230 



TESTIMONY OF CHARLES A. DOBEMUS. 



are forty-two samples there, and I think there are over twenty that 

 range below 1.029. It is proper for me to state that Hassal says in 

 some of these cases that the milk was exceptional, and that in 

 other cases it was a fair average sample of pure cow's milk. 



Q. Now on this table are there any other observations? A. 

 There are ; there is an observation on the Chart Filhol. 



By the Court Q. You say something about the change in the 

 specific gravity of milk which I do no.t understand. Now if you 

 take a given quantity of milk and put it in a vessel hermetically 

 sealed, and you take the weight of the vessel and the milk after it is 

 so sealed, and it remains hermetically sealed, and it stands a day, 

 and you weigh it a day after, not open it but you weigh it again, 

 will it be the same weight or not ? A. The specific gravity 



Q. Answer my question ; will the vessel and the thing in it, the 

 fluid in it which you then put aside, will it weigh the same ? A. I 

 suppose it will. 



Q. Therefore when you say it changes, don't you mean a chem- 

 ical change may take place in the constituents of the milk which 

 when you unseal the vessel and undertake to test it with the hydro- 

 meter, the gases or something which has been chemically manu- 

 factured will escape? A. Undoubtedly some of the gases ; if there 

 is any gas there it would escape. 



Q. Would not water evaporate ? A. If you will allow me, your 

 Honor, the actual weight of the bottle with the contents is a differ- 

 ent thing entirely from the weight as given by the specific gravity. 

 If I should take a volume of milk and weigh it on one day and take 

 exactly the same volume and weigh it on another day, the two 

 weights would not agree. 



Q. If you mean by that that a tumbler of water stay there and I 

 am gone a week it has not been changed, but some portion has 

 evaporated ? A. If I should fill that tumbler up with milk and let 

 it stand, some milk would run over, or perhaps the milk would de- 

 crease so that the tumbler would not be full, or it would fall over. 

 I found in one sample of milk put in that little bottle filling it up, 

 it would weigh so much, and in filling it again it would weigh less ; 

 therefore the specific gravity had decreased by keeping ; its specific 

 gravity is the weight of equal volumes ; the volume of milk changes, 

 and therefore the specific gravity must change ; a quart of milk at 



