76 



Canada, from Italy, from Sweden, from Denmaak, Spain, and Austria. 

 It is true of tiie saying as regards tea and sugar, that the world must 

 be compassed before the washerwoman can sit down to breakfast ; and 

 the butter at my table is now nearly as great a traveller. The export 

 of butter from Denmark to our Indian Empire in tins has become a 

 large trade. Considered chemically, the fat of butter has a more 

 complex constitution than most other fats. Its main peculiarity is in 

 the substance butyrin, to which butter owes most of its peculiar flavour 

 and smell ; and this it is that distinguishes it from other fats. By 

 oxydation, it yields butyric acid, remarkable for its strong rancid 

 odour ; and to the oxydation of this and other elements is due the 

 tendency of butter to become rancid long before such fats as suet for 

 instance. 



I think when I mention the names of the various substances 

 occurring in butter, you will be satisfied with its chemical variety. 

 They are — Palmitin, stearine, olein, butyrin ; with four fatty acids — 

 Butyric, capronic, caprylic, and capric ; the latter being named from 

 their similarity in odour to that of the goat secretion. In cheese 

 making, the enclosure in the curd of a proportion of butter fat repre- 

 sents the difference between a rich and poor cheese— such as Cheddar 

 and Dutch. In the first place, pains are taken to ensure the presence 

 of a large proportion of butter ; in the latter, pains are taken by the 

 thrifty people to exclude it. They market the butter alone, or, as an 

 admixture. Dutch cheese consists almost entirely of curd, nutritious 

 enough in its nitrogenous power, but awfully difficult and slow of 

 digestion — to those unprovided with gizzards. The rapid melting of 

 butter in the mouth is indicative of a loiver melting point than that of 

 other fats. The clinging sensation of the fat of a half-cold boiled leg 

 of mutton has been familiar to most of us in our boarding school 

 dinners, if we were so unfortunate as to be among the last helped. The 

 different melting points of various fats are — Butter, 35 deg. centrigrade 

 scale ; ox fat, 48 deg. ; mutton, 50 ; lard, 42 ; tallow, 62 ; cocoa butter, 

 35 ; and butterine, 34. 



The last of this list is a creation essentially born of our time and 

 the scarcity of true butter fat. It is sometimes fairly sold for what it 

 is, for what it is worth ; not unfrequently for what it is not ; and it also 

 forms a basis of adulteration with butter. Years ago, one heard of 

 London and Ostend butter. We knew that butter did not grow in 



