136 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[J"iy, 



so much the report of an individual 

 that no other member would sign it ; 

 hence, no committee report has yet 

 appeared. We trust this is not so, 

 but that the free testimony of all the 

 members will be given next month, 

 properly signed. A committee of the 

 Society can scarcely permit one per- 

 son to be a self-appointed spokesman, 

 and any attempt in this direction de- 

 serves to be severely censured. 



Some criticisins of Professor Tay- 

 lor's method have been made from 

 time to time, and these have cast 

 some doubts upon the reliability of it 

 among a large number of persons. 

 We leave it to Dr. Taylor to answer 

 his critics, as he seems abundantly 

 able to do ; but we cannot refrain 

 from expressing the regret we have 

 felt at the attempts that have been 

 m a d e , apparently from unworthy 

 motives, to belittle the merit which 

 certainly belongs to Dr. Taylor, as 

 the discoverer of the process, until the 

 accuracy of his statements have been 

 disproved. And we niay assert, with- 

 out hesitation, that, so far as we have 

 been able to understand the sul^ject, 

 and the published articles relating to 

 it, the accuracy of it has not been dis- 

 proved, and we fullv svmpathize with 

 the tone of Dr. Taylor's response to 

 the at least very uncalled-for commu- 

 nication of an eminent entomologist, 

 who claimed no special knowledge 

 of the subject, which recently ap- 

 peared in the newspapers. 



We claim no special acquaintance 

 with the processes ourselves, but in the 

 light of all that has been published 

 Dr. Taylor surely has the best of the 

 argument ; and in behalf of pure jus- 

 tice we are led to make these remarks. 

 We do not ask that his statements be 

 blindly accepted, but we do say that 

 those who deny them should give 

 experimental proofs to sustain their 

 position, and not allow personal ani- 

 mosities or jealousy to bias their 

 judgment, or influence public opin- 

 ion. 



We cannot overlook the statements 

 attributed to Professor Weber, of 



Columbus, Ohio, who, it appears, 

 questions the reliability of the method 

 of Dr. Taylor, since the results of his 

 experiments do not fully accord with 

 those of Dr. Taylor. It is but just to 

 the latter gentleman, how^ever, to state 

 that he says the Professor does not fol- 

 low his method, and therefore does 

 not reach the same results. This, 

 from the published accounts we have 

 seen, appears to be strictly true. If 

 it were not that the gentlemen en- 

 gaged in this work are presumed to 

 be scientific gentlemen, seeking for 

 the truth alone, we would be in- 

 clined to say a deliberate effort has 

 been made to disprove facts for an 

 unworthy purpose. It is certainly 

 not easy to understand how a compe- 

 tent scientific observer can be led to 

 criticise a method without following 

 the processes described, which are, 

 pi'esumably at least, an essential part 

 of it. Such criticism is trivial, inex- 

 cusable, and very unjust. 



The steps of Dr. Taylor's process 

 are simple and rational. The prin- 

 ciple upon which he works is essen- 

 tially sound. It involves no new 

 discoveries concerning crystalline 

 forms, since the crystals of butter and 

 other fats have long been known. He 

 has studied some of them more critic- 

 ally than has been done before, and 

 has probably incidentally acquired a 

 better knowledge of their peculiari- 

 ties than has any other person. But 

 the merit of his discoveries lies in the 

 application of well-known facts, and 

 the perfection of a method whereby 

 he asserts that the presence and iden- 

 tity of foreign fats in butter can be 

 detected with certainty. The mat- 

 ter of butter crvstals, which seems to 

 be a stumbling-block to many, may 

 be disregarded at present, and the St. 

 Andrew's cross is nothing very won- 

 derful or significant, although it has 

 figured pretty largeh' in this matter. 

 In practice it is not required to detect m 

 butter in the presence of other fats, ' 

 but to detect other fats in butter, and 

 since oleo and lard are crystalline 

 fats (except under very unusual con- 



