114 YEAR-BOOK OF FACTS. 



change from the sprouting of the wheat, the flour forms a sweet, 

 heavy, and sticky bread. In order to prevent this, alum is em- 

 ployed. Alum is not necessary to the making of palatable bread 

 from "sound flour," but it is necessary for the making of saleable 

 bread from unsound flour made from sprouted grain. 



Bread is vesiculated without being fermented by two processes : — 



1. By the addition of substances which during their decomposition 

 give out carbonic acid, as carbonate of soda and hydrochloric acid. 



2. By making the bread with water charged with carbonic acid. 

 The first is the process recommended by the late Dr. Whiting, and 

 6old in London under the name of Dodson's Unfermented Bread. 

 The second process consists in mixing intimately water containing 

 carbonic acid with flour, so that when the dough is baked the escape 

 of the carbonic acid gas vesiculates the bread. This process is 

 worked in London under Dr. Dauglish's patent,* and extensive 

 machinery for making this bread has been erected by Messrs. Peek, 

 Frean, and Co., at Dockhead. This is the "Aerated Bread." The 

 process of making fermented bread is tedious ; the time employed 

 for making the bread varying from three to twelve hours. By 

 the aerating process the whole time taken, from the mixing 

 flour and carbonated water to putting the loaves into the oven, is 

 only 26 minutes. The necessity of handling the dough in kneading 

 is also avoided by the use of machinery. Other advantages of this 

 process are the saving of the starch destroyed in fermenting bread, 

 and the absence of yeast and other substances — as potatoes — em- 

 ployed for facilitating the process of fermentation. 



The baking of the bread is the same in all processes. At the 

 same time the healthy digestion of bread depends much on the way 

 in which this process is conducted. The regularity of the tem- 

 perature and the condition of the atmosphere in the oven exert a, 

 considerable influence on the wholesome character of the bread. Au 

 oven has been recently constructed by Mr. Bonthron, of Begent- 

 etreet, by which steam can be turned into the atmosphere of the 

 oven. The action of the steam prevents the charring of the crust of 

 the bread, allows of the interior expansion of the bread by preventing 

 the hardening of the crust, ami produces a natural varnish on the out- 

 side by reducing the sugar and gum on the outside to a liquid state. 



With regard to the action of the two breads on the system, there can 

 be no doubt that either, when properly prepared and baked, is adapted 

 for general use. The question of flavour or appearance every one will 

 decide for himself'. In curtain morbid conditions of tin- stomach fer- 

 mented bread undergoes rapid changes, which are produottvaof incon- 

 venience, and which is prevented by the use of unfermented bread. 



ARTIFICIAL I. FATHER. 

 At Ipswich has been realised an idea suggested in the Jhtihlcr, of 

 gathering up heaps of rubbish in the shape ofleather cuttings, paring!, 



• Binee the delivery of the lecture, myattenttoii Iris been called to U 



tint ■ : . .lined i>y -Mr. Luke Herbert formating bread with oarbonie 



ucid k'us. — E. L. 



