688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



obtaining suitable vessels for the final frying or baking, as each por- 

 tion should be poured into, and fried or baked in, a separate dish, so 

 that each may, as in Switzerland, have his own fondu complete, and 

 eat it from the dish as it comes from the fire. As demand creates 

 supply, our ironmongers, etc., will soon learn to meet this demand if 

 it arises. I am about writing to Messrs. Griffiths & Browett, of Bir- 

 mingham, large manufacturers of what is technically called "hollow- 

 ware " — i. e., vessels of all kinds knocked up from a single piece of 

 metal without any soldering — and have little doubt that they will 

 speedily produce suitable fondu dishes according to my specification, 

 and supply them to the shopkeepers. 



The bicarbonate of potash is an original novelty that will possibly 

 alarm some of my non-chemical readers. I advocate its use for two 

 reasons : First, it effects a better solution of the casein by neutraliz- 

 ing the free lactic acid that inevitably exists in milk supplied to towns, 

 and any free acid that may remain in the cheese. At a farm-house 

 where the milk is just drawn from the cow it is unnecessary for this 

 purpose, as such new milk is itself slightly alkaline. My second reason 

 is physiological, and of greater weight. Salts of potash are necessary 

 constituents of human food. They exist in all kinds of wholesome 

 vegetables and fruits, and in the juices of fresh meat, but they are 

 wanting in cheese, having, on account of their great solubility, been 

 left behind in the whey. 



This absence of potash appears to me to be the one serious objec- 

 tion to the free use of cheese-diet. The Swiss peasant escapes the 

 mischief by his abundant salads, which eaten raw contain all their 

 potash salts, instead of leaving the greater part in the saucepan, as do 

 cabbages, etc., when cooked in boiling water. In Norway, v.here 

 salads are scarce, the bonder and his housemen have at times sulTered 

 greatly from scurvy, especially in the far north, and would be severely 

 victimized but for special remedies that they use (the mottebeer, cran- 

 berry, etc., grown and preserved especially for the purpose. The Lap- 

 landers make a broth of scurvy-grass and similar herbs). Mr. Lang 

 attributes their recent immunity from scurvy, which was once a sore 

 plague among them, to the introduction of the potato. 



Scurvy on board ship results from eating salt meat, the potash of 

 which has escaped by exosmosis into the brine or pickle. The sailor 

 now escapes it by drinking citrate of potash in the form of lime-juice, 

 and by alternating salt-junk with rations of tinned meats. 



I once lived for six days on bread and cheese only, tasting no other 

 food. I had, in company with C. M. Clayton, son of the Senator of 

 Delaware (who negotiated the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty), taken a pas- 

 sage from Malta to Athens in a little schooner, and expecting a three 

 days' journey we took no other rations than a lump of Cheshire cheese 

 and a supply of bread. Bad weather doubled the expected length of 

 our journey. 



