BISCUITS 343 



BINE. The name by which many of the coal-measure shales aro locally known 

 in some districts. They aro generally more or less bituminous and calcareous. 

 Since so much attention has been directed to the production of petroleum, many 

 of those ' binds ' have been subject to distillation, with variable results. See 

 PETROLEUM. 



BINDING COAL. See CoAL. 



BIRDLIME. (Glu, Fr. ; Vogdlcim, Ger.) The best birdlime may bo made from 

 tho middle bark of the holly boiled seven or eight hours in water, till it is soft and 

 tender, then laid by heaps in pits under ground, and covered with stones after the water 

 is drained from it. There it must bo left during two or three weeks, to ferment, in the 

 summer season, and watered, if necessary, till it passes into a mucilaginous state. It 

 is then to be pounded in a mortar to a paste, washed in running water, and kneaded 

 till it be free from extraneous matters. It is next left for four or five days in earthen 

 vessels to ferment and purify itself, when it is fit for use. Birdlime may be made by 

 tho samo process from tho mistletoe ( Viscum album), young shoots of elder, and 

 the barks of other vegetables, as well as from most parasitical plants. 



Good birdlime is of a greenish colour and sour flavour, somewhat resembling that 

 of linseed oil gluey, stringy, and tenacious. By drying in tho air it becomes 

 brittle, and may be powdered ; but its viscosity may be restored by moistening it. It 

 contains resin, mucilage, a little free acid, colouring and extractive matter. The resin 

 has been called visciiic. 



Macaire lias examined a substance which exudes from the receptacle and involucre 

 of the Atractylis gummifera, and describes it as tho pure matter of birdlime, which ho 

 calls viscine. Common birdlime may be regarded as a mixture of viscine, vegetable 

 mucilage, and vinegar. 



The mistletoe yields a peculiar viscid gluey substance, consisting of a green wax 

 and birdlime. 



BISCUITS. Biscuit-baking constitutes two separate branches of manufacture, 

 namely, that of ordinary biscuit, or, so to speak, biscuit ' proper,' for maritime 

 purposes, and that of fancy biscuits. Ordinary, or sailors' biscuit consists of only 

 flour and water kneaded into a paste, cut in the proper shape, docked, and baked 

 in an oven ; fancy biscuits consist also of flour and water, but with an addition of 

 butter, sugar, eggs, spices, or 'flavourings,' all or either of them according to tho 

 kind. 



Ships' biscuits are now made by machinery, and one of the reasons for this has been 

 that the manual preparation of them was too slow and too costly. A landsman 

 knows very little of the true value of a biscuit : with a seaman, biscuit is the only 

 bread that he eats for months together. There are many reasons why common loaves 

 of bread could not bo used during a long voyage : because, containing a fermenting 

 principle, they would soon become musty and unfit for food if made previous to 

 the voyage, while the preparation of them on board ship is subject to insuperable objec- 

 tions. Biscuits contain no leaven, and, when well baked throughout, they suffer little 

 change during a long voyage. 



Tho allowance of biscuit to each seaman on board a Queen's ship is a pound per day 

 (averaging six biscuits to tho pound). The supply of a man-of-war for several 

 months is, consequently, very large ; and it often happened during tho long war that 

 the difficulty of making biscuits fast enough was so great, that at Portsmouth waggon- 

 loads, brought from a distance, were unpacked in the streets and conveyed to the ships. 



We shall now describe the modo of making biscuits by hand, and afterwards speak 

 of the improved method. The bakehouse at Gosport contained nine ovens, and to 

 each was attached a gang of five men, the ' turner,' tho ' mate,' the ' driver,' tho 

 ' breakman,' and the ' idleman.' The requisite proportions of flour and water were 

 put into a large trough, and the ' driver,' with his naked arms, mixed the whole up 

 together into the form of dough a very laborious operation. The dough was then 

 taken from tho trough, and put on a wooden platform called the break : on this plat- 

 form worked a lever called the break-staff, five or six inches in diameter, and seven 

 feet long ; one end of this was loosely attached by a kind of staple to the wall, and 

 the breakman, riding or sitting on the other end, worked this lover to and fro over 

 tho dough by an uncouth jumping or shuffling movement. When the dough had 

 become kneaded by this barbarous method into a thin sheet, it was removed to tho 

 moulding board and cut into slips by means of an enormous knife ; these slips were 

 then broken into pieces, each largo enough for one biscuit, and then worked into u 

 circular form by tho hand. As each biscuit was shaped it was handed to a second 

 workman, who stamped the King's mark, tho number of tho oven, &c., on tho biscuit. 

 The biscuit -\vas then docked, that is, pierced with holes by an instrument adapted to 

 the purpose. The finishing part of tho process was one in which remarkable dex- 

 terity was displayed. A man stood before tho open door of the ovon, having in his 



