B I S 



192 



B I 



strength at the ficilly Island* and the southern coast of 

 Ireland, and causes on both points considerable loss of life 

 and property, when vcscU have been carried out of their 

 way by it, and thick weather prevent* their setting them- 

 selves right by an observation. This branch of the North 

 African current is called Renncll's Current, in honour of 

 idefitigable geographer. (Kcnnell's Investigation of 

 'irrrnts in the Allintif 0- 



BISCH\V1LLER. or BISCHWEILLER, a town in 

 I-'r.imv, in the department of Bas Rhin (Lower Rhine), on 

 tin- right or south bank of the Moder, a small feeder of 

 the Rhine. Its distance from Paris by the road is pro- 

 bably about 2T6 miles. It is in 48 '1C' N. lat., and 7 5'2' 

 ng. 



This town is not fortified : it has a church situated on a 

 small elevation, at the foot of which is the castle surrounded 

 by n moat. (Expilly.) The trade of the town is consider- 

 able. Some years since it consisted in the preparation of 

 madder, beating hemp, founding in copper and iron, and 

 making bricks, tiles, and pottery, clay for which, of an excel- 

 lent quality, was procured in the environs. (Enryrhptdie 

 Methodique.) Of late years some of these branches of 

 manufacturing industry seem to have been superseded or 

 eclipsed by the increase of weaving. The looms of Bisch- 

 willcr now produce cloth for soldiers' clothing, linsey-woolsey, 

 bed-ticking, and worsted gloves : woollen-yarn is spun ; 

 hemp and madder are still cultivated ; and ropes, oil, and 

 leather are made. Iron was formerly procured in the neigh- 

 bourhood, but we are not aware whether the mine is now 

 worked. Poat has been lately dug. The population in 

 1832 was 5927. 



BISCUIT (German, Zireibiich; Dutch, Scheepsbe- 

 tcfiuit ; Danish, Skibstvebak ; Swedish, Skeppsbrod ; 

 French, Biscuit ; Italian, Biscotto, Galetta ; Spanish, 

 Rizrocho, Galleta ; Portuguese, Biscotto ; Russ, Bort, 

 Ssucher; Latin, Panit Biscoctus Nauticus), a kind of 

 bread made usually in the form of flat cakes, in order to 

 insure their being deprived of moisture in the baking: 

 which circumstance is necessary for preserving them fit for 

 use during the continuance of long voyages. The use of this 

 kind of bread on land is indeed pretty general as a matter 

 of luxury ; but at sea, biscuits are an article of the first ne- 

 \ , since bread in the more ordinary form in which it is 

 used on shore would speedily become mouldy and unfit for 

 food. 



The name biscuit is evidently derived from the nature of 

 the processes to which this kind of bread was formerly sub- 

 jected. The two bakings then used are no longer found ne- 

 cessary, but the name, although thus rendered inappropriate, 

 has been continued. 



The same name is applied, inappropriately also, to several 

 articles made by confectioners, such as sponge biscuits, 

 Naples biscuits, &c., the form and composition of which it 

 does not appear necessary to describe any further than by 

 saying that they are sweetened with sugar, and that they 

 >t reduced by baking to the state of dryness which has 

 been mentioned as a necessary quality of biscuits in their 

 ordinary form. Many other kinds of fancy biscuits are 

 indeed made to which this quality is given, and which are 

 sweetened and variously composed so as to gratify the palate. 

 Our description of biscuit-making will be confined to that 

 kind which forms a principal part of the food of seamen, 

 :uid which is for that reason usually known as ship-bread or 

 biscuit. 



When intended for this use, biscuits are most commonly 

 made of the meal of wheat from which only the coarsest 

 bran has been separated. It is hardly possible to be too 

 particular in the selection of meal for this purpose, since 

 any damage to which it may have been subject, either before 

 or after being ground, would prevent biscuits, however 

 carefully made, from keeping sound for any length of time. 

 The preparation of sea-biscuit is carried on as a substantive 

 branch of business in almost every port to which vessels 

 resort which are engaged in trading with distant countrn >. 



The largest biscuit-manufactories nre those maintained 

 by government for supplying the navy. The scale upon 

 which these are carried on is such as to make it of great 

 importance to introduce into the process every simplicity 

 compatible with the goodness of the articles, and attempts 

 have, with this view, been made from time to time, in order to 

 lessen the amount of labour in the establishments. It docs 

 not appear that these attempts can have been very suc- 

 cessful, bince the process DOW used in the great bakehouse 



at Deptford is identical !ih that employed there forty 

 years ago, and winch is as follows: 



Meal and water U-in^ mixed together in proper, 

 necessary for giung the due degree uf consistency to the 

 dough, it is kneaded in the follow r : The dough 



is placed upon a wooden platform, about MX feel square, 

 fixed horizontally a few inches abo\e the floor of the ' 

 house, and against the wall. A wooden roller, or staff, five 

 inches in diameter, and eight feet long, has one end 

 by means of a staple and eye to the wall, at a convenient 

 distance, at the middle of that side, which is a. 

 wall, above the level of the platform, and its other 

 hangs by two feet the outer edge of the platform. II 

 a certain play by means of the staple and eye, this roller can 

 be made to traverse the surface of the platform, and when 

 the dough is placed upon it, the roller is used so as t<> 1 

 it by indenting upon it lines radiating in a semi 

 from the staple.. To perform this kneading prod 

 seats himself upon the overhanging end of the roller and 

 proceeds with a riding motion backwards and for. 

 through the semicircular range until the dough is suffi- 

 ciently kneaded. 



In this state the dough is cut by large knives into slices, 

 which are subdivided into small lumps, each sufficient for 

 making a biscuit. In moulding i i lumps which 



is done by hand, the dough undergoes a further 

 kneading, and at length receives the form of the biscuit. 

 The men who thus fashion the dough make two of 

 cakes at the same time, working with each hand inde- 

 pendently of the other. When this part of the work is com- 

 pleted, the two pieces which have been simultaneous!) pre- 

 pared arc placed one on the other and handed over t-i 

 another workman, by whom the two together are stampi d 

 with a toothed instrument, the use of which is to allow the 

 equable dissipation of moisture through the holes from all 

 parts of the biscuit during the baking. The 1 

 then separated by another workman, who places them 

 particular spot of a small table standing close to Die mouth 

 of the oven, so that each biscuit can be taken up in its turn 

 without the necessity of his looking for it, by the man who 

 supplies the oven. The office performed by this in 

 that of chucking the biscuits in succession upon the 

 which is held by another man whose business is to an 

 them in the oven. This peel is a flat thin board, B 

 inches square, which can, by means of a long handle, be 

 slidden over the floor of the oven, so as to deposit and ar- 

 range the biscuits thereon. The greatest nicety is required 

 on the part of the man who thus chucks the biscuits on the 

 peel, and he could not perform this evolution with the 

 necessary degree of precision, if he were at any tune obliged 

 to withdraw his eye from the peel in search of the hi 

 The oven is by these means supplied at the rate of seventy 

 biscuits in one minute. 



The mouth of the oven is necessarily open during the 

 time of its being charged; the heat is therefore gnalcr 

 at the beginning than at the end of that operation, and 

 besides this, the biscuits first deposited are of course a 

 longer time exposed to heat than the rest. To remedy the 

 larity that might be thus occasioned, the pieces of 

 dough are gradually and regularly made of smaller bulk, 

 so that the effect of the cooler oven during a shorter lime is 

 equalized. 



\\hen sufficiently baked, the biscuits arc placed in the 

 warm atmosphere of rooms (which are well ventilated), over 

 the ovens, and remain there until perfectly dry. In this 

 state it is found that only one hundred and two pound* of 

 biscuits are procured from one hundred and twoh< | 

 of meal. 



BISCUIT, in pottery, is a term used to denote porcelain 

 as well as the commoner kinds of earthenwares al a certain 

 stage of the manufacturing process. To render them fit 

 for most purposes, it is necessary that earthcnu ares should 

 bo covered with a glaze, which is a vitreous coating. 

 hence arises the necessity for subjecting them I 

 action of heat in furnaces. The first baking is nece 

 in order to preserve the shape and texture of the ] i 

 since in these respects they would IK- altered through thr 

 absorption of the water from the glaze, which must be used 

 in a fluid form. Neither would it be possible, for the same 

 reason, to apply painting, or to transfer printed patten 

 their surfaces in the green state, i. f. previously to firing. 



.Her this first baking, and previous to the appli< 

 of the glaze and of embellishments, that these wares receive 



