164 FIRESIDE SCIENCE. 



is shown in the fact that a party of impudent ad- 

 venturers can establish themselves in our cities, 

 and by advertising find plenty of customers ready 

 to purchase a so-called invention, whereby a pound 

 of good butter is to be made from a pint of milk. 

 If this were accomplished, it would of course be a 

 miracle, equally wonderful with that of our Saviour 

 who turned water into wine. It is certainly as 

 much a supernatural act to change water into but- 

 ter as to change that liquid into wine. Farmers, 

 clergymen, lawyers, have been made the victims 

 of this audacious fraud. A pint of good milk 

 weighs about 16 oz. If this were placed in a re- 

 tort and gently distilled, we should obtain about 

 14^ oz. of pure water ; the solid matter remaining 

 in the retort, weighing 1^ oz., holds all the constit- 

 uents in a pint of milk from which butter can be 

 formed. Milk upon a fair average contains 88 per 

 cent, of water, and consequently the farmer who 

 carries to market 100 gallons of honest milk has 

 in his wagon 88 gallons of honest water, which he 

 honestly sells to his customers, at fair rates per 

 gallon. It seems hardly necessary to carry the 

 attenuation further, by resorting to the pump for 

 more water. There is a popular impression that 

 the water naturally existing in milk, vegetables, 

 fruits, and grasses, differs in some way from that 

 drawn from our wells and springs, but it is essen- 



