146 SKIMMED MILK CHEESE 



AMICUS. As we were coming by train to 

 Kavenglass, I looked into a recently published 

 Guide-book of the Lake District, and read some 

 particulars about the cheese of the district 

 which surprised me, given, as they were, as 

 matter-of-fact to show the backward and rude 

 state of the country, and the benefit likely 

 to result by the force of example, from inter- 

 course, according to the writer, with a more 

 enlightened and advanced stage of society. 

 It, the cheese, is described as hard enough 

 to strike fire with steel, as fit to be used as 

 a substitute for flint in the gun-lock; and, 

 marvel of marvels, it is told that one rolling 

 down a hill side occasioned a conflagration by 

 setting fire to the brushwood. 



PISCATOE. You may well say "marvel of 

 marvels." The skimmed-milk cheese of the 

 district is certainly hard enough, and un- 

 avoidably, the butter being entirely and inten- 

 tionally separated ; but it is not miraculously 

 hard ; like other things, it is obedient to phy- 

 sical laws. Had the writer considered what 

 are the qualities requisite for a substance to 

 act the part of a flint to strike fire with steel, 

 and the conjunction of circumstances necessary 



