BARLEY, POT AN'D PEARL. 



BARO'METKU 



i purpose 

 U mid to be the construction of several of these milla. 



The other kind of mill is in general un in Scotland, where most of 

 the pot and pearl-barley uMd in thU country ire prepared. It was 

 originally introduced from Holland, whence formerly all Europe WM 

 once supplied with pearl-barley, commonly called Dutch pearl-barley. 

 Thi* mill cooaiiU of a common grindatone mich u cutlen uae, about 

 three feet in diameter, rerolring vertically on a horizontal axis. A 

 caw, aimiUr to the one already described, revolves on the same axis, 

 and in the same direction, with a alower motion. Sometime* flat, the 

 aide* of this case, at well a* the rim or circumference, are composed of 

 perfor .. d plates of iron ; but this u not absolutely necessary. The 

 barter prepared at before, U put in by a square opening in the circum- 

 ference, the slide shut, and the machinery is set in motion, until the 

 barley, tossed between the stone and the case by the double motion, 

 ban been entirely deprived of its skin, and u become pot-barley ; or till 

 it is ground into the small round shape of pearl-barley. The mill is 

 then stopped, the slide pulled out, and the case being turned so as to 

 have the opening undermost, the prepared barley falls out into the bag 

 or bin placed to receive it. The grain scarcely wants any sifting ; for 

 such is the violence with which it has been tossed about, that all that 

 is ground off U driven through the holes in the case, and U collected in 

 a dose chamber which surrounds the apparatus, as in the other mill. 

 The mechanism by which the motions of the stone and case are pro- 

 duced, is extremely simple, and will be easily understood by reference 

 to a figure, which, although taken from a portable hand-mill for making 

 pearl-barley, u on the same principle as the larger. 



By this combination of wheel- work, if the handle turns once in a 

 nonnd. the case turns fifteen times in a minute, and the xtone 300 

 times. This is the usual velocity in large mills. A hand-mill may be 

 moved with one-half or two-thirds of this velocity, the stone being also 

 smaller. When the power is sufficient to turn a stone three feet in 

 diameter 300 times in a minute, three bushels of barley may be con- 

 verted into pot-barley in an hour, and into pearl-barley in two hours. 



The advantages of the mill shown in the next figure are considerable. 

 It requires no very nice adjustment, and is not easily put out of order. 

 The stone may continue in use, although considerably worn down, even 

 to half its original diameter. There is no danger of crushing any of 

 the grains, nor much waste ; and whatever be the size of the grains, it 

 grinds them equally. If the pearl-barley is required very equal in 

 size, it may easily be sorted by wire sieves. The only defect of this 

 construction is the loss of time and of power which it occasions, by the 

 case being stopped to take out the prepared groin, and replace it by 

 fresh barley. Ingenuity will probably find means of removing this 

 defect ; but we are not aware of any late improvements in the con- 

 struction of these mills. 



Pot and pearl-barley are very wholesome and nutritious, and have a 

 more agreeable taste than barley-meal ; and it is to be regretted that 

 they are not more used as food by the labouring classes in England, as 



[Band Barley Mill, with the perforated plain on the cue.] 



they are in Scotland, Germany, and Holland. The essential oil ol 

 barley, which gives it its peculiar taste, resides chiefly in the skin and 

 adjacent parts of the grain ; the interior is a purer farina, more nearly 

 resembling that of wheat. This has probably suggested the idea ol 

 removing them outer parts, as less palatable, and given rise to the 

 manufacture of pearl-barley, the farina of which approaches nearer to 

 pun fectila, or starch. This farina, obtained by grinding pearl-barley 

 in a common mill. U sold under the name of patent barley, and U used 

 extensively for readily making barley-water for the sick. But if the 

 essential oil of barley pom esses any medicinal properties, it is evident 

 fr<<m what was observed before, that common pot-barley would be 

 preferable for making a decoction of barley when prescribed as a 



remedy. The great use of pot and pearl-barley is in broths, stews, and 

 puddings, as a substitute for rice. It swells, and has the property of 

 uniting wall with the fat and oily matters extracted from meat in 

 boiling. Barley-broth is a constant and principal dish at every family 

 dinner among the middling ranks in Scotland, and not despised by the 

 liigher. Even the bran, having been steeped in water, and allowed to 

 ferment till it becomes acid, U relished by the lower orders in the mess 

 called Kmma. In Holland, pot-barley, boiled in butter-milk and 

 sweetened with treacle, is a common food for children and servants. 



BARLEY-BREAK, a popular pastime of the reign of James I., 

 illusions to which repeatedly occur in our old writers. It was played 

 by six people, three of each sex, who were coupled by lot A piece of 

 ground was then chosen and divided into three compartments, of which 

 the middle one was called hell It was the object of the coup; 

 demned to this division, to catch the others who advanced from th<> 

 two extremities ; in which case a change of situation took place, and 

 bell was filled by the couple who were excluded, by pre-oocupation, 

 from the other places. In this " catching," however, there was some 

 difficulty, as, by the regulations of the game, the middle couple were 

 not to separate before they had succeeded, while the others might break 

 hands whenever they found themselves hard pressed. When all had 

 been taken in turn, the last couple was said to be in hell, and the game 

 inded. 



Several poetical descriptions of this amusement are extant : one in 

 ' Barley-breake, or a Warning for Wantons,' written by W. N. Gent., 

 4to, Lond. 1607; another in Sir Philip Sydney's ' Arcadia ;' and a thir.l 

 in Sir John Suckling's ' Poems,' the two last of which have been quoted 

 by Brand in his account of Barley-break, ' Popular Antiquities,' vol. ii. ; 

 see also Gifford's ' Notes ' to his edition of Maasinger, who has frequent 

 allusions to Barley-break. 



Dr. Jamieson, in his ' Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Lan- 

 guage,' gives an account of this game as it is still played in the north of 

 Scotland. He calls it " a gome generally played by young people in a 

 corn-yard ; hence called ' Barla-bracks about the stacks.' One stack is 

 fixed on as the dale or goal ; and one person is appointed to catch 

 the rest of the company, who run out from the dule. He does not 

 leave it till they ore all out of his sight Then he sets off to catch tlu-m. 

 Any one who is taken, cannot run out again with his former associates, 

 being accounted a prisoner, but U obliged to assist his captor in pur- 

 suing the rest. When all are taken, the game is finished ; and he who 

 was first taken, is bound to act as catcher in the next gome." He odds, 

 " This innocent sport seems to be almost entirely forgotten in the 

 south of Scotland ; it is also falling into desuetude in the north." 



Nares, in his' Glossary,' 4to, Lond. 1822, says, our very puerile game 

 of tiui seems to be derived from barley-break ; there was a tig or tag in 

 the Yorkshire game of barley-break, as played within memory ; thu 

 touch of the person called tig or tag made a prisoner. 

 BARM. [YEAST.] 

 BARN. [HOMESTEAD.] 



BARO'METER, from two Greek words, frtpts, weight, and nfrpw, a 

 measure, or the measurer of weight, a term generally applied to those 

 instruments in which a column of air is weighed against a column of 

 mercury. 



The invention of the barometer is one of the most curious in the 

 history of philosophy. No new discoveries, not even those first sub- 

 stantiated by the telescope, ever knocked so hard at the door of a 

 received system, or in a manner which so imperiously demanded 

 admission, as this one. It will therefore be worth while to state the 

 circumstances attending it 



The phenomena of the common pump had been well known for more 

 than a century at least before the commencement of the Christian era. 

 The mode of explaining them was simply by means of the well-known 

 maxim, that " nature abhors a vacuum." Nor do we know of any 

 experimental attempt to discover why nature abhorred a vacuum 

 before the time of Oalileo. The phrase itself, considered simj.; 

 representation of a well-known fact namely, that the laws of nature 

 will not permit a vacuum to exist may be as useful now as then. Hut 

 considered as on explanation, we need not dwell upon its utter worth- 

 leasnesa. We might equally well explain how a stone falls 16 feet 

 1 inch in the first second of its descent by saving that its nature has 

 an antipathy to more, and a repugnance (if we wish to vary the phrase) 

 to less. 



Very general terms, such as racuum, space, &c., furnish no testa of 

 the validity of a method of explanation, when compared with others 

 which have direct numerical meaning. The common story is, that tli 

 pump-makers of the Duke of Florence found that water would not rise 

 in the pipe of the pump higher than 32 feet, or thereabouts, when the 

 air was exhausted from it. They applied to Galileo for a solution <>f 

 this problem, and he, having his mind pre-occupied by th usual form 

 of words, gave them a very simple answer, namely, that the power of 

 nature to contend against a vacuum ceased when she had destroyed 

 one of 32 feet high. [GALILEO, Bioo. Drv.] That the mysterious 

 indefinite nature should be in constant hostility to the equally myste- 

 rious indefinite racuum, would not then appear ludicrous ; but Marty- 

 too feel must have destroyed all the poetry of the explanation, and it 

 had nothing else to depend upon. The above story is told in 

 different ways (it has been said, for instance, that the answer of CialiK-o 

 was ironical), but whichever may be true, it U most probable that it 



