198 



mined consisted of wheat flour in large quantities, highly coloured 

 with turmeric, and a variable but generally small quantity of genuine 

 mustard. In some cases mustard was present only in the form of a 

 little husk. In short, genuine mustard cannot be bought at any 

 price. 



Forty-four samples of wheat flour were examined, including several 

 both of French and American flour, procured from all quarters of the 

 metropolis, and in no case was any foreign matter detected. This 

 announcement is gratifying, but our pleasure is destroyed when we 

 proceed to the reports on bread. The adulterations we have hitherto 

 considered, however injurious they may be to the pocket, have not 

 been for the most part prejudicial to health, but it is painful to find 

 that in the case of this first necessary of life, the adulteration usually 

 practised cannot fail to act injuriously on the digestive organs. 

 Bread as sold in London is largely adulterated with alum. This is 

 done to whiten inferior flour, and to increase the weight of the bread 

 by causing a larger quantity of water to be retained. We hope that 

 the i£20 penalty which the law inflicts for this practice will no longer 

 be permitted to remain a dead letter. The presence of alum in bread 

 may be thus detected : — " Take one ounce of bread ; pour three ounces 

 of distilled water over this ; macerate for two hours ; at the end of that 

 time squeeze the water out of the bread, strain and filter ; test with 

 ammonia for alumina; if this substance be present, a copious white 

 precipitate will subside, soluble in excess of potash." 



We give the following extract without comment, having had no 

 opportunity of verifying the statements here made of the development 

 of the yeast-plant, a good account of which has long been desired by 

 microscopic botanists : — 



" The development of the yeast-plant may be divided into three 

 very distinct and natural stages. 



" First stage, or that of Sporules. — In this, the ordinary state in 

 which the yeast-plant is met with, it consists entirely of sporules ; 

 these are for the most part separate, but sometimes feebly united in 

 twos, threes, and even in greater numbers; they vary in size and 

 form ; some are several times smaller than others, and nearly all con- 

 tain one or two nuclei, which are the germs of future sporules. 



" Second stage, or that of Thallus. — After the lapse of some days, 

 and under favourable circumstances, the sporules become much elon- 

 gated ; a division or partition appears in each, and it now consists of 

 two distinct cells; the extension still continuing, other septa appear, 

 until at length jointed threads, at first simple and undivided, after- 



