305 



BREAD. 



BREAD. 



306 



much less certain and effective, a great expenditure of ammunition is 

 entailed, and in fact it is very doubtful, judging by experience, 

 whether anything is gained by thus pressing on sieges. At the same 

 time it must be remarked, that in many old fortresses, the escarp is 

 very much exposed, that is, not well covered by the glacis, especially from 

 some commanding height in the neighbourhood, and in this case there 

 will of course be little necessity for establishing breaching batteries 

 close, and they have occasionally been effective as far as 1000 or 1200 

 yards. 



No precise rule can be given, either as to the length of time or 

 amount of ammunition required to make a breach, as both will vary 

 much under different circumstances. The French, in their siege of 

 Antwerp in 1832, made a breach 80 feet in width with six 24-pounders, 

 from a distance of 55 yards in 34 hours, with an expenditure of 1288 

 rounds. The English, at the siege of St. Sebastian, to form the main 

 breach, 100 feet in width, used ten guns at a distance of 620 yards, 

 and took 95J hours, with an expenditure of 13,000 rounds. In 

 the former case we have 16 shots per running foot of breach, and in 

 the latter 130. At Metz, in forming an experimental breach, only 

 4 shots were required per running foot. In this case, however, the 

 disturbing circumstances of being under fire were wanting to make it 

 a good guide. To form a breach in a revetment, such as that proposed 

 by Carnot (a detached wall covered by an earthen rampart in front), 

 is still more difficult, and was at one time considered impracticable. 

 It was, however, demonstrated by experiments at Woolwich, that 

 it could be effected by heavy guns (68-pounder carronades, and 8-inch and 

 10-inch howitzers), firing, from a distance of 400 or 500 yards, shot and 

 shell with small charges, at an elevation of about 10 or 15. These 

 passing over the earthen embankment, struck near the foot of the 

 wall and made a breach 14 feet in width in six hours, with an expen- 

 diture of 1400 rounds. The limit- of this article will not permit of 

 any further details of this important subject. It is probable, however, 

 that the increased range and penetration of the rifled cannon, at 

 present being experimented on, will render the formation of breaches 

 an easier and more certain operation. 



Breaches are occasionally, when the flanking fire is bad, or thoroughly 

 subdued, formed by mining. In this case, a small party of miners is 

 pushed across the ditch, and protecting themselves by blindages 

 [BLIXDAOE] from the effect of missiles thrown down upon them from 

 above, proceed to push a gallery into the revetment, which, when it has 

 gone far enough in, bifurcates to the right and left, where chambers 

 are formed for the charges of powder, which are placed immediately 

 behind counterforts, and require some nicety of adjustment as, if 

 they are too large or too small a practicable breach is not made ; and 

 indeed at any time it is not a very certain method of forming a breach, 

 as the d&jria of the masonry is usually in such large masses as to present 

 a great obstacle to men attempting to mount. 



Lodgments are formed on the breaches, either by open assault, or by 

 the simple and bloodless method recommended by Marshal Vauban in his 

 ' Trait^ des Sieges ' [SIEGE], in which a few sappers, gradually working 

 up under protection of the fire from the trenches, which are armed and 

 kept ready to bring an overwhelming fire on the breach the instant the 

 enemy makes an attempt to disturb them, form a lodgement at the top 

 which, when ready, is occupied by parties in force. 



The attack and defence of breaches has always been one of the 

 most sanguinary and frightful of the operations of war. Every means 

 that the ingenuity of man could devise has been at various times 

 resorted to, to make the assault impracticable. The great breach at 

 St. Sebastian was defended by deep pits dug in the ditch in front of 

 the curtain ; chevaux-de-frise made of well-tempered sword blades, 

 were fixed in strong wooden beams planted on the top of the breach, 

 while rows of 14-inch shells and powder barrels were laid on the ground 

 at the foot of the breach, and fired by a powder-hose ; and during the 

 interval between the cessation of the fire and the assault, the defenders 

 had thickly strewn the ascent with harrows, and planks with nails in 

 them. At the name time cuts were made in the neighbouring parapets, 

 from which a continuous fire of musquetry was directed on the ditch and 

 foot of the breach. The following curious method of defending a breach 

 is mentioned in Vauban's ' Traitd de la Defense des Places : ' At the siege 

 of Chatte', a small town in Lorraine, on the Moselle, by Marshal de la 

 Ferte', a tolerable breach having been made, and the garrison when 

 summoned refusing to surrender, the assault was given. During the 

 very height of the combat, the besieged took it into their heads to 

 throw on to the breach five or six hives of bees which happened to be 

 at hand, these, enraged at being BO treated, attacked the besiegers and 

 xtung them so violently that they were forced to give up and retire 

 into their trenches, where they followed them with such invincible 

 olwtinacjr, that the trenches were deserted for several days, during 

 which time the defenders repaired the breaches. This was one of the 

 principal reasons for the siege being raised. 



BREAD may be divided into two kinds : first, common biscuit bread, 

 made merely from flour and water, without undergoing any fermenta- 

 tion, and which is consequently compact, heavy, and hard ; secondly, 

 loaf bread, formed of flour which has been fermented, and which is 

 therefore porous, light, and soft. The seeds of wheat, barley, oats, and 

 rye are principally employed, and in the state of flour, for the making 

 of bread. These grains resemble each other sufficiently in their nature 

 and properties to render it needless to treat particularly of the bread 



ARTS ASD SCI. DIV. VOL. TL 



made from more than one of them ; and as wheaten bread is most 

 extensively used, and the properties indicating perfect bread most 

 distinctly exhibited therein, our remarks will apply chiefly to it. 



Common or unfermented biscuit bread, which was undoubtedly that 

 first used in the early ages of the world, is made as described under 

 BISCUIT ; in this operation no chemical change takes place, but only 

 the mechanical one of moistening the particles of the flour, so as to 

 cause them to adhere in the first instance, and to remain in one mass 

 by the subsequent process of baking. 



In bread, properly speaking, the process of manufacture is one of 

 much longer duration, and the chemical action of fermentation is pro- 

 duced in the mixture of flour and water. Wheat flour is composed 

 chiefly of starch and gluten, with a small quantity of gummy sugar, and 

 of vegetable albumen. Sir Humphrey Davy found, by certain investi- 

 gations made by him, that wheat sown in autumn contained 77 per 

 cent, of starch, and 19 of gluten ; while that sown in spring yielded 70 

 of starch, and 24 of gluten. The wheat of the south of Europe con- 

 tains a larger proportion of gluten than that of the north, and hence its 

 peculiar fitness for making vermicelli. According to the distinguished 

 chemist just quoted, oats yielded 59 of starch, 6 of gluten, and 2 of 

 saccharine matter; while the same quantity of rye gave only 6'1 parts 

 of starch, and half a part of gluten. Referring to other pages of the 

 Cyclopaedia for descriptions of these two substances, we will simply 

 state here that both take part in the fermenting of dough into bread, 

 and that each renders its own peculiar useful service to the human 

 system when taken as food. 



When flour, made into a paste or dough with water, is suffered to 

 remain in a moderately warm place, it undergoes that partial and 

 spontaneous decomposition which is called fermentation, and which, in 

 order to distinguish it from other kinds, has been called, but without 

 sufficient reason for the distinction, the panary fermentation. During 

 this fermentation, a portion of the carbon and oxygen of the partially- 

 decomposed flour recombine to form carbonic acid gas ; this, during its 

 natural tendency to escape into the air, is arrested in its progress 

 through the dough by the adhesiveness of the gluten, and forms, 

 owing to its retention, numerous cavities in it. It is thus that wheat- 

 flour makes lighter bread than that of oats or rye, owing to the larger 

 quantity of gluten which it contains, by which the bread is rendered 

 more porous and lighter, and consequently more digestible. 



This plan of fermentation would, however, require much. time. 

 Moreover, the dough thus spontaneously fermented is never quite free 

 from putrescence and acidity, both of which are injurious to the 

 flavour of the bread. To remedy these inconveniences, the process 

 was formerly accelerated by adding to a mass of recent dough a small 

 quantity of old dough in a state of strong fermentation ; this was 

 called leaven, and the mass to which it was added was said to be 

 leavened. Although the use of leaven was an unquestionable improve- 

 ment, a still further one was made by the employment of yest, or yeast- 

 instead of it ; by this the fermentation is much more rapidly and per- 

 fectly effected. The exact nature of this ferment has not been ascer- 

 tained. It is the frothy scum which rises on the surface of beer during 

 its fermentation ; it is a very complex substance, and appears to contain 

 gluten ; but that alone is not sufficient to account for the effects pro- 

 duced, as gluten is incapable of fermentation per se. 



Many diversities exist in the art of bread-making ; but the following 

 will sufficiently exhibit the main features of the process, as generally con- 

 ducted. In the water employed to make the dough, which varies in tem- 

 perature from 90 to 100" Fahr., there is dissolved a certain portion of 

 salt, the quantity of which, however, is always less than that which will 

 finally be required ; yeast is now mixed with the water, and then a portion 

 of flour is added. The mixture is next covered up, and set apart in a 

 warm situation ; within an hour after which, signs of commencing de- 

 composition make their appearance. The substance thus placed apart 

 is termed, in the language of the bakehouse, the sponge ; its formation 

 and abandonment to spontaneous decomposition is termed tettiny the 

 sponge ; and according to the relation which the amount of water in 

 the sponge bears to the whole quantity to be used in the dough, it is 

 called quarter, half, or whole sponge. The sponge begins to swell out 

 and heave up, in consequence of the generation of carbonic acid gas. 

 If the sponge be of a semi-liquid consistence, large air-bubbles soon 

 force their way to its surface, where they break and dissipate in rapid 

 succession. But when the sponge possesses the consistence of thin 

 dough, it confines the gas until expanded equably and progressively to 

 nearly double its original volume : when, no longer capable of containing 

 the pent-up air, it bursts and subsides. This process of rising and 

 falling alternately might be actively carried on, and frequently repeated, 

 during twenty-four hours ; but the baker checks it at a particular 

 point, to prevent the bread from becoming sour. He adds to the 

 sponge the remaining proportions of flour and water and salt, which 

 may be necessary to form the dough of the required consistence and 

 size, and next incorporates all these materials with the sponge by a 

 long and laborious course of kneading. When this process has been 

 continued until the fermenting and the newly-added flour have been 

 intimately blended together, and until the glutinous particles of the 

 flour are wrought to such a union and consistence that the dough, now 

 tough and elastic, will receive the smart pressure of the hand without 

 adhering to it when withdrawn, the kneading" is for awhile suspended. 

 The dough is abandoned to itself for a few hours, during which time 



