No. 5. 



The Missourium. — Preservation of Butter. 



147 



which I had toiled for months amidst hard- 

 ships and privations which these gentlemen 

 have never known, and can have no concep- 

 tion of. I would tell Dr. Goddard that I 

 value that jaw far more liian I do his head, 

 or all that he is worth in the world ! and if 

 he had examined it, he would have known 

 something about it." 



Dr. Goddard objects to the position of the 

 tusks, or rather, horns — now, not to notice the 

 declaration of Mr. Koch, that "one of them 

 remained fixed in its socket during- its exca- 

 vation and transportation over a very rough 

 and wilderness country, and that he was 

 therefore able to give a correct and indispu- 

 table description of the position and situation 

 which it occupied in the skull" — all which 

 was attested by a visiter in the room, who in- 

 formed, that it so remained until it arrived at 

 St. Louis, and was displaced while being con- 

 veyed up a winding staircase in that town, 

 to his certain knowledge — I would ask the 

 Dr. what direction he would give them, up- 

 wards or downwards ? On trial I fear he 

 would find himself on the horns of the dilem- 

 ma, for the sudden turn which they take after 

 they leave the interior of the head — but of 

 which peculiarity of form the Dr. must be 

 ignorant, as he had not the means of elevat- 

 ing himself to see and examine this very pe- 

 culiar conformation — absolutely interdicts 

 either, and decides, most conclusively, that 

 the position which has been given is the only 

 one that can be given to them. But are not 

 the tusks of the Mastodon of ivory 1 if the 

 Dr. had examined these, he would have found 

 them decidedly of bone, having the pecu- 

 liarity of uniting and becoming whole after 

 an injury, which ivory has not. And are not 

 the bones of the Mastodon found to have con- 

 tained marrow 1 the bones of the Missourium 

 were entirely without marrow, showing the 

 animal to have been amphibious, and there- 

 fore not a Mastodon. On the inquiry, " how 

 could you have known the manner in which 

 to replace the bones'!" Mr. Koch artlessly 

 replied, "simply by having had the opportu- 

 nity of taking them to pieces," remarking, 

 that the arched form of the back is precisely 

 that which it bore in the position in which it 

 was found, and which, had it been straight- 

 ened so as to satisfy Dr. Goddard, would have 

 very considerably added to the length of the 

 animal. The ribs were, indeed, spread out, 

 so as to give the appearance of " an enormous 

 wide and flat chest;" and the very little cur- 

 vature which they exhibited ought to have 

 convinced any unprejudiced mind — even at a 

 single glance, and without the additional tes- 

 timony of the " singular peculiarity" of stand- 

 ing half reversed in the body — that they 

 were not those of the Mastodon, Now, I 

 would ask, to what animal do these ribs be- 



long if not to the Missourium? certainly not 

 to the Mastodon, as Dr. Goddard must con- 

 fess; and where are those bones that were 

 found with them, if they are not these that 

 are exhibited with them ! 



The question, whether the bones are placed 

 for present exhibition in the position which 

 they occupied in the living animal, is quite 

 another and a secondary one, which might be 

 agitated at some future opportunity. 



J. M. 



P. S. If the Doctor had contented him- 

 self with the negative side of his battery he 

 would have been less vulnerable, but having 

 declared that the bones are those of the Mas- 

 todon, he must excuse the positive charge of 

 having acted in this matter without his accus- 

 tomed fairness and discrimination. 



Preservation of Butter. 



At a late Council of the Royal Agricultu- 

 ral Society of England, a jar of butter was 

 received from Henry Wood, Esq., as a speci- 

 men of the successfiil mode adopted for its 

 preservation when that article is intended for 

 export to foreign climates. 



Mr. Wood informed the Council that this 

 butter had been prepared on the 19th inst., 

 (June,) according to the process adopted in 

 eastern countries, where it was used for culi- 

 nary purposes instead of hog's lard, which 

 the Mahometan law prohibited, and would 

 keep for any length of time in a perfect state 

 of preservation, although it contained no salt 

 or other additional substance. This preser- 

 vative state of the butter was induced by the 

 removal of scum, and the dissipation of the 

 watery particles of fresh butter, effected by 

 the gentlest possible application of sufficient 

 heat to produce the result. Mr. Wood stated 

 that in Asia this gentle heat was obtained by 

 the natives by filling a large open earthen- 

 ware pan with powdered and well-dried cow- 

 dung, and then setting fire to it, introducing 

 into the midst of the burning cow-dung an 

 earthen vessel containing the butter, which 

 thus became melted ; and when the scum, as 

 it rose, had been successively removed, and 

 the watery particles driven off" by the heat, 

 it was poured into a jar and preserved for use. 

 Mr. Wood suggested that a sand-bath, pro- 

 perly regulated, might answer the same pur- 

 pose as the dried cow-dung, and as the pro- 

 cess was so very simple, there could be no 

 difficulty in preparing it; and that, when 

 once prepared, the butter never became taint- 

 ed. Mr. Wood stated that he carried with 

 him to the Cape of Good Hope some butter 

 prepared in this way, a year previously, and 

 which was there pronounced to be superior 

 to the salted butter of the colony, and for 

 culinary purposes far superior to lard. 



