CIIKKSK. FILLED. 



CHEMISTRY. 



113 



with more skimmed milk. When tiiis is properly 

 i. rennet is added, which roagulates the mass, 

 ami tin- usual process of cheese making is proceeded 

 with. Tin. 1 cost of manufacture depends mainly 

 upnii the market price of neutral lard. At the 

 :it rau-s. tilled cheese can lie made and placed 

 upon the market at about 5 rents a pound. It was 

 quoted at wholesale at 5 and -H cents, while full- 

 cream Wisconsin cheese stood ftl ::ts. 



The reputation of American cheese has been af- 

 fected injuriously by the manufacture and sale of 

 filled cheese falsely branded as the genuine article. 

 It has been shipped to the South and to manufac- 

 turing and mining centers branded as " Extra New 

 York Cream Cheese" or " Extra Wisconsin Cream 

 Cheese," and sold as such. This element of fraud 

 was the principal motive for restrictive legislation 

 on the subject. In Canada and several States of the 

 Union its manufacture and sale have been prohibited. 

 The law enacted by Congress, approved June 6, 

 . imposing a tax upon and regulating the man- 

 ufacture, stile, importation, and exportation of filled 



at into effect Sept. 4, 1896. It iin: 

 an internal-revenue tax of 1 cent a pound on the 

 domestic article, to be paid by stamps affixed to the 

 packages. Manufacturers are required to pay a 

 ,1 tax, or. as it is popularly called, a license, of 

 per annum; wholesale dealers. $250; and re- 

 tail dealers. slO. Manufacturers must file with the 

 Collectors of Internal Revenue such notices, inven- 

 tories, and bonds: keep such books, and render such 

 returns, and conduct their business under such sur- 

 veillance of officers and agents as the Commissioner 

 of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the 

 retary of the Treasury, may require. The article 

 must be packed by manufacturers in wooden pack- 

 marked and branded with the words ''Filled 

 Cheese"; manufacturers and wholesale dealers 

 must sell only in original stamped packages, and 

 retail dealers in wooden or paper packages marked 

 and branded in accordance with prescribed regula- 

 tions. Filled cheese imported from foreign coun- 

 tries must pay an internal-revenue tax of 8 cents a 

 pound in addition to the import duty. 



The law was patterned after the oleomargarine 

 law. with some modifications. These consist prin- 

 cipally in the reduction of the taxes, fines, and pen- 

 alties. The raising of revenue was a secondary ob- 

 ject. A nominal tax was placed on the article so 

 as to give Congress jurisdiction of the subject, and 

 thus secure the accomplishment of the main object, 

 which was to identify the cheese and give the pur- 

 chaser notice of what it really is. as in the case of 

 oleomargarine. The opponents of the law claimed 

 that it sought to build up one industry at the ex- 

 pense of another, and was a perversion of the tax- 

 ing power of the Government, and was unconstitu- 

 tional. It is claimed by some that filled cheese is 

 an unwholesome article of food. They allege that 

 the lard used in place of the butter fat is indigesti- 

 ble, and that it is not heated sufficiently in the 

 process of manufacture to destroy the animal germs 

 that may exist therein. The weight of testimony 

 taken before the Committee on Ways and Means, 

 when the bill was pending in the House of Repre- 

 sentatives, was to the effect that it was a wholesome 

 food product at least not unwholesome. The ma- 

 terials used in its manufacture are all products of 

 the farm, and are recognized, separately and com- 

 bined, as wholesome articles of food. Authorities 

 differ as to the relative digestibility of different 

 fats, such as butter fat and pork fat or lard : but 

 immense quantities of pork fat. in all forms, are 

 consumed by various classes of people without 

 detriment to' health. The Secretary of Agriculture 

 is authority for the statement that' the liability to 

 use raw materials containing the germs of disease 

 VOL. xxxvi. 8 A 



is about the same in making genuine cheese as in 

 making filled cheese. Il iivey 



the germs of disease from rows and lion's to the 

 human family, but the danger can not be regarded 

 ious in either case. 



Before the passage of the law there were about 

 100 filled-cheese factories in the country, producing 

 about 12.000,000 pounds annually. Illinois was the 

 center of the industry, and Chicago the principal 

 market and distributing point. The effect of the 

 law has been to reduce the production of the article 

 greatly and improve the market for full-cream 

 cheese. For the fiscal year ended June :>u. l^'.i?, 

 there were qualified under the law 2 manufacturers 

 in Illinois, 18 wholesale dealers (15 in Louisiana, 2 

 in Missouri, and 1 in Illinois), and 1 retail dealer in 

 Illinois. The annual revenue anticipated from this 

 source is small. The internal-revenue receipts to 

 Nov. 1, 1896, from all sources relating to filled 

 cheese were si. '215.68. 



CHEMISTRY. Chemical Theory. In the 

 Bakerian lecture for 1894 Dr. T. S. Thorpe and 

 J. W. Roger gave an account of their studies of 

 the viscosity of about 70 liquids, and discussed 

 the interdependence of viscosity and chemical com- 

 position. In order to render their investigation 

 more complete they have now made measurements 

 of the viscosity of (1) a number of ethereal salts 

 and (2) of ethers, simple and compound. The phys- 

 ico-chemical relationships previously established 

 made such determinations of special interest, for it 

 was shown that one of the most striking. of the va- 

 rious connections traced between chemical consti- 

 tution and viscosity was the influence exerted by 

 oxygen, according to the different modes in which 

 it was assumed to be connected with the other 

 atoms in the molecule. The influence which could 

 be ascribed to hydroxyl -oxygen differs to a most 

 marked extent from that of carbonyl-oxygen, and 

 it appeared that ether-oxygen, or oxygen linked to 

 two carbon atoms, had also a value which differed 

 considerably from that of oxygen in other condi- 

 tions. The authors conclude that both ethers and 

 esters give no evidence of molecular aggregation, 

 and conform to the rules that in homologous se- 

 ries, the viscosity is greater the greater the molecu- 

 lar weight ; that an iso-compound has a smaller 

 viscosity than a normal isomer : and that the more 

 symmetrical the molecule of an isomeric compound 

 the lower is the viscosity. The authors add notes 

 regarding the characteristics of the esters them- 

 selves, the algebraical representation of the results, 

 and the relationships existing between the various 

 viscosity magnitudes. 



Observations by Dr. J. H. Gladstone on the rela- 

 tion between the refraction of the elements and 

 their chemical equivalents show that the metals 

 which have the same valency have the same, or 

 nearly the same, constant of refraction for equiva- 

 lent weights ; that the constant of the bivalent, triv- 

 alent. quadrivalent, and apparently quinquivalent 

 groups are practically the same, ranging about 

 TGI : and that when the metal combines in a pro- 

 portion that indicates a lower valency than that 

 ordinarily assigned to it its constant is somewhat 

 elevated." The relation involved is not between the 

 optical property and the atomic weight, but between 

 it and the electro-chemical equivalent. It is pro- 

 posed to give this product the descriptive name 

 "refractive constant of _, equivalent weights." It 

 may be represented by S.E*constant or by S 2 E con- 

 stant when S is the specific refraction and E the 

 chemical equivalent of the metal. This is sug- 

 gested as a first approximation to a law, which 

 holds good, however, only for the metallic elements, 

 and that when they are electro-positive radicals. 



Repeating before the British Association some 



