530 FOODS AND FOOD ADULTERANTS. 



In a mixture of 90 per cent, of lard and 10 per cent, of cottonseed oil, treated with 

 sulphuric acid, as he has described, the color produced "will be the salmon, with a 

 tinge of slate peculiar to the lard, and in addition a tinge of the olive brown pe- 

 culiar to the cottonseed oil ; the shades of color produced by this process will 

 probably be somewhat differently classed by different individuals, even as a result 

 of seeing identical colors or shades of color ; some might call what he describes as- 

 olive brown, a mahogany brown, and so of other tinges of color, depending upon 

 peculiarities of vision in different individuals; some persons are slightly color-blind, 

 others greatly so ; he speaks of these colors as they appear to his own vision ; if a 

 person has not an eye trained to distinguishing colors, he might not, perhaps, discover 

 the difference in these shades ; the gentlemen who have been associated with him in 

 these examinations have been unanimous in picking out the colors peculiar to the 

 lard, and to the cottonseed oil, and became trained in that respect before pronouncing 

 on the several samples ; he has never applied the test to crude cottonseed oil, but he- 

 has experimented on a number of specimens of commercial oil, and refined oil and 

 cottonseed stearine ; his observation has been that the refined oil does not give a 

 marked a color as the commercial oil does ; he can not say whether or not there would 

 be any difference in the oil made in summer or winter ; he has concluded that the 

 color comes from the oil itself, and not from any foreign substances that might be in. 

 it, because he has tested three specimens of fine oil, which were entirely colorless, and 

 has also tested perfectly colorless cottonseed stearine, and from these tests he con- 

 cludes the color produced by the test is due to the oil itself. In respect to the varia- 

 tion of the amount of stearine in different samples of lard, he accepts as evidence of 

 its truth the agreement of authorities who have discussed it in books and other pub- 

 lications ; ho understands the agreement of writers, on this point, to rest on the- 

 well-known fact that in lard are the constitutents of stearine and palmitine, which 

 are solid oils ; these can be separated approximately, not perfectly, perhaps, but suf- 

 ficiently nearly so, when treated alike, to enable one to determine that some lards 

 contain more stearino than others. 



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His attention was first directed to the subject of the detection of tallow in lard 

 about five or six years ago ; at that time ho made some chemical experiments on the 

 question, and again, about eighteen months ago, he made a few other experiments 

 in the same direction, and within the past four weeks he has made numerous experi- 

 ments. Husson'a method, as published, is to take a mixture of alcohol, at 90 de- 

 grees, and ether at 66 degrees, which ho understands to mean 90 per cent, alcohol 

 and absolute ether ; with this mixture he treats the previously warmed fat and allows 

 the more solid portion of it to crystallize ; he has used Husson's method, as he read 

 it in French, and failed to obtain satisfactory results by it, and considered it untrust- 

 worthy; he does not fully condemn it, because he is not fully convinced as to what 

 Husson means by alcohol at 90 degrees and ether at 60 degrees"; if his interpretation 

 of the method is correct, he does not concur in its being of value. The comparative 

 results obtained by Professor Delafontaiue and others, who have testified on behalf 

 of the prosecution in this case, by which the lard in question was shown to have 

 more staarine than the pure lard, which they used in comparison, carries no conclu- 

 sion to his mind whatever, for the reason that Professor Delafontaino testified that 

 the only lard which ho knew to bo pure, and with which he tested the samples in 

 comparison, was kettle-rendered lard. It is manifestly unfair to take that as a stand- 

 ard for comparison with prime steam lard ; but besides that, his own experience in 

 treating lard, by the process described by Professor Delafontaine, shows it to bo fal- 

 lacious from the very foundation, and he attaches no importance to any results ob- 

 tained by it or by modifications of it. 



Ho means to bo understood that, so far as he is able to determine, the samples ot 

 the lard now under consideration, which were examined by him, contain absolutely 

 in) ii'lnltcration. 



