122 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



make one remark. Christian men are 

 proved by their writings to have their 

 hour of weakness and of doubt, as well 

 as their hours of strength and of convic- 

 tion ; and men like myself share, in their 

 own way, these variations of mood and 

 tense. Were the religious views of many 

 of my assailants the only alternative ones, 

 I do not know how strong the claims of the 

 doctrine of ' material atheism ' upon my 

 allegiance might be. Probably they would 

 be very strong. But, as it is, I have no- 

 ticed, during years of self-observation, that 

 it is not in hours of clearness and vigor 

 that this doctrine commends itself to my 

 mind ; that in the presence of stronger and 

 healthier thought it ever dissolves and dis- 

 appears, as offering no solution of the mys- 

 tery in which we dwell, and of which we 

 form a part." 



PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 



Geological Survey of Indiana. By E. T. 

 Cox. Pp. 494. 



Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1873. By 

 Jerome Cochran, M. D. Montgomery, Ala. 

 1874. Pp. 115. 



Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natu- 

 ral Sciences. Vol. II., No. 2. Pp. 40. 



Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy 

 of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 1873-74. 

 Pp. 254. 



Double Stars. By S. W. Burnham, Esq. 

 Pp. 13. 



Catalogue of Forty-seven New Double 

 Stars (same author). 



Molecular Change in Iron and Steel by 

 Electric Currents. By John Trowbridge. 

 Pp. 10. 



Freeing a Magnetic Bar from Earth's 

 Magnetism (same author). Pp. 8. 



Increase of Magnetism in Soft Iron by 

 Reversal of Magnetizing Current. By W. 

 A. Burnham. Pp. 9. 



MISCELLANY. 



Artificial Butter. The American Chem- 

 ist for April contains a very full account of 

 the manufacture of artificial butter, of which 

 the following is a synopsis : Some years 

 ago M. Mege Mouriez was commissioned by 



the French Government to make some re- 

 searches with a view to obtain a product 

 suitable to take the place of ordinary but- 

 ter, to be sold at a much lower price, and 

 capable of being kept without becoming 

 rancid. M. Mege Mouriez placed several 

 milch-cows on a strict diet. The animals 

 were quickly reduced in weight, and gave 

 a proportionately less amount of milk ; but 

 this milk always contained butter. Where 

 could it come from ? M. Mege Mouriez be- 

 lieved it was produced from the fat of the 

 animal, which, being carried into the cir- 

 culation, was deprived of its stearine by 

 respiratory combustion, and furnished its 

 oleo-margarine to the udder, and there, 

 under the influence of the mammary pep- 

 sin, it was changed into butyric oleo-mar- 

 garine, or butter. Guided by this observa- 

 tion, M. Mege Mouriez was not long in ob- 

 taining, by an ingenious process, from beef- 

 suet a fat fusible at nearly the same tempera- 

 ture as butter, and of agreeable taste. He 

 then transformed this same fat into butter 

 by a process similar to that of Nature. His 

 process is as follows : The fat of newly- 

 slaughtered beef, of the best quality, is 

 ground up between two cylinders, and then 

 falls into a deep vat heated by steam, and 

 containing for every 1,000 kilogrammes of 

 fat, 300 kilogrammes of water, and one kilo- 

 gramme of potassic carbonate, besides two 

 sheep's or pigs' stomachs in small pieces. 

 The temperature is then raised to 45 Cent, 

 and the mass carefully stirred. At the end 

 of two hours the fat all rises to the sur- 

 face. It is then let off into another vat, 

 heated on a water-bath to 30 or 40 Cent., 

 and two per cent, of sea-salt added, to facili- 

 tate the depuration. In the course of two 

 hours it becomes clear, and presents a fine 

 yellow color, and the odor of freshly- 

 churned butter. Having been carefully 

 cooled, it is cut into cakes, packed in linen, 

 and placed under an hydraulic press, and is 

 then separated into two nearly equal parts, 

 viz., stearine and liquid oleo-margarine. The 

 stearine is used for making candles. After 

 cooling, the oleo-margarine is passed through 

 cylinders under a shower of water to wash 

 it and give it consistence : it constitutes 

 an excellent cooking-grease. 



It is with oleo-margarine that M. Mege 

 Mouriez, by operating in the following man- 



