FEa 16, 1883.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



97. 



HERBERT SPENCER IN AMERICA. 



Bv Rev. Misot J. Savage." 



ACJUIET, modest, unassuming gentleman, with no 

 assumption of greatness, with no air of pretence, 

 with not the slightest approach to an appearance of pa- 

 tronage toward those who may be considered as less noted 

 or great than himself, has been for the last two or three 

 montlis seeking rest and refreshment here in America, 

 Heard in public but once, seen in private only by a few, 

 the country has still felt that a great man was here, a man 

 like those to whom Emerson refers when he says, " A great 

 man is himself an occasion." We have all felt this presence, 

 ;uid noted some indication of it now and then. For, when 

 he has chosen to utter himself concerning the impressions 

 that have been made upon him in this country, the whole 

 nation has listened as though something were being said 

 that was worthy of attention. The newspapers have caught 

 it up ; and all the leading organs for the expression of 

 public opinionhave commented on it, recognising the fact that 

 here, at least, was something not to be passed by in silence. 

 This man, to whom we have been so ready to listen, has 

 during the last quarter of a century wrought a work that, 

 I think I may say, without exaggeration, has no parallel in 

 the history of human thought He has so wrought himself 

 into the very fibre, the warp and woof of this modern world, 

 that I can say of him, what can be said of no other man 

 living, and what has never been said of any man who has 

 ever lived : he has made himself so vital a part of science, 

 of philosophy, of education, of the science of government, 

 of sociology, of ethics, of religion — he has so mastered and 

 entered into the possession of all these great realms of 

 human thought and human life, which in their totality 

 almost make up what is meant by life itself, that to-day no 

 serious and intelligent thinker can discuss any important 

 question pertaining to any one of these departments with- 

 out being compelled to reckon with Herbert Spencer. You 

 cannot discuss science, you cannot discuss philosophy, you 

 cannot discuss education, politics, society, and the laws 

 that underlie them, you cannot discuss ethics, you cannot 

 touch the subject of religion, without either agreeing with 

 or difl'ering from this quiet scholar. And to have wrought 

 himself so intimately and so essentially into the very life of 

 flie world — this, I say, is an achievement unparalleled in 

 the history of human thought. I care not in which depart- 

 ment you pick up a book to-day, you will find that the 

 writer, if he comprehends his theme, is either working along 

 the lines which Herbert Spencer has laid out, or else he is 

 telling the world why he does not do so. He does not 

 ignore him — he cannot ignore him. About a week ago it 

 was my privilege and pleasure to join one or two hundred 

 gentlemen in giving Mr. Spencer a public dinner in New 

 York, on the eve of his departure. It was something 

 striking and wonderful to see there the leading men of the 

 nation in all departments of thought and culture, sitting at 

 his feet and acknowledging his supremacy. 



THE CHEMISTRY Of COOKERY. 



By W. Mattieu Williams. 

 111. — COOK IN' G UNDER WATER. 

 1^ EXT to the boiling of water for its own sake, as treated 

 i. 1 in my last, comes the boiling of water as a medium 

 for the cooking of other things. Here, at the outset, I 

 have to correct an error of language ■^hich, as too often 



* From a sermon delivered a week after the public dinner given 

 to Mr. Spencer the day before his sailing from New York. 



happens, leads by continual suggestion to false ideas. 

 When we speak of " boiled beef," " boiled mutton," " boiled 

 eggs," '• boiled potatoes," we talk nonsense ; we are not 

 merely using an elliptical expression, as when we say " the 

 kettle boils," which we all understand to mean the contents 

 of the kettle, but we are expounding a false theory of 

 what has happened to the beef, Ac. — as false as though we 

 should describe the material of the kettle that has held 

 boiling water as boiled copper or boiled iron. No boiling 

 of the food takes place in any such cases as the above- 

 named — it is merely heated by inmiersion in boiling water ; 

 the changes that actually take place in the food are essen- 

 tially dilierent from those of ebullition. Even the water 

 contained in the meat is not boiled in ordinary cases, as its 

 boiling point is higher than that of the surrounding water, 

 owing to the salts it holds in solution. 



Thus, as a matter of chemical fact, a " boiled leg of 

 mutton " is one that has been cooked, but not boiled ; 

 while a roasted leg of mutton is one that has been partially 

 boiled. Much of the constituent water of flesh is boiled out, 

 fairly driven away as vapour during roasting or baking, 

 and the fat on its surface is also boiled, and, more or less, 

 dissociated into its chemical elements, carbon and water, 

 as shown by the browning, due to the separated carbon. 



As I shall presently show, this verbal explanation is no 

 mere verbal quibble, but it involves important practical 

 applications. An enormous waste of precious fuel is perpe- 

 trated every day, throughout the whole length and breadth 

 of Britain and other countries where English cookery 

 prevails, on account of the almost universal ignorance of 

 the philosophy of the so-called boiling of food. 



^^'hen it is once fairly understood that the meat is not 

 to be boiled, but is merely to be warmed by immersion in 

 water raised to a maximum temperature of L'lli", and when 

 it is further understood that water cannot (under ordinary 

 atmospheric pressure) be raised to a higher temperature 

 than '212' by any amount of violent boiling, the popular 

 distinction between " simmering " and boiling, which is 

 so obstinately maintained as a kitchen superstition, is 

 demolished. 



The experiment described in my last showed that imme- 

 diately the bubbles of steam reach the surface of the water 

 and break there — that is, when simmering commences — 

 the thermometer reaches the boiling point, and that how- 

 ever violently the boiling may afterwards occur, the ther- 

 mometer rises no higher. Therefore, as a medium for 

 heating the substances to be cooked, simmering water is 

 just as eflective as " walloping " water. There are excep- 

 tional operations of cookery, to be described hereafter, 

 wherein useful mechanical work is done by violent boiling ; 

 but in all ordinary cookery, simmering is just as effective. 

 The heat that is applied to do more than the smallest 

 degree of simmering is simply wasted in converting water 

 into useless steam. The amount of such waste may be 

 easily estimated. To raise a given quantity of water from 

 the freezing to the boiling point demands an amount of 

 heat represented by 180° in Fahrenheit's thermometer, or 

 100° Centigrade. To convert this into steam, 990° Fah. or 

 .5-50° Cent, is necessary — just five and a-half times as much. 

 On a properly-constructed hot-plate or sand-bath, a 

 dozen saucepans may be kept at the true cooking tempe- 

 rature, with an expenditure of fuel commonly employed 

 in England to " boil " one saucepan. 1 n the great majority 

 of so-called boiling operations, even simmering is unneces- 

 sary. Not only is a "boiled leg of mutton" not itself 

 boiled, but even the water in which it is cooked should not 

 be kept boilijig, as we shall presently see. 



In order to illustrate some of the changes which take 

 place in the cooking of animal food, I w ill first take the 



