whether popular influence in seasons of excitement, and upon questions of great moment, may not bias the minds. of Judges whose appointment is in the hands of the people-whether the fear of a coming election may not deter them from unpopular decisions. The influence of a popular majority may here as profoundly pollute the fountains of justice as the influence of the Crown ever did among us at home. It is not wise to expose good men to such temptations. The practice is consistent with the theory that all power is in the people, and that all patronage ought to be exercised by them. And it may be that ignorance and passion may not more frequently interfere with the appointments of the people, than favouritism and political influence do with those made by sovereigns and their ministers. At all events, it is said that hitherto the system has worked well, and that good selections have been made; though I have heard it distinctly acknowledged that certain Judges had been excluded at recent elections in this State of New York, because of their known opinions in reference to important public questions which were likely to come before the courts. As there are no retiring pensions, the want of success at a re-election necessarily sends a man back to the Bar. And as in Scotland "ance a bailie, aye a bailie" is the rule, so once a judge or general, always a judge or general, in the United States. Hence the numerous titular judges to be met with among the lawyers, and of generals and colonels among all classes of the people. Popped corn is a novelty which the European travelling fill all offices with men taken from among the people, and not to confine them to those who live by office and make politics a trade." Those who are themselves fit to be taken from the counter or the plough to fill the highest political offices, cannot be unfit merely to select those who are to fill the highest judicial offices. 152 VARIETIES OF INDIAN CORN. towards the west will, in this maize-growing region, probably meet with for the first time. Boys with baskets attend upon the cars at the stopping-places, selling it at so much a quart. Indian corn, beneath a thin but double epidermis, consists of a semi-transparent, hard, horny, or flinty part of a yellow colour; within this, of a white, soft, opaque, starchy part; and within all, at the base of the seed, of the germ or chit, as it is called in America. The horny part consists of starch, of oil, which under the microscope can be seen in globules, and of a proportion of vegetable albumen. The soft white opaque part is chiefly starch, and the chit almost entirely albumen. This is prettily shown by cutting off with a knife the outer part of a grain of Indian corn, and applying to the pared surface a drop of a solution of iodine: the soft white part will become entirely deep blue; the horny part blue only in streaks or patches, while the chit will be scarcely affected. The substance thus turned blue is starch. If another grain of corn be touched in the same manner with a solution of verdigris, (acetate of copper,) or of blue vitriol, (sulphate of copper,) only the chit will be coloured blue-showing that, as a whole, it differs entirely from either of the other parts. But the cutting of the seed across, and especially if the cut surface be coloured by the application of any of these solutions, shows that the relative size and position of these several parts varies very much with the variety of corn we examine. In some the horny part is large, as in the varieties known by the names of brown, Canada, rice, and pop corns; while in others, as in the flat southern and in the Tuscarora, the white starchy part predominates. In some, as in the pop and Canada corn, the horny part entirely surrounds the soft starchy portion; in others, as in the flat southern, it forms an Nearly the same thing as the white of egg. USE OF INDIAN CORN OIL. 153 irregular layer round the side only of the seed; while in others again, as in the rice-corn, the seed consists almost entirely of a large horny part and a large chit. As the oil exists in this horny part, it is obvious that those varieties in which this part is large ought generally to contain most oil; and such is found to be the case. It was an ignorance of these differences among the varieties of Indian corn which a few years ago caused the violent dispute between Liebig and Dumas, or rather the hasty contradiction by Liebig of the statement of Dumas, as to the large quantity of oil contained in this grain. From 2 to 9 per cent of oil can be extracted from it, according to the variety employed. In the distilleries of the Western States, where cornbrandy is made, the oil is extracted and sold as a product of the manufacture. A hundred bushels of the large southern or western corn, in which the horny part is not very large, yields fifteen or sixteen gallons of oil, which is at the rate of about 24 per cent of the weight of the grain as it comes to market. Previous to distillation, the Indian corn is fermented with malt, and, during the fermentation, the oil rises to the surface and is skimmed off. It is a bright pale yellow agreeable-smelling oil, and sells for about a dollar a gallon. It is used for burning in lamps in western New York, in Ohio, in Michigan, and upon Lake Superior. The popping of corn is owing to the presence of this oil, but only those varieties will pop in which the horny part is large, and surrounds completely the internal starchy part. The varieties called pop-corn and ricecorn possess this property in the highest degree. When they are heated in a close iron vessel-like a coffeeroaster to about 600° Fahr., the oil contained in the horny part expands-perhaps in part decomposes-tears asunder every little cell in which it is contained, bursts 154 DIGESTIVE POWERS OF THE HORSE AND PIG. the epidermis of the top or side of the seed with a slight report, like that of a popgun-and forces back, in fact turns outside in, the swollen and now white and spongy mass into which the horny part is changed. In this state the corn is soft and agreeable to eat, more easy of digestion, and is largely consumed. The increase of bulk by this heating process is so great that one barrel of pop-corn will produce sixteen, and of rice-corn, which is a small seed, thirty-two barrels of popped corn. It will occur to the reader, from what I have said of the internal structure of Indian corn, that the flour which is obtained from the several varieties will be more or less yellow, according as the proportion of the coloured horny part is greater or less. Hence the white Tuscarora corn, which contains scarcely any horny matter, gives a whiter flour than almost any other variety. This is the variety, therefore, which is principally made use of for the manufacture of starch, and for the adulteration of wheaten flour. As the direct fattening property of seeds is believed to be intimately connected with the quantity of oil they contain, I may mention in this place an interesting physiological fact, communicated to me by Dr Charles Jackson of Boston, which is susceptible of an important practical application. The horny part of the corn, he informs me, is not digested by the horse, though it is readily digested by the pig and by fowls. The economical value of a food, therefore, as I have elsewhere explained, cannot be judged of solely from its chemical composition.* On our arrival at Rome, the neighbourhood of the station was crowded with people who were waiting to get a peep of Mr Clay, whom we had picked up at Utica on his way to Syracuse. Our train had now swelled to * See the Author's Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry and Geology, 2d edition, p. 1045. CHANGE IN THE SURFACE. 155 a line of fifteen large cars, containing each from forty to sixty passengers, so that we proceeded very slowly, and had become somewhat impatient of delay. A few cheers from the assembled crowd, rather faint compared with those which afterwards burst forth at some of the succeeding stations, were the only demonstrations of affection towards Mr Clay which I observed among the western Romans. On leaving Rome, we forsook the valley of the Mohawk, and, in a south-westerly direction, crossed the Clinton group of green, sandy, ferruginous and calcareous shales, which, from their softness, have been much washed away, when the old sea-currents swept over them, and now form a flat, uninteresting, somewhat swampy country, stretching in a narrow zone along the whole of western New York, as far as the Falls of Niagara, and thence into Upper Canada. The largest and deepest depression in this belt of country is occupied by Lake Oneida, which we passed a few miles to our right, and by the marshes of the town (ship) of Cicero, which extend farther towards the south. Nine miles from Rome we passed Verona, another memento of Italy; and a few miles farther, Oneida station, where we rapidly crossed a narrow belt of the Niagara group, the first of the upper Silurian system, and entered upon the Onondaga salt group, the most economically and agriculturally valuable of all the rocks of western New York. The natural softness of these groups of rocks in this locality, and the level character of the whole country, may be judged of from the fact that the Erie canal runs through it for sixty miles without a single lock. A single glance at this country, from the time we left Verona, showed into how different a region we had come since we had left the Mohawk Valley. A flat forest country of mixed wood, with few clearings, resting chiefly |