369 
severe frost of 1855 appeared to have so far altered the condi- 
tions of the atmosphere, that this esculent again assumed a 
healthy character, and regained its natural flavour. 
«‘ Kven yet we read that, in the Cahirciveen Union, ‘last 
season, there was a more extensive and destructive failure of 
the potato crop than was experienced there for the previous 
seven years; and the consequence was that, from the Ist of 
August up to the present date, no less than £29,000 worth of 
Indian corn and meal was landed on Cahirciveen quay for 
home consumption. —Kerry Evening Post. This blight was, 
however, very local. 
‘In enumerating the food of the Irish, Petty mentioned 
‘butter made rancid by keeping in bogs;’ and in the Irish 
Hudibras we read of — 
‘ Butter to eat with their hog, 
Was seven years buried in a bog.’ 
‘When I originally read the statement of Petty, I came 
to the conclusion that he was wrong, and that this bog butter 
was much older than his time, but I have learned to cor- 
rect that opinion. Why or wherefore the people put their 
butter in bogs I cannot tell, but it is a fact that great quan- 
- tities of this substance have been found in the bogs, and that 
it has invariably assumed the physical and chemical charac- 
ters presented by the specimen now before the Academy. It 
is converted into a hard, yellowish-white substance, like old 
Stilton cheese, and in taste resembling spermaceti; it is, in 
fact, changed into the animal substance denominated adipocere. 
Two questions arise, at what time the Irish ceased to bury 
butter, and how long it would take to produce this change 
in it. 
‘“‘ From the ‘ Mechanics’ Magazine,’ for September, 182-4, 
we learn that this substance, there styled ‘mineral tallow,’ . 
