186 TESTIMONY OF ROBERT OGDEN DOREMUS. 



knowledge gained by the lactometer is of no value ; the lactometer 

 will test the gravity of milk or any liquid approximating the gravity 

 of milk ; the lactometer tests the gravity of milk, which knowledge 

 is of no value at all in determining the goodness of milk. 



By Mr. LAWRENCE Q. Professor, if you can state any important 

 facts concerning the lactometer and its origin or uses which have 

 not been stated please do so ? A. Your Honor, we may go back 

 three hundred years before the Christian era, when the illustrious 

 genius Archimedes ran through the streets of Syracuse naked 

 shouting Eureka, having discovered how he could tell how the 

 crown of Hieron was made of pure gold mingled with silver ; that 

 is the first specific gravity discovered ; he found his weight less in 

 the water, and then his fertile brain suggested that which we now 

 use as a means of testing gravity ; we weigh the article in air, then 

 in water and observe the difference ; I merely suggest this as the 

 origin of these things ; more recently in the early part of this cen- 

 tury an instrument was devised as applied to milk and a series of 

 distinguished names are mentioned as having modified the instru- 

 ment ; it has already been described ; a glass tube enlarged at the 

 lower end with a weight at the bottom and a narrow stem at the 

 upper part and sometimes a thermometer inserted in it. 



Q. Professor Doremus, can you point out any mechanical de- 

 fects in the lactometer besides those shown by Professor Chandler ? 

 A. If by the sinking of this instument an inch or a fraction of an 

 inch we are to decide upon the commission of fraud, it should be 

 graduated, your Honor ; as you perceive this instrument, the lower 

 grades are close together and the upper ones are widely separated. 



By Mr. PRENTICE Q. I would ask what that instrument is, that 

 we may understand the evidence ? A. This is a hydrometer to be 

 used in light liquids ; the gradations upon that are not equal. 



Mr. PRENTICE I think this is objectionable. 



The COURT One is graduated for milk. 



WITNESS The same principle is involved ; the foreign lactom- 

 eters as described in the great works have a table of gradation 

 moreover ; one for skimmed milk and the other for milk which has 

 not been robbed of its cream ; they recognize the right of parties to 

 sell skimmed milk in Paris and other places, which we do not here, 

 and they sell it as skimmed milk and have the lactometer adapted 



