m 



ANNALS 



OF 



PHILOSOPHY. 



SEPTEMBER, 1826. 



Article I. 



A Chemical Essay on the Art of Baking Bread. 

 By Hugh Colquhoun, MD. 



(To the Editors of the Annals of Philosophy.) J 



GENTLEMEN, 



Few chemical processes concern the heaUh and comfort of 

 every individual in the country more directly and immediately 

 than the art of baking bread, and yet there are, perhaps, not 

 many the rationale of which is less generally familiar. There 

 is little of attraction about the operations of a bake-house, and 

 it is far from pleasant, to any ordinary observer, to follow the 

 flour, through its various progressive changes, to the oven, and 

 then to superintend it in the last stage of its formation into 

 bread. But the remark is a true and a trite one, that the most 

 showy and striking phaenomena are not always the most truly 

 interesting or instructive when examined; and in the most com- 

 mon of all the mechanical arts, it will be occasionally found, 

 that there still remains room for amendments, even obvious to 

 the theorist who enters unprejudiced- upon the study of the 

 system, though they may have long escaped the notice of the 

 mechanic, bred up to follow a monotonous routine, which he is 

 either too indolent, or too ignorant, or too timid, or too much 

 the slave of habit, to think of disturbing. The following Essay 

 is submitted, therefore, to the public, in the hope, that while it 

 may prove not unworthy of the chemist's attention, it may also 

 be the means of conveying some useful practical hints to the 

 mechanic. At the same time, it is necessary to premise, that- 

 in regard to some of the manipulatory improvements which are 

 proposed in the following pages, the only remarkable thing is 

 that they should have remained till now almost entirely, if not 

 indeed altogether, unknown to the baker's practice. It has not 

 required much science to suggest perhaps the principal among 



New Series J vol. xii. m 



