Natural History. 229 



may be made. A pine apple will keep for a long time when its 

 crown is removed, and will also be greatly improved in flavour, for 

 the more aqueous parts of the fruit gradually evaporate, and leave 

 it much more saccharine and vinous in its flavour ; which natural 

 process is totally destroyed by the vegetation of the crown, just 

 upon the same principle that an onion or carrot loses its flavour 

 when it begins to sprout in the spring. 



14. Mode of Condensing and Preserving Vegetable Substances for 

 Ships^ Provision, <^c. — The quantity of liquid matter which enters 

 into the constitution of vegetables is very great; when they are 

 deprived of it their bulk is very trifling. That preparation of 

 animal food called pemmican^ in which six pounds of meat are con- 

 densed into the space of one, is mainly effected by abstracting all 

 the fluid from it. Vegetables may be treated in the same way : 

 let them undergo the process of boiling over a fierce wood fire, so 

 as to preserve their colour when completely cooked ; grind them 

 into a complete pulp by some such means as are used to crush 

 apples for cider, &c. ; then let them be subjected to the action of 

 the press, (being first put into hair bags, or treated as grapes are 

 in wine countries,) till all the fluid matter is separated from them ; 

 the remainder of their substance becomes wonderfully condensed, 

 and as hard as the rnarc from the wine press. Then let it be 

 rammed hard into carefully glazed air-tight jars, (or tin cases, if 

 preferred,) and subjected to the Appertian process for preserving 

 animal and vegetable matters, (well known, by-the-by, to our 

 grandmothers, who preserved gooseberries in this way from time 

 immemorial.) If jars are used, they may be sufficiently secured by 

 having two pieces of bladder tied successively over them ; when 

 the air within is absorbed by heating the inclosed substance, their 

 surface becomes concave by the pressure of the atmosphere, and 

 as long as it remains in this state the matter within is safe. If it 

 should be thought requisite to preserve the flavour of the vegetables 

 entire, an extract should be made from the expressed liquid, and 

 added to the marc. But spinage, cabbage, and many others, have 

 abundance of flavour in them in their dry state without this addition. 

 The preparation of the vegetable matter for use is accomplished by 

 adding a sufficient quantity of milk, water, gravy, lime juice, &c., 

 to the marc, and warming it up. Let the government, and the 

 dealers in ships* provision, look to this; a sufficient quantity of this 

 vegetable pemmican would be the greatest luxury to a ship's crew, 

 and render the scurvy utterly obsolete. It is worthy of remark, 

 that the most irritable stomach is not offended by vegetables treated 

 in this way. 



15. Rewards for the Discovery of Quinia, and for Lithotrity. — 

 The Academic des Sciences has adjudged a prize of 10,000 francs 

 to MM. Pelletier and Caventou, for their discovery and introduction 



