371 
‘in the Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society for that year ; 
T understand that a German, named Luck, published another 
analysis of it about ten years ago; and I have recently re- 
ceived the following communication from Mr. Sullivan, of 
the Museum of Irish Industry, who has paid much attention 
to thesubject ; — 
<*<] have obtained from every specimen which I ex- 
amined more or less of all the peculiar oily acids of butter, 
which renders it more than probable that they were all origi- 
nally butter. I may, however, observe, that the finding of 
these would not amount to absolute proof as to the substange 
being butter, as I have obtained butyric acid by the slow de- 
- composition of flour under water; also from brain and meat, 
with fatty tissues attached; and we also know that all these 
acids can be produced by the oxidation of fats generally. One 
of the reasons which led me to think that they were originally 
butter is, that scarcely any of the other volatile acids of the 
series, produced by the oxidation of fats, besides those obtained 
directly from butter, are usually present in bog butter. I 
never detected the presence of salt in any of the specimens 
which I examined, at least not in any quantity to warrant the 
supposition that if it had been butter it was salted. In con- 
nexion with this result, which otherwise would be a great 
_ objection to the idea of its having been originally butter, it is 
well to bear in mind that butter is even now made in Cork and 
in the town of Antrim without salt.’ 
«Two circumstances may have influenced those who 
buried this butter : it was done either for the purpose of secu- 
rity, or in order to produce that very change in it which Petty 
calls rancid. In Classin and Povelson’s ‘ Travels in Iceland,’ 
we read that the peasantry and poor people eat in winter what 
is called sour butter, which is preserved without salt; and 
4 although it becomes in time acid, it may be preserved for more 
_ than twenty years. In former times there were public maga- 
zines attached to each bishop's see, in which great quantities of 
i li ee ee fal 
eS 
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