane,£&.— of hoard- 
 ed darnel, 884 — of sweet gale, 385— of 
 Azalea pontica, 886 — of Kalinia angusti- 
 folia, 387 — of sweet-amclling flowers, ib, 
 —of various heath-plants, 886. 
 
 Narcotics, universal use of, 262, 888— map 
 of their distribution, 266 — how the use 
 of them is to be checked, 390 — their 
 agricultural and commercial import- 
 ance, {&.— total produce and value of 
 them, 391— influence of the appetite fur 
 them on domestic economy, ib. — their 
 general effects, ib. — their special pro- 
 perties, 804 — defects in our knowledge 
 of them, 896 — their national influences, 
 396 — Asiatic and American customs re- 
 garding them, 397— summary regarding 
 them, 398— imiversal craving for tliem, 
 id.— slight diflTerences among them, 399. 
 See also Hemp, Hop, Opium, &c. 
 
 Narcotine, 323. 
 
 Narthex asafcetlda, 449. 
 
 Nasturtium oil, 452. 
 
 National habits, stability of, 398— influ- 
 ence of narcotics, 396. 
 
 Natron, use of, with tobacco, 286. 
 
 Natural waters, impurity of, 24. 
 
 Negro races, temperament of the, 327. 
 
 Negroes, clay-eating among, 406. 
 
 Negrohead tobacco, 276. 
 
 Nepenthes of Homer, what. 308, 337. 
 
 Neroli, what, 413 — oil of, 436 note. 
 
 Nerves, action of tobacco on the, 281. 
 
 Nettle, prickles of the, 64. 
 
 New England, wheat-culture in, 50 — ^maple- 
 sugar produced in, 196 — hostility to to- 
 bacco in, 280. 
 
 Nicaragua, burial-grounds in, 547. 
 
 Nicotiana tabacum, 264 — rustica, 268 — the 
 yellow tob»M» of Thibet, ib. 
 
 Nicotine, what, 283 — ^proportions of, in 
 different tobacoos, w. — contained in 
 tobacco-smoke, 284— contained in French 
 tobacco, 283, 284. 
 
586 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Nightmare, artificial production of, 392. 
 
 Nightsoil, peculiar compounds in, 460 — 
 deodorised by charcoal, 473. 
 
 Nile water, how clarified, 81. 
 
 Nitrates in well-waters, 30. 
 
 Nitric acid, what, 428, 557— its production 
 in the air, 15— its effects on vegetation, 
 i6.— brought down from the ail', 16, 560. 
 
 Nitric fermentation, 30. 
 
 Nitrogen, preparation and properties of, 
 3 — its effects on the air, 7— necessary 
 to the fertility of soils, 45— agency of 
 gluten and ammonia in the circulation 
 of, 557 et seq. 
 
 Nitrogenous manures for tobacco, 290 — 
 compounds in rain and air, 560. 
 
 Nitrous oxide, a smell-destroyer, 477— 
 corrodes metals, ib. 
 
 Noad, Mr, analysis of water from High- 
 gate by, 30. 
 
 North Africa, employment of civet in, 
 437. 
 
 Norwich, curious fee-favour in, 355. 
 
 Nushturs, what, 310. 
 
 Nutrients, 538. 
 
 Oatcake, compared with flesh-meat, 96. 
 
 Oatmeal, why it does not rise in baking, 
 75. 
 
 Oats and oatmeal, composition of, 75. 
 
 Odoriferous insects, 439 — particles, min- 
 uteness of, 440 — resins, how used, 421 — 
 volatile oils, 412. 
 
 Odours we eiijoy, the, 411— disagreeable 
 when concentrated, 436. 
 
 CEnanthic acid, what, 432— ether, 433. 
 
 Ohio river, 25. 
 
 Oil of pipes, 284—- of anise, 417— of bit- 
 ter almonds, ib. — its artificial prepara- 
 tion, 419— of cinnamon, 417— of cress, 
 452— of horse-radish, i&.— of jasmin, 413 
 — of lavender, 412— of lemons, i&.— of 
 mustard, 452— of rape, ib. — of roses, 412 
 — of turpentine, 416. 
 
 Oil-palms, wine from the, 240. 
 
 Oils flavour spirituous liquors, 250— sweet- 
 smelling, 412. 
 
 Oily food, digestion of, 522. 
 
 Old believers, a Russian sect, 280. 
 
 Onions, nutritious qualities of, 88 — con- 
 sumption of, in Spain, 92 — ^their smell, 
 448— those of Egypt, 450. 
 
 Onion tribe, general use of the, 460 et seq. 
 
 Ononis spinosa, sweet contained in tlie, 
 209. 
 
 Ophelia chirata, 308. 
 
 Opilacion, what, 364. 
 
 Opium, origin of the name, S09— how col- 
 lected, 310— that of Smyrna, 311— how 
 prepared for smoking, ib. — pipe and 
 box, 312— shops in Singapore, ib.— its 
 effects when smoked, 313, 315— eating 
 of, in Turkey, 314 — De Quiucey on its 
 effects, ib. 318— Dr Madden, 814— and 
 Coleridge, 317— its after-effects, 315, 318 
 — its effects on confirmed Theriakis, 314 
 — ^its seductions, 316 — and power, 317 — 
 difliculty of abandoning it, 318 et seq. — 
 misery caused by it, ib. — its power over 
 the will, !&.- extent to which used in 
 
 India, China, &c., 819— valerian an anti- 
 dote to it, ib. — quantity ifused in India, 
 820 — import inro Great Britain, ib.— 
 from Persia, ib. — from Turkey, ib.— 
 from British India, ib. — from China, 
 ib. — from other countries, i&.^ts use in 
 England on the increase, ib. — its use in 
 Manchester and Preston, ib. 321 — its 
 effects on children, 321— its composi- 
 tion, 323 et seq. — Indian inferior to 
 Turkish, 324 — from German poppies, 
 325— its narcotic principles pass throi^h 
 the body, ib. — adulteration of it in 
 China, &c., ib. — influence of race and 
 constitution on its effects, 326 — its 
 effects on the Malays, i6.— use of corro- 
 sive sublimate with it in Turkey, 327— 
 its effects as distinguished from those of 
 wine, 328— is it necessarily deleterious? 
 ib.— Dr Eatwell on its effects in China, 
 329— the medical missionaries there on 
 it, 330— practical conclusions regarding 
 it, ib. — infatuation it occasions, 331 — 
 substitutes for it, z&.— compared with 
 heinp, 344 — counteracted by betel-nut, 
 349— numbers among whom consumed, 
 389 — compared with coca, 395. 
 
 Oppenheim on the effects of o^iium, 315. 
 
 Orange-tree, the, 415 — perfumes from the, 
 413. 
 
 Orcin manna, 207. 
 
 Organic radicles, stinking compounds of 
 the, 466. 
 
 Organic substances, what, 463 note. 
 
 Organs of smell, delicacy of the, 441. 
 
 Orinoco, eatable clay found on ttie, 407. 
 
 O'Shaughnessy, Dr, on the effects of hemp, 
 339. 
 
 Otomacs, substitute for snuff used by 
 the, 289— clay -eating by the, 407 et seq. 
 
 Ovier-cropping, sterility caused by, 48. 
 
 Oviparous vei-tebrate animals, blood-cor- 
 puscles in, 534. 
 
 Oxides of ethyl, metliyl, and amyl, 429. 
 
 Oxygen, properties and preparation of, 2 
 — proportion of, in the air, 4 — absorbed 
 by flowers, 55 — less of it in the air from 
 the lungs, 501 — absorbed in the lungs, 
 502— combines with the blood, 503 — 
 builds up the muscles, &c., ib. — its 
 action on the waste matter, 504 — on the 
 fat, 506— and on the starch of the food, 
 i6. —how it produces heat in the body, 
 505, 507 — its agency in the change of 
 matter, 558. 
 
 Ozone, properties and production of, 14. 
 
 Paderborn, carbonic acid given off at, 
 
 555. 
 Pahsa, what. 409. 
 Palm sugar, see Sugar— wine or toddy, 237 
 
 —numbers by whom used, 240. 
 Palmitine, what, 112. 
 Palms, oil, 58— toddy, 239. 
 Pampas, drying of flesh on the, 459. 
 Pancreas, the, 519. 
 Pancreatic juice, composition, action, &c., 
 
 of the, 521. ' 
 
 Papaver somniferum, 309. 
 Papaverine, 323. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 587 
 
 Piiper-flugar, 181. 
 
 Pamlise-jp-Bijis, lin]K>rtation of, 355— adul- 
 teration ot beer by* ifr.— tliis Illegal, ib. 
 
 Paraguay tea, 186 — how collecteil, &c., 
 18&— kinds of, 187 — qtiantity exported, 
 ib. — mip of the country of, 138— that of 
 
 ohui, ib. 
 
 Tark, Hungo, on the love of salt in AMca, 
 
 ML 
 Pastilles, benzoic ncid in, 422. 
 Patchouli, oil of, 4S8 note. 
 Paullinia sorbUis, seeds of, used as cocoa, 
 
 169. 
 Riunch of the sheep, the, 680. 
 Pea, oomposition of the, 78, 
 Feach-borcr, the, in New Jeniey, 49. 
 Pear oil, 481— wine. 231. 
 Feat| a smell'abBorber, 470 — charcoal, its 
 
 value, 473, 
 I'oaty soils, how formed, 41— plants pecu- 
 liar to, 67. 68. 
 Pedang, cofl'ee-tea used at, 141. 
 Foganum Harmala, 382. 
 rennnp, quantit 
 
 duced at, 861. 
 Popper, botel, growth and consmnptiou 
 
 oi; 862— long, 853. 
 Feppermiut of Mitchnm, the, 415 
 Pepperworts, chemistry of the, 358. 
 Pepsin, 306— action of, on the food. 619. 
 Peptones, 620. 
 Pereira on tobacco, 277. 
 Perfumes, narcotic effects of, 387 — for 
 
 the toilet, 413- mixed, 439— artificial, 
 
 441— as smell -disguisers, 472— conceal 
 
 nncleanness, ib. 
 Permanganates, 483. 
 Persian manna, 206. 
 Peru, use of the coca-leaf in, 309— balsam 
 
 of, 421. 
 Peruvian, fondness of the, for coca, 859— 
 
 bis temperament, 862. 
 Potiveria alliacea, 451. 
 Petrifying springs, 29. 
 Pheasants, etTecxB of kalmia on, 887. 
 FhllipplQea, use of tlio betel-nut in the, 
 
 348. 
 PhfSnix dactyliTera, 82, 230— sugar fi>om 
 
 the, 105. 
 Phosphate of lime, presence of, in bones, 
 
 536— its quantity and importance in the 
 
 animal, 564— of potash, in the muscles, 
 
 ib. 
 riiosphorlc acid, what, 45 note — present 
 
 iu the blood and in flesh, 635. 
 riiosphorus burns in oxygen, 2 — how 
 
 given off by animals, 461 — m the brain, 
 
 544. 
 Phosphuretted hydrogen, 463. 
 Physeter macrocophnlus, 438. 
 Physi co-geological influences, effects of, on 
 
 the soil, 41. 
 Picoliue in tobacco-smoke, 283. 
 Picnena excelsa, 308. 
 Picric acid in beer. 302. 
 I'icrotoxin, what, 305. 
 Picta, heather-beer of tiie, 885. 
 Figmentum nipnim, 491. 
 Figs' dung, odour of, 460— its effect on 
 
 plants, ih. 
 
 Fine, Chilian, its seeds eaten, 80. 
 
 Fine-apple oil, 431. 
 
 Fipermethysticum, 853. 
 
 Pipes, tobacco, different forms of, 286— 
 Thibet and Oerman, 286— opium, 312. 
 
 Fipula moola, what, 353. 
 
 Plant, the, what it consists of, 5i— its 
 composition, 69— source of its carbon, 
 ib.- changes and forms of matter in, 63 
 -labours for the animal, 574. 
 
 Plantain-eaters, 490. 
 
 Plantain-tree, the, 81— wator iu the ft-uit, 
 86— starch, granules of, 87. 
 
 Plants, carbonic acid absorbed by, 7, 69— 
 why they refuse to grow on some soils, 
 45— soils affected by them, 48, 67— thoso 
 peculiar to certain soils, 67 — uiose which 
 follow man, 00 — purposes served by, 65 
 —used in scenting teas, 123 — used as 
 teas, 147— with a musky odour, 436— 
 wide ditHtsion of garlic-smelling ones, 
 461 — carrion ones, 454. 
 
 Plastic ctay, section of, 39. 
 
 Pliny on the use of safih>n, 808— on love- 
 potions, 406 note. 
 
 Plum, water in the. 85. 
 
 Foaabyssinica, 222. 
 
 Foi, what, 86. 
 
 Poison-vaJley of Jjivn, the, 8 note. 
 
 Poisoners of India, the, 377. 
 
 Poisonous fungi, narcotic effects of, 881— 
 projectiles, 466. 
 
 Poisons wo select, the, 400. 
 
 Pollen of odoriferous plants, the, 426. 
 
 Poor, the, their love of warm beveraget;, 
 175 — how they suffer from adulterated 
 liquors, 304— from the use of drugs, 821 
 — and from deception, 876. 
 
 Foppig on the ooca-leaf, 364 note. 
 
 Foppy, white, its use, 865— heads, 366— 
 knives, ib. — white and black, the opium 
 from, 325. 
 
 Fores, number of, in the skin, 499. 
 
 Fork, why eaten with pease-pudding, 90. 
 
 Forter-ale, how made, 296. 
 
 Potash, presence of, in the blood, &c., 535. 
 
 Potash-salts, 50— with salt meat. 111. 
 
 Potato, composition of tJie, 80— its cork 
 skin, 66. 
 
 Potato ethers, 428— spirit, 429 — starch, 
 88— sugar, 181. 
 
 Prepared cocoas not soluble, 169. 
 
 Preston, use of opium in, 321. 
 
 Projectiles, suffocating and poisonous, 
 466. 
 
 Proof spirit, alcohol in, 247. 
 
 Prapylamine, stinking odour of, 453 note 
 — its resemblance to trimetliylamine, ib. 
 — flowers in which found, 452. 
 
 Prosopis algaroba, 221. 
 
 Front on the effects of tobacco, 277 note. 
 
 Prussian blue, colouring of teas with, 133 
 —how discovered, 211. 
 
 Psoralea glandulosa, 138. 
 
 FtyaUn, 396 — in saliva, and its action, 
 616. 
 
 Puff-ball, narcotic qualities of the, 381. 
 
 Pulque, what, 241— its qualities, 242— its 
 putrid smell, ib. 
 
 Fulae, nutritive qualities of, 78 
 
588 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Pungent plants, oil in^ 463. 
 
 Pore bread, 74. 
 
 Putrefaction, smells produced diinng, 458. 
 
 Putrid fish, cause of the odour of, 453 — 
 meat, plants smelling like, 454. 
 
 Pylorus, the, 518. 
 
 Pyridine in tobacco-smoke, 283. 
 
 Pyrmont, carbonic acid in the caves of, 
 551. 
 
 Pyroligneous acid, smells from manufac- 
 ture of, 468. 
 
 QuASS, what, 223. 
 
 Quassia-chips in beer, 308. 
 
 Queen of the meadow, and essence of, 418. 
 
 Quichuas, temperament of the, 362. 
 
 Quicklime, action of, on decay, 471 — as 
 a smell-destroyer, 485 — its action on 
 fresh animal matters, ib. — and on fer- 
 menting ones, i6.— how to be applied to 
 fermenting heaps, ib. 
 
 Quinine, salicine used for, in the Po- 
 brudscha, 430 note. 
 
 Quinoa, what, 76. 
 
 Bacb, influence of, on the e£fects of opium, 
 
 326. 
 Radicles, compound, what, 463. 
 Radish, oil of, 451. 
 Bag! cakes, what, 259. 
 Rags, sugar made from, 182. 
 Rain, cause of, ll~nitric acid in, 15— its 
 
 fall important to fertility, 47. 
 Rancid fats, 113. 
 Rectification of spirits, the, 246. 
 Reed of the sheep, the, 530. 
 Relish, use of the onion as a, 450. 
 Remora fish, the, 405 note. 
 Resin of hemp, the, 335, 339, 344 — its 
 
 effects, 339 et seq. 
 Resins, odoriferous, action of heat on, 422. 
 Respirator, charcoal, 474. 
 Resurrection, opinions on the, 572. 
 Rote mucosum of the skin, the, 543. 
 Retford, soil and hops of, 297. 
 Reverie caused by tobacco, the, 281. 
 Rhododendrons, snuff made from, 286 — 
 
 their narcotic qualities, 385. 
 Rhubarb-leaves, tobacco adulterated with, 
 
 288. 
 Rice, composition and use of, 76 — starch- 
 granules of, 88— beer, adulteration of, 
 
 259. 
 Richardson, Dr, on Ledum palustre, 308. 
 Biegel, analysis of sea-water by, 27. 
 Rio Janeiro, sugar-cane used in, 185. 
 Boasting meat, loss in, 108 — how best 
 
 done, 109. 
 Robinson, Dr, on the manna of Scripture, 
 
 207. 
 Rochester, hops of, 297.- 
 Rocks, differences among, 37— stratified, 
 
 horizontal, and inclined, ib. etseq. — their 
 
 influence on the soil, 40 — effects of their 
 
 crumbling, 570. 
 Romans, sugar-cane known to the, 183, 185. 
 Root-hairs, uses of, 56. 
 Rootlets of plants, ttie, 50. 
 Roots, composition of, 89. 
 Bosaniline, 496, 
 
 Rose oil, value of, 415— water, preparation 
 
 of, 4X2. 
 Rotten egg, smell of, 458. 
 Rubia tinctorum, 211, 487. 
 Rum, distillation of, 18&— alcohol in, 247. 
 Russia, use of tea in, 125— beetroot-sugar 
 
 manufactured in, 190— sugar consumed 
 
 in, 199— tobacco cultivated in, 268— *ect 
 
 in, by whom it is rejected, 28fr— use of 
 
 thorn-apple seeds in, 377. 
 Russians of Berezov, diisuse of salt by the, 
 
 541. 
 Rust in the cotton plant, 49, 50. 
 Rye, a substitute for coffee, 158— beer, 223 
 
 — bread, 74. 
 
 Saccharum officinarum, 183. 
 
 Saffron, in cakes, 308— intoxicating efi'ects 
 of, ib. — and narcotic, 387. 
 
 Sago and sago-palm, the, 79— trees, people 
 they can maintain, ib. 
 
 Saguerus saccharifer, 195. 
 
 St Lawrence, flat lands on the, 49. 
 
 Sak6 or rice-beer, 229. 
 
 Salicine, what, 430— used instead of quin- 
 ine, ib, note— its conversion into oil of 
 winter-green, ib. 
 
 Salicylic acid, 430. 
 
 Salicylic aldehyde, 419. 
 
 Saline matter, conveyance' of, by the 
 wind, 16— proportion of, in the blood 
 and body, 525, 526. 
 
 Saliva, action of, in making chica and ava, 
 221, 227— flow of, promoted by tobacco, 
 277 — quantity given off in a day, 516 — its 
 efifects on the food, 517 — its constitu- 
 ents, 516— when acid and when alkaline, 
 517 — necessary to digestion, i6.— that of 
 Dolium golea, 519 note. 
 
 Salivary glands, the, 517. 
 
 Salmon, fat in the, 98. 
 
 Salt in rain, 16 — common, action of, on 
 flesh, 470— why necessary to health, 540 
 —effects of its want, ih.—B. luxury in 
 Central Africa, 541 — where not used, ib. 
 —when it may be dispensed with*. 642. 
 
 Salting of meat, the, 110. 
 
 Saltpetre, made from human remains, 547. 
 
 Salvia sclarea, effects of, on beer, 308, 
 
 Sand, action of soda on, 211. 
 
 Sands, blowing, 57. 
 
 Sandwich Islfoids, consumption of sugar- 
 cane in the, 184. 
 
 Sandy downs, how produced, 40, 
 
 Saponin, 170. 
 
 Sausages, fat in, 98. 
 
 Saussurea, piitoid smell of, 243, 454 
 
 Sawdust, sugar prepared from, 182. 
 
 Scent of grape-wines, the, 236. 
 
 Scented teas, 123. 
 
 Scents compared to musical notes, 414. 
 
 Schabzieger cheese, 426. 
 
 Schinus molle, 221. 
 
 Schlechtendal, Professor, on coca, 369 
 
 Schuylkill river, 24. 
 
 Scorodosma foetida, 449, 
 
 Scotch, use of deadly nightshade by the, 
 38S. 
 
 Scotch distilleries, mixed grain nsed in 
 the, 249, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 589 
 
 Scotland, coiummption of ardent spirits 
 In, 261 €t seq.—iti it more intemperate 
 than England? 254. 
 
 Scurvy produced by rice, 76. 
 
 Bea, saline matter carried from the, 16— 
 bedSp ancient, now dry land, 571— water 
 at Venice, 26— at Marseilles, ib.— com- 
 poaition of, 27— gases in, ib.— spcciflT 
 
 gravity of, i6.— it added to wine oy tl c 
 reeke, 269— weeds, BUE;ar from, I7f — 
 manna and inaunite in them, 204. 
 
 Soakale, 60. 
 
 Bea-ehore, sorting action on, 40. 
 
 Becond-slght, origin of, 876. 
 
 Segnierla alHacea, 461. 
 
 Seine, water of the, 31. 
 
 Beleniuretted hvdrogcn, 462. 
 
 Seltzer, carbonic acid in tho spring of, 
 666. 
 
 Sheep, ftit In, 07— of South Africa, ih.— 
 stomach oftho, 6.S0. 
 
 BIiqIIb, asphyxiating, 466. 
 
 Shoriy, acid In, 236. 
 
 Bibenan intoxicating fiingus, tho, 870. 
 
 Sicily, manna produced In, 202. 
 
 Btck-roonm, charcoal respirators In, 476. 
 
 Sidbee, what, 836. 
 
 BlUca contained In hair and feathers, 630. 
 
 SUlciouB sand, what, 41. 
 
 Silk, how bleached, 476. 
 
 Singapore, opium<flmokingln, 812— gambtr 
 extract produced at, 861. 
 
 Skim-millc, 108 — cheese, composition of, 
 104. 
 
 Hkin, breathing through the, 600— mois- 
 ture given oiT by it, 601— and carbonio 
 acid, tb.— oxygen absorbed by it, 602— 
 cause of its colour, 648. 
 
 Skunk, tho, 456. 
 
 Slavery, influence of geological structure 
 on, 43. 
 
 Bniell, organs of, thoir delicacy, 441— 
 doatroyoi'S, 485 — disguisers, 472 — re- 
 movers, ib. 
 
 Minells we dislike, the, 443 — diffferent 
 tastes regarding, ib. —of animals, 456— 
 fetid, 462 et aeq.—tvom manufectories, 
 467 — their prevention, 470 — action of 
 charcoal and pent on them, 476 — of 
 chlorine and chloride of lime, 479 et seq. 
 — destruction of them, 476 et seq. 
 
 Smelting of lead and copper, smells from, 
 468. 
 
 Smoking, reasons for, 27S. 
 
 Smyrna, opium of, 311. 
 
 Bnnir, action of, 286— substitutes for, 289. 
 
 Snuff-boxes of Iceland, &c., 273. 
 
 Bnufl^, manufacture of, 276. 
 
 Soap-works, smells from, 468. 
 
 Social state, influence of geological struc- 
 ture on, 43. 
 
 Soda, carbonate of, its action on plants, 
 59. 
 
 Soda-makers, vapours discharged by, 468. 
 
 Sipda-water, gas confined in, 33. 
 
 Soft waters, purity of, 24. 
 
 Softening water, Clark's process for, 29. 
 
 Boil, importance of, 47— now formed, 36 — 
 its innuenre on the hop, 298. 
 
 Soils of tlie granites, traps, and lavas, 46 
 
 —peaty, 41— composition of, 44— fertile, 
 45 — rain necessary to, 47— end warmth 
 48 — different plants peculiar to, 57. 
 
 Solomon on wine, 258. 
 
 Soma, 243. 
 
 Sorghum sugar, 198. 
 
 Sorrel, influence of lime on, 58. 
 
 South Sea Isluids, bruad-fruit tree in tho, 
 85. 
 
 Spain, the onion and garlic In, 450l 
 
 Spaniards, coca prohibited by the, 368. 
 
 Spectral illusions caused by thorn-apple, 
 375. 
 
 Sperm-whale, ambei:gri8 from the, 438 
 
 Spice Islands, odour of the, 441. 
 
 Spices, adulteration of spirits by, 259. 
 
 Splrcea, essence of, 418. 
 
 Spirits, distillation of, 244- underproof, 
 247— overproof. ib.- different sorts, 260 
 — consumption of, 251. 
 
 Spree water, 25. 
 
 Bquier on the extraction of saltpotro from 
 church^irds, 547. 
 
 Staffordshire, adulteration of boer in, 865. 
 
 Stale bread, what, 71. 
 
 Stapelias, the, 454. 
 
 Starch, how formed, 57— granules of, 70, 88 
 -its presence in prepared coooas, 169— 
 its composition, 210— action of diastaso 
 on It, 214, 216, 248~-thatof thefood com- 
 bines with oxygen, 503— its abundance 
 in the food, 5I0~sugar, 182. 
 
 Stearine, what, 112. 
 
 Btenhouse, Dr, on the prox>ortion of theino 
 in tea, 128— and In niat6, 140— his res- 
 pirator, 474. 
 
 Stilton cheese, 104. 
 
 Stinking goosefoot, the, 453. 
 
 Stomach, the, 617— action on starch in, 
 619— on fat, ib.— on fiit, ib.— on gluten 
 and flbrin, ib.— the gastric juice In, ib. 
 — pepsin, ib.— universal solvent, 522— 
 absorption of food from, 520— of the 
 sheep, 680. 
 
 Stramonium, see Thorn-apple. 
 
 Strata, variotu forms of, 37. 
 
 Stratified rocks, S9, 43— their extent, 38— 
 their composition, ib. 
 
 Straw, bleaching of, 478. 
 
 Striped cane of Louisiana, the, 185. 
 
 Strychnia, what, 802, 
 
 Styria, arsenic-eating in, 401. 
 
 Subjee, what, 336. 
 
 Succinic acid in beer, 21S, 
 
 Succory, see Chicory. 
 
 Succus entericus, 521. 
 
 SuSblk bank cheese, 104. 
 
 Sugar, introduction of, from St Domingo, 
 183 — present state of its manufactui-e, 
 187- how this to be improved, 188— In- 
 creased use of, ib. — consumption in 
 Great Britain, 189— beet in Britain. 191 
 — total production, 188, 199 — how its 
 fermentation is arrested, 192 — consump- 
 tion in different countries, 190 — con- 
 sumption in Europe, ib. — map of 
 countries producing, 200 — its composi- 
 tion, 209— its change into alcohol, 213— 
 in beer, 216, 218 — proportion of, in 
 wines, 234— preserves flesh, 470. 
 
590 
 
 li^DEX, 
 
 Sugar, beetroot, the plant, 189 — manu- 
 factories of, 190— proportion in the root, 
 191— proportion extracted, 192^its ex- 
 traction, i&.— relative proportions of it 
 and saline matters, 193. 
 
 Sugar-cane, 183— the plant, ib. 185— where 
 it flourishes hest, 184 — varieties of it, 
 ib. — ^known to ttie Romans^ 185~:-and 
 used as food, ib. — ite solubility, 23 — 
 proportion of it in the juice, 18& — cut- 
 ting and crushing the canes, ib. — clariiy- 
 ing the juice, ib. — extracting the sugar, 
 187— loss in the manufacture, ib.— pro- 
 portion extracted, ib. 188— total quantity 
 manufactured, ib. 199 — difference be- 
 tween it and grape, 189— its conversion 
 into the latter, ib, — the cane of the 
 north, 198 — its composition, 209 — its 
 relation to starch, 210. 
 
 Sugar-cane wine, 241. 
 
 Sugar, eucalyptus, 204. 
 
 Sugar &om cocoa-nut tree, 195. 
 
 Sugar from date-palm, 195. 
 
 Sugar from lichens, 207. 
 
 Sugar from sea-weed, 182. 
 
 Sugar from woody fibre, &c., 182. 
 
 Sugar, fruit, 181. 
 
 Sugar, grape, 179— how distinguished from 
 cane, 189— its composition, 209. 
 
 Sugar, honey, 179. 
 
 Sugar, maize, 198. 
 
 Sugar, maple, 196— its extraction, 197 — 
 total produce, 198. 
 
 Sugar, milk, 101, 209— its qualities, 209— 
 how changed into alcohol, 224 and note. 
 
 Sugar, palm, 194— produce of, 195, 199. 
 
 Sugar of lead, 178. 
 
 Sugar of liquorice, 208. 
 
 Sugar of starch, 181. 
 
 Sugar of the sorghums, 108. 
 
 Sulphate of iron as a smell-destroyer, 481, 
 
 Sulphite of lime, what, 198 note. 
 
 Sulphur, present in fetid animal and vege- 
 table smells, 449 — its influence on the 
 perspiration, 456 — fumigation with, 478. 
 
 Sulphuretted hydrogen, properties, &c., 
 of, 444 — its composition, 445 — produced 
 in nature, ib. — in the rotten egg, 458 — 
 destroyed by chlorine, 477 — and by sul- 
 phurous acid, 478. 
 
 Sulphuric acid, what, 45 note — vapour 
 dischai^ged from mauufactories of, 468. 
 
 Sulphurous acid, what, 193 note — given 
 off from volcdnoes, 446 — universal dis- 
 like of, ib. — a smell-destroyer, 477 — its 
 action as such, 478— its bleaching powers, 
 ib. — as a fumjgator, ib. 
 
 Sumatra, coffee-tea used in, 141 — export 
 of betel-nut from, 347. 
 
 Sunderland, water used in, 24 
 
 Sunshine, influence of, on the body, 542, 
 
 Surrey, hop-grounds in, 295. 
 
 Sussex, hop-grounds in, 295. 
 
 Sweden, eating of eai*th in, 407. 
 
 Sweet-bread, juice from the, 521. 
 
 Sweet-flag, the, for what used, 434— where 
 grown, ib. 
 
 Sweet juices, action of sulphurous acid on, 
 103. 
 
 Sweot-scented vernal grass, the, 425. 
 
 Sweet sceatfl, narcotic effects of, 387. 
 
 Sweets we extract, the, 177. 
 
 Sweno, King, destruction of army of, 883. 
 
 Syrian rue, for what used, 332. 
 
 Syrup of starch-sugar, the, 181. 
 
 Tainted meat relished by some, 455. 
 
 Tamarisk manna, 20t>. 
 
 Tamarix gallica, 206. 
 
 Tandou, what, 325. 
 
 Tannic acid in mat€, 140 — varieties of, 
 153. 
 
 Tannic acid in wine, 234L 
 
 Tannin or tannic acid in tea, 130. 
 
 Tar-asun, what, 306. 
 
 Tarfe, tree, manna of, 206. 
 
 Tarry matters, decay of flesh prevented 
 by, 470. 
 
 Tartaric acid, 235— in wine, 234. 
 
 Tartars, use of tea by the, 131. 
 
 Tastes, differences in, as to smells, &c., 
 443, 455. 
 
 Tax, a manufacture promoted by a, 194, 
 
 Tea, consumption of. 125 — the plant, 118 
 — map of the districts of, 117 — prepara- 
 tion of it, 119 et seq. — changes in the leaf 
 while drying, 122— that of different dis- 
 tricts, 123 — ^ita price at Canton, ib. — its 
 introduction into China and England, 
 124 — triumphs of Dr Johnson, i6.— total 
 produce of, 125 — from Java, ib. — in 
 Assam and Ceylon, ib. — ^how used by 
 the Chinese, 126 — a Chinese on its 
 effects, ib. — its effects when new, 127 
 — and in this country, 126 — its constitu- 
 ents, 127, 175— why a favourite with the 
 poor, 130 — why it gives a black colour 
 with iron, i6. — the leaves compared with 
 beans, 131 — how prepared among the 
 Tartars, ib. — eating of the leaves, 132— 
 proportion extracted by boiling water, 
 133— from Thames, ib. —adulterations of 
 it, 134 — ash left by it, 132 — compared 
 with coffee, 173 — its physiological effects, 
 129 — consumption of it, 125— numbers 
 among whom used, 174 — its consump- 
 tion increases with intellectual activity, 
 175— may take the place of bread, 176 — 
 as an article of diet in public establish- 
 ments, ib. — of Abyssinia, 144— prevents 
 sleep, ib. — from coffee - leaves, 141 — of 
 Labrador, 145 —of Paraguay, see Mat€ — 
 of Tasmania, 145 — plants used for, 147. 
 
 Tears, composition and iise of, 545. 
 
 Teeth, fluorine in the, 536 — their enamel, 
 545. 
 
 Telhirium, influence of, 457 — compounds 
 of, 466. 
 
 Temperament, influence of, on the effects 
 of tobacco, 279. 
 
 Temperance pledge, the, how often broken 
 390^ote, "* 
 
 Temperature, influence of, on fertility, 48 
 — of animal bodies, 505. 
 
 Terra Japonica, used instead of betel 
 350. 
 
 Teviotdale, tradition of, 385. 
 
 Thames, tea recovered from, 133, 
 
 Thames water, the, 24, 27. 
 
 Thebaine, what, 323. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 591 
 
 Thobea, ose of liemp known In, 337. 
 
 Tbcine, proportion of, in tea, 127— Its 
 composition and properties, 128 — its 
 lotion, 129 — In raati, 140 — in coffee- 
 leaves, Ul, 143— in coffee, 1S4. 
 
 Tlioobroma cacao. 163. 
 
 Tlieabromlne, composition of, 167. 
 
 Tiioiialtls of Turltoy, the, 814. 
 
 Tliibot, yellow tobacco of, 208. 
 
 TInrlnicre water, 24. 
 
 Tiilrst, awaltened by tobacco, 280. 
 
 Tiiorn - applo, common, adulteration of 
 boer by, 877— effects of the seeds, i*. — 
 Its composition, 878— red, tt» effects, 
 375— use of, in tile Andes, as a narcotic, 
 «>. 
 
 Thyme, oil of, 487. 
 
 TInctaro of civet, the, 436. 
 
 TJHSuca, waste of the, 658. 
 
 Tobacco, the plant, 263— its introduction 
 Into England and the East, 264 — coun- 
 tries it has spread into, ib. — King 
 James's Oounterblaat, 266 — extensive 
 use of it, 267- former opposition to it, 
 ib.— consumption in the East and China, 
 (Ii.— Papal bull against it, it.— varieties 
 of it, 268, 270— the common green, 268 — 
 wlioaoo carried to the East. ib. — its cul- 
 ture in the United States, 260 — con- 
 sumption in Great Britain, ib. — duty 
 on it, 270 — consumption in Europe and 
 throughout the world, ift. — total pro- 
 duce, i().— produce per acre, (S.- pro- 
 duce in the United States, <b.— circum- 
 stances wlUch afibct its quality, 271— 
 E rices of dlllbrent varieties, i6.— that of 
 attakla, 272— forms in which used, t!i. 
 -imports ftom America, ib. — from Hol- 
 land, i6. — from Japan, ib. — from Tur- 
 key, ft.— from Germany, <6.— from the 
 Pmllpplnes, tii.— from France, t6.— pipes 
 of Germany and Thibet, 286— cigars, 276 
 -snuff, tft.— its effects, 2V6— Pereira 
 and Prout on It, 277 — diseases ascribed 
 to it, t6. note— its soothing effects, 279, 
 281— Its elfbcts in North America, 270— 
 . apposition to its use in New England, 
 ib. — Lane and Layard on it, 260 — its 
 oxcitbig effects, 281 — reverie caused by 
 it, ib.^ts constituents, 282 — poisons In 
 smoke, 283— cliowed, &c., with natron, 
 285— Its flavour affected by manure, 288 
 — adulterations of it, ib. — substitutes 
 for it, 280— an exhausting crop, ib.— 
 used as a circulating medium, 860 note 
 — numbers among whom consumed, 
 33). 
 
 Toddy or palm-wine, 237— palms, 240. 
 
 Toilet perfumes, 413. 
 
 Tolu, balsam of, 421. 
 
 Tomb, opening of an Etrurian, 567. 
 
 Toinboki, what, 837. 
 
 Tonka bean, the, 424. 
 
 Towns, best substances for sanitary cleans- 
 ing of, 485. 
 
 Trap-rocks, soils of, 30, 46. 
 
 Travera, Mr, on the produce of tea, 125. 
 
 Trebiiond honey, 181 note. 
 
 Triniethylamine, what, 453— in stinking 
 gooscfoot, 452— in liorring-brine, t*.— its 
 
 composition, 453 note — its resemblance 
 
 to propylamine, i6. — its possible use in 
 
 cookery, 454. 
 Trimethyi phosphine, 466. 
 Triosteum perfoliatuin, a substitute for 
 
 coffee, 158. 
 Tropical America, clay-eating in. 407. 
 Tunhoof, a substitute for hops, 30L 
 Turacin, 489. 
 Turkey red, 494. 
 Turnip, composition of the, 86, 89— roasted 
 
 for coffee, 168. 
 Turpentine, oil of, composition of, 416. 
 Tusser ou the hop, 294. 
 
 United Eihodom, consumption of coffee 
 in, 149— of cocoa, 165— of sugar, 188, 199 
 —of tea, 126. 
 
 United Btates, exhaustion of soil caused 
 by growth of tobacco in, 200. 
 
 Unstratifled rocks, 37 — their composition, 
 39. 
 
 Urban, Pope, bull by, against tobacco^ 
 267. 
 
 Ureo, production of, 658— change it under- 
 goes in the soil, ib. 
 
 Uric acid, how formed in the body, 668. 
 
 Urine, Intoxicating quality in, 381. 
 
 Valerian, action of, on opium intoxica- 
 tion, 319. 
 
 Valerianic acid m apple-oil, 431. 
 
 Vanilla aromatlca, 422 — country of the, 
 360 — it« odoriferous principle, 423 — 
 used for flavouring chocolate, 424. 
 
 Vanillin, artificial, 423. 
 
 Vapours, rising of, from the earth's sur- 
 face, 15. 
 
 Vegetable food, peculiarities in constitn- 
 tion of, 623— matteis in well-waters, 30 
 — smells, 447. 
 
 Vegetable marrow, 86. 
 
 Vegetation promoted by nitric acid, 15 — 
 its Influence on soils, 45 — purposes 
 served by it, 65. 
 
 Vehis, absorption through the, 523. 
 
 Venous absorption of food, the, 523. 
 
 Vetch, composition of the, 78. 
 
 Victoria, fertile country of, 39. 
 
 Vinegar, the acid of beer, 235, 
 
 Vinous odour, what due to, 433. 
 
 Violet, the, 415. 
 
 Virginia, waste land in, 40. 
 
 Viverra eivetta, 436— species in Angola, 
 Arabia, Ceylon, 437. 
 
 Volatile oils, how extracted, 412— uses of, 
 413— from different parts of plants, ib. 
 — composition of, 416 — sweet-smelling 
 ones, 412 — contained in ardent spirits, 
 260. 
 
 Volcanoes, ammonia given off by, 560. 
 
 Von Tschudi on coca, 362, 364. 
 
 Walton-os-the-Naze, its water, 25. 
 Wants, order in which supplied by man, 
 
 262. 
 Warm-blooded animals, source of their 
 
 heat. 606— distinction between them and 
 
 cold-blooded, ib. 
 Worm drinks, universal desire for, 115. 
 
592 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 "Warmth, influence of, on animal decom- 
 position, 458. 
 
 Waste of the body, effects of tea and coffee 
 on the, 152, 153, 173— motion a cause of 
 it, 528. 
 
 Waste lands in Virginia, &c. , 49. 
 
 Water, composition of, 18, 21— proportion 
 of, in animals and plants, 9, 18— formed 
 by burning hydrogen, 20— indispensable 
 to life, ib. — its freedom &om taste and 
 smell, 21 — its cooling properly, ib. — its 
 solvent properties, 22~a part of plants, 
 ib.—a. earner of food, ib, — never natu- 
 rally pure, 23 — the colour of river, ift.— 
 the brown, of bogs, ib, — the milky, of 
 glaciers, ib. — ^the green, of the Geysers, 
 i6.— the blue, of Naples and the Pacific, 
 ib. — that of the Thames, 27— of the green- 
 sand in Surrey, 24— of the London water 
 companies and bore-wells, 24, 28— of the 
 Jordan, 24— of the Seine and Nile, how 
 clarified, 31— of Marah, how sweetened, 
 ib. — absorption of gases by, 32— soda- 
 water, carbonic acid in, 33— composition 
 of air in, 34 — its effect on the materials 
 of soils, 36, 40— drawn by plants froir 
 the soil^ 55— its effects on. them, 56- 
 proportion in flour and bread, 71 — and 
 in fruits, 85 — sweetened by charcoal, 
 473 — sulphuretted hydrogen absorbed 
 by, 477— proportion in the blood and 
 body, 525, 526— as a part of the diet, 
 539^why hard is agreeable, i6.— local 
 importance of its quality, i6.— evapora- 
 tion of, from a green field, 549— given 
 off from the lungs, &c., of animals, 550 
 — watercress oil, 452. 
 
 Watery vapour, necessity of, to life, 9— in 
 the air, 6, 11. 
 
 Weald of Kent, hops grown in the, 296, 
 297. 
 
 Wear river, water of the, 24. 
 
 Weddell, Dr, on the use of coca, 362— on 
 the eating of clay, 409, 
 
 Weeds, European, in America and Aus- 
 tralia, 61. 
 
 Well-waters, where impure, 30— nitrates, 
 &c., in, t&. 
 
 Wells, artesian, 42— petrifying, 29. 
 
 Wheat, failing growth of, in the New Eng- 
 land States, 50 — composition of the 
 grain, 69 et se^.— section of the grain, 
 70 — amount consumed, 73. 
 
 Wheaten bread compared with beef, 95. 
 
 Wheaten flour, gluten and starch of, 69— 
 
 composition of, 75 — extraction of its 
 
 gluten, 69, 556. 
 Whey, sugar in, 103. 
 Whisky, alcohol in, 248— its peat flavour. 
 
 White of egg, the, 99, 100. 
 
 White coquero, the, 364. 
 
 Whole-meal flour, nutritious quality of, 
 73— bread, ib. 
 
 Wild animals, their love of salt, 540— their 
 neglect of it in South-western Africa, 
 541. 
 
 Will, power of opium over the, 317. 
 
 Winds, saline matter transported by the, 
 16 — their action on soils, 40. 
 
 Wines, how distinguished from beer, 231— 
 from the apple and pear, i6.— from the 
 grape, their composition, 233 — sdcohol 
 and sugar in them, 234^-and peculiar 
 acid, 235— their relative acidity, 236 — 
 consumption of them in Great Britain, 
 237— ardent spirits consumed in form 
 of, 253— their effects, 258— mixed witli 
 sea-water in Greece, 259 — and with 
 frankincense, i&.— compared with opium, 
 328 — their bouquets, 433 — from the 
 American aloe, 241— extraction of it, ib. 
 — its putrid smell, 242. 
 
 Wine-emers, 427— spirit, 429. 
 
 Winter-green, oil of; 429— artificial, 430. 
 
 Witches' Drink, the, 376. 
 
 Wood ethers, 428 — spirit, 429 — vin^ar, 
 smell from making, 468. 
 
 Woodruff, the odour of, 425, 
 
 Woody fibre, sugar from, 182. 
 
 Woollens, bleaching of, 478. 
 
 Worcester hops, 298. 
 
 Worm, the, in distillation, 246. 
 
 Wycliffe, the disinterment ol^ 568. 
 
 Xenophon's soldiers, poisoning of, by 
 honey, 181 note. 
 
 Taourt, what, 225. 
 
 Yarrow, effect of, on beer, 308. 
 
 Yeast, effects of, on dough, 71— manufac- 
 ture of dry, 62 note — the plant, its 
 growth, &c., 62, 217 et seq. 
 
 Yellow tobacco of Thibet, the, 268. 
 
 Yellows in peach-trees, the, 49. 
 
 Yerba, the, or Paragaay tea, 136. 
 
 Yerba de huaca, the, 375. 
 
 Yerbals, what, 136. 
 
 Yolk of egg, composition of, 100. 
 
 Yongas, growth of coca in, 372, 
 
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