1826.] on the Art of Baking Bread. 265 



particularly those of Gonnesse, as used in the beautiful bread 

 with which the inhabitants of Paris have long been extensively 

 supplied from that town ; of Selzer, in Germany ; and of two 

 others near Saratoga, in America, which, owing to their being 

 naturally impregnated in a high degree with carbonic acid gas, 

 serve to the surrounding district as a perfect substitute for the 

 fermentation of yeast in the manufacture of bread. All of which 

 facts, if strictly correct, certainly tended to establish the theory 

 of Edlin, which was, that the activity of yeast in exciting the 

 saccharine fermentation of dough, resides exclusively in the 

 carbonic acid gas with which that liquid is always nearly satu- 

 rated, when kept properly excluded from the open air. 



There is another opinion deserving to be mentioned on this 

 subject, which is pretty much to the same effect with Edlin's, 

 and is said to be built on the respectable authority of Mr. 

 Henry, of Manchester. This is stated in the Supplement to the 

 Encyclopeedia Britannica, under the article Baking, where it is 

 related, as the result of certain experiments made by the gentle- 

 man just mentioned, " that if flour be kneaded into dough with 

 water, saturated with carbonic acid gas, the dough rises as well, 

 and the bread is as light and well-tasted as when it is baked 

 with yeast." It is farther added by the author of the article, 

 that if, instead of the ordinary dose of common salt, or muriate 

 of soda, being mixed with the dough in the usual way, its con- 

 stituents, soda (combined with carbonic acid, in the state of the 

 common carbonate), and muriatic acid, in their due proportion, 

 '* be kneaded as rapidly as possible with the dough, it will rise 

 immediately, fully as much, if not more, than dough mixed with 

 yeast, and, when baked, will constitute a very light and excel- 

 lent bread." 



If these opinions were well founded, they certainly might 

 often be of no small consequence to the baker, in saving him 

 from the delay of the yeast-fermentation, and from much of the 

 labour of kneading. But we find, on the one hand, however, 

 standing directly opposed to them, the experiments of M. Vogel, 

 who assures us that, contrary to what has been asserted with so 

 much appearance of plausibility by Mr. Edlin, he was unable to 

 obtain the slightest trace of real fermentation, in dough which 

 had been prepared merely with a saturated aqueous solution of 

 carbonic acid gas, instead of the customary mixture of yeast and 

 water. He states further, that such dough, when baked, after 

 having been kept in a warm situation during the usual time, 

 afforded nothing better than a hard cake, which had no resem- 

 blance to ordinary bread. And he adds also as illustrative of 

 the general necessity of providing a sufficient supply of disen- 

 gaged elastic fluid within the dough, before baking it at all, that, 

 when he made various attempts to form a well-raised vesicular 

 loaf, within the oven, by mixing flour with carbonate of magnesia. 



