292 M. D'Arcet on the Bones of Butcher's Meat. 



of tallo\y, and that they ought to be laid apart, and managed 

 separately. 



One hundred kilogrammes of bones contains thirty kil. of ge- 

 latine; and since ten grammesof gelatine are sufficient to animal^ 

 2;s^ a half litre of water at least of the best household soup, one kil. 

 of bones is sufficient to prepare thirty basins of soup of one 

 demi-litre ; but one kil. of meat will only furnish four basins 

 of soup ; from whence it follows, that by equal weight, the 

 bones supply to water seven times and a-half more animal mat- 

 ter than meat. 



One hundred kil. of butcher''s meat contain about 20 kil. of 

 bones. This quantity of meat making 400 basins of soup, 

 and the twenty kil. of bones making 600, we see, that, by ex- 

 tracting all the bones procured from a given quantity of meat, 

 three basins of soup can be made with the bones, while the 

 meat and the bones united actually give but two. 



With the bones contained in the meat consumed in the sin- 

 gle department of the Seine, we could prepare more than 

 ei^ht hundred thousand basins of soup per day. 



The gelatine of the bones can be extracted by submitting 

 them whole to the action of steam ; but the operation would 

 be tedious, even though there were no risk of changing the na- 

 ture of part of the gelatine in making use of the steam strongly 

 compressed, and it is better to bruise them ; but some precau- 

 tions are necessary. 



The bones must not be broken by redoubled blows, because 

 they contract thereby a very disagreeable empyreumatic smell. 

 They must be first soaked as much as possible, and then bro- 

 ken by a single blow in passing them between two grooved cy- 

 linders, or under a mell sufficiently heavy. On a small scale 

 we may make use of a dish and a mass of vvood, both cover- 

 ed with an iron plate cut into diamond points. In either case 

 care must be taken to soak the pieces of bone in water which are 

 to be broken again. They ought to be used immediately after, 

 or else kept plunged in fresh water, or, what is better, in water 

 almost saturated with salt. The bones, subjected a short time 

 after to steam strongly condensed, and to a dry heat of 

 130 to 140° C. break very easily ; but this process is subject to 

 the inconvenience of detaching parts of the fat ; and it should 



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