holds in solution carbonate of lime (see page 12,) but being long boiled, the latter is no longer soluble, and becomes precipitated.

Why is water, when boiled, mawkish and insiped? Because the gases which it contained have been expelled by boiling.

Why is hard water by boiling brought nearly to the state of soft?

Because it is freed from its gases, and its earthy salts and substances, by which its hardness was produced, are precipitated.

Why does water, which has been deprived of air by boiling, freeze more readily than unboiled water?

Because of a slight agitation upon its surface occasioned by the attraction of air. · Black.

Why should not the water with which gold and silver fish are supplied, be boiled?

Because the water is then deprived of its atmospheric air, and no animals can live in it.

Why is a drop of water tranquil in a very hot silver tea-spoon, and some time in evaporating?

Because of the intervention of a film of vapour, which prevents the contact of the water and the metal, and so interferes with the transmission of heat. Why is it wasteful to put fuel under a boiling pot, with the hope of making the water hotter?

Because water can only boil, and it does so at 212° of the thermometer.

Why should the pan be uncovered in boiling weak soups?

Because the watery particles then escape more easily.

Why is Papin's digester used in making soups?

Because it prevents the loss of heat by evaporation, and greatly increases the solvent power of water heated in it. Thus, animal bones are dissolved with great facility in these digesters, in order that the 2*

PART I.

gelatine contained in them may be converted into rich soups, &c.

Why do soups, pies, puddings, &c, keep hot much longer than equal bulks of mere fluids?

Because fluids in general transfer heat less readily in proportion as they are more thick; whatever impedes the motion of the fluid particles diminishing the diffusing power.

Why is salt beef reddened by boiling in hard water? Because of the additional salts which render the water harder.

BREAD-MAKING.

Why is wheat more nourishing than other grain? Because it contains a larger quantity of gluten, which is an extremely nutritive substance.

Why is rice a good substitute for wheat flour? Because it contains a great deal of nutriment in a small compass, and does not pass quickly off the stomach.

Why does a stiff dough of flour and water soon turn sour?

Because the water undergoes the acetous fermentation, and becomes vinegar?

Why is yest used in making bread?

Because it lightens it, by inflating the dough in all parts with fixed air, or carbonic acid.

Why is baked bread lighter than dough?

Because part of the water is expelled by the heat of the oven in baking.

Why is brown bread recommended to invalids?

Because it is of an aperient nature, from the bran which it contains possessing a resinous purgative

matter.

Why is barley bread much less nutritious than wheaten bread?

Because barley contains much less gluten than

wheat; and the nutritiveness of the grain is in proportion to its gluten.

Why is salt used in making bread?

Because of its flavour, and causing the dough to rise better; and its stiffening the clammy dough made from new flour, and giving it a fair colour when otherwise it would be foxy.

Why are there two sorts of crust in a loaf?

Because the under surface (or crust) rests on a tile floor of the oven, which being a bad conductor of heat, scorches it very little, but the upper surfaces of the loaf being all exposed to the direct influence of the hot air of the oven, are considerably scorched.

Why is alum used in making bread?

Because it is said to whiten ill-coloured flour, and to harden and whiten bread made from flour which has been malted. By fraudulent persons it is used as an adulteration: for a large quantity of it added to the dough enables it to absorb, conceal, and retain much more water than it otherwise would. Bread made from such dough will come out from the oven much heavier than it ought, and the additional weight will be merely water. Two adhering loaves of such bread will generally separate unevenly, one taking more from the other than its share.- Donovan. Why is the fermentation of bread presumed to be vinous?

Because it depends upon the saccharine ingredient of the flour, and the known laws of the decomposition of sugar. The production of spirit, in the course of the fermentation of bread, in baking, which has been found to take place, is perhaps the most irrefragable proof of this theory. Flour kneaded without yest, fermented in the usual way, and enclosed in a distillatory apparatus, has yielded the taste and smell of spirit; and, by repeated rectification, spirit has been thus obtained of strength sufficient to burn, and to fire gunpowder.

MEAT AND SOUPS.

Why is the consumption of animal food so much greater in England than in France?

Because England not only surpasses France in the number of cattle, but the animals are also finer, and their flesh is of better quality; so that the inhabitant of England may consume nearly double the animal substance which France supplies to each of its inhabitants, with the further advantage of better quality. Why is meat preserved by drying?

Because all bodies, to ferment, must be more or less moist. Thus, a piece of meat, with all its natural juices, will soon putrify; whereas bodies completely dry cannot be made to undergo any kind of fermentation.

Why do smoked provisions keep better than those which are dried?

Because of the impregnation of pyroligneous acid which the former receive from the smoke; turf smoke being generally employed; and turf, by distillation in close vessels, affording pyroligneous acid. — Do

novan.

Why is a certain soup called Mulgatanney?

Because of its origin from the Indian mulga pepper, and tanee water; the original soup being merely pepper water, without any meat whatever.

Why is habitual drinking especially fatal to the interests of cooks?

Because nothing so soon destroys the palate or taste, which is necessary even for the most experienced cooks, to ascertain the flavour and seasoning of their soups, sauces, &c.

Why does charcoal prevent meat, &c, becoming tainted?

Because it absorbs the different gases of putrefaction, and condenses them in its pores, without any alteration of their properties or its own.

Why is baking the least advantageous of all modes of cookery?

Because meat thus dressed loses about one-third of its weight, and the nourishing juices are then, in great measure, dried up. Beef in boiling loses 26lb in 100lb; in roasting it loses nearly one-third.

FERMENTED LIQUORS.

Why are some fermented liquors lighter than water? Because, during fermentation, the heavy saccharine matter gives place to the light fluid alcohol, or spirit.

Why is carbonic acid gas produced in the process of fermentation?

Because in all vinous fermentations a decomposition of the saccharine matter takes place; and a part of the disengaged oxygen, uniting with a part of the carbon of the sugar, forms carbonic acid. A decomposition also of part of the water of solution perhaps promotes the process. - Parkes.

Why are liquors cleared by fermentation?

Because, during the process, a thick froth of air bubbles, and viscid matter rises to the surface, and after remaining there some time, it parts with the air which floated it, and the viscid matter subsides to the bottom.

BREWING.

Why is beer believed to be of the same antiquity with wine?

Because the word beer seems to be of Hebrew origin: thus, the Hebrew for corn, with a very slight modification, sounds like bre in sabre, or ber. The Hebrew language modified itself into the Phoenician, and that again into the Saxon: accordingly the Saxon bepe, barley, resembles its Hebrew parent: hence we have the English beer, the French bière, and the Italian birra. The Saxon word has been retained in English; for there is a kind of barley called bere, or bigge. The English word beer was, a few centuries ago, spelt bere; and beer has at all times been made