BUT 



163 



BUT 



good butter. Tli> ^aemortgf-rs have a 



Bort of factory tin n- for tliis article. It is bought 

 by the pot, of a cylindrical form, weighing 14 pound*. 



Tin- supi-rior excellence of the butter produced in 

 the Highland districts of Scotland, has been already 

 remarked, and we hope accounted for. The same 

 delicately flavoured species is said to be made on the 

 mountains of Wales, and the heaths and commons of 

 England. Whether the same reason will apply hcrr, 

 .-. e no means of ascertaining. 



!s and abuses of various kinds are practised 

 in the salting and packing of butter, to increase its 

 bulk and weight. Pots are frequently laid with good 

 butter for a little way at the top, and with bad at the 

 bottom. Sometimes the butter is placed in upright 

 rolls, touching one another above, so as to form a 

 uniform surface, but receding so as to leave empty 

 spaces below. Sometimes tallow or hogs-lard is 

 found to constitute no small proportion of what the 

 purchaser had deemed good butter. To prevent 

 these cheats, the factors at Utoxeter keep a surveyor, 

 who, in case of suspicion, tries the pots with an iron 

 instrument, called a butter-bore. 



An act of parliament (36th Geo. III. c. 86.) par- 

 ticularly regulates the packing, salting, and selling 

 of butter. By that statute it is enacted, that every 

 vessel made for the packing of butter, shall be of 

 good well-seasoned wood, marked with the maker's 

 name, and, by a subsequent act, his place of abode ; 

 that it shall be a tub containing 84-, a firkin contain- 

 ing 56, or a half firkin containing 28 pounds avoir- 

 dupois, and no other ; that it shall be of a particular 

 weight, and neither top nor bottom exceeding a cer- 

 tain thickness, having the true weight or tare of the 

 vessel, distinctly marked upon it ; with a variety of 

 other regulations to prevent frauds, under severe pe- 

 nalties. Any fraud with regard to the butter, the 

 vessel, or its marks, subjects the person concerned to 

 a forfeiture of L. 30 for every such offence. See 

 Fourcroy Systeme des Connuissanc.es Chimiques, torn. 

 ix. Deyeux and Parmentier, Memoire stir le lait. 

 Thomson's Chemistry. Anderson's Agricultural 

 Recreations, vol. iii. and iv. Anderson's Essays on 

 Agriculture. Mid Lothian Report, 1795. (*) 



BUTTERMERE. See CUMBERLAND. 



BUTTNERIA, a genus of plants of the class 

 Pentandria, and order Monogynia. See BOTANY, 

 p. 153. 



BUTTON MANUFACTURE. It will, perhaps, 

 excite some surprize, among persons unacquainted 

 with manufactures, that the fabrication of such tri- 

 fling articles as buttons should give employment to 

 many thousands of the inhabitants of Birmingham, 

 Sheffield, and other large towns in Great Britain ; 

 and that several very curious and expensive machines 

 are used to lessen the manual labour. 



The manufacture of buttons is divided into several 

 kinds, the formation of each of which is a distinct 

 business ; the manner of fabricating them varying as 



Seatly as the materials from which they are made. 

 cu n, leather, bone, and wood, are the substances 

 generally employed for buttons which are either plain, 

 or covered with silk, mohair, thread, or other ornamen- 

 tal materials. The most durable and ornamental but- 

 tons are made of various metals, polished, or covered 



with an exceeding thin wash, as it is termed, of some 

 more valuable metal, chiefly tin, silver, and gold. 



Those buttons intended to be covered with silk, 

 &c. are termed, in general, moulds. They arc bmall 

 circles, perforated in the centre, and made from those 

 refuse chips of bone which are too small for other 

 purposes. These chips, which, for the large and 

 coarser buttons are pieces of hard wood, are sawn in- 

 to thin flakes, of an equal thickness ; from which, by 

 the machine, as delineated in Plate CVII. Fig. 1. the 

 button moulds are cut out at two operations. The 

 lathe, as usual, is put in motion by a wheel A turned 

 by the foot, by means c:f a treadle B, and crank a. 

 The strap c gives a rapid rotatory motion to the 

 spindle D, mounted on its pivot in an iron frame. 

 One end of the spindle has a tool b, shewn enlarged 

 at L, screwed into it, and moving along with it ; and 

 the other extremity of the spindle is connected by a 

 peculiar kind of joint, with a lever e f, whose fulcrum 

 is e ; the other endy being connected with a second 

 lever and handle g, which the operator holds in his 

 left hand. The right hand is, at the same time, em- 

 ployed in holding the flake of bone d opposite the 

 tool b, against a piece of wood firmly fixed into the 

 iron standard E by two screws ; then, by drawing 

 the handle g forwards, the tool b being at the same 

 time in rapid motion by the foot wheel, its centre pin- 

 k (see the separate view at L) is pressed against the 

 bone, and drills a hole through in the centre of the in- 

 tended button ; and its two points /;, h describe a 

 deep circle in the bone, about half through its thick- 

 ness. The flat surface is cut smooth by the parts 

 in, m of the tool. The piece of bone is now moved a 

 small distance, to cut out another button from a fresh 

 part ; and when as many as the flake of bone will 

 contain are thus cut half through, the other side is 

 presented to the tool. The point k is inserted into 

 the hole made from the other side by the former 

 operation. The two teeth h, h of the tool now cut 

 another deep circle, exactly opposite the former, at 

 the same time cutting the flat surface smooth. By 

 this means the bone is cut through, and a button 

 mould left sticking on the point^of the tool. By 

 drawing back the handle g the tool recedes, and the 

 button meeting a fixed piece of iron plate, is forced 

 off the tool, and falls into- a small box at F, com- 

 pletely finished. Another part of the bone is now 

 presented to the tool, to cut out another mould. 

 These operations are conducted with such rapidity, 

 that a girl of ten or twelve years of age is enabled 

 to cut out twenty-five or thirty buttons per minute. 

 The larger kind of buttons are first cut from the 

 pieces of bone, and the smaller ones are afterwards 

 made from the spaces left between the first ; so that 

 the materials are made to yield the utmost to the 

 button-maker, and the remains are afterwards sold 

 to farmers for manure. The shavings, sawdust, and 

 more minute fragments, are used by manufacturers of 

 cutlery and iron toys, in the operations of case har- 

 dening ; so that not the smallest waste takes place. 

 Hard wood is cut into buttons in the same manner, 

 and afterwards dyed black in an infusion of sulphat 

 of iron and gall nuts. Oak, beech, or elder, is chief- 

 ly used, but only for large buttons, all the smaller 

 kinds being made of bone. 



Burton- 



button 



mould*. 



