114 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VIII. . 
made of European barley show that it likewise gives a lower average percentage 
of albuminoids than European wheat. When barley is completely cleaned or 
pearled, it loses a very large proportion of its albuminoids, so that European 
pearl barley (barley yields but 38 per cent. of pearl barley) does not usually 
show more than six or seven per cent. of albuminoids. The “ pearl dust” and 
“fine dust’ separated in its preparation, and amounting together to 40 
per cent. of the original grain, are, however, much richer, containing 12 or 14 
per cent. of albuminoids. Indian pearl barley would, however, in all pro- 
bability contain as much as ten per cent. 
Barley, as it is prepared for human food in India, is generally considered to 
be rather difficult of digestion. It is grown and eaten throughout the whole of 
the Patna Division. With wheat it forms an important staple diet in the 
Benares and surrounding divisions, The grain is usually cleaned by pounding 
in wooden mortars and winnowings. ‘The grain is treated in one or other of 
the following ways :— 
(1) Ground into coarse meal and made into chapatti, either alone or 
with wheat meal. In Tirhut a mixture is used of barley one part 
and Indian corn three parts. 
(2) Parched and ground into coarse flour called Stéttu; this is stirred up 
with sufficient water to make a thick paste, to this a little salt is 
added, and the preparation is eaten with garlic, onions or chillies, 
This mixture, gencrally admixed with flour of gram or other seeds 
or grains, forms the chief food of the larger part of the peasantry 
of Shahabad. . 
Barley alone, or even in admixtures, is generally thought to be rather difficult 
of digestion, at least in the form in which the grain is prepared for food in 
India. Barley mixed with horse gram forms an excellent food for horses, and 
is known as “ adour.” 
From an observation made in a preceding paragraph, it will have been 
remarked. how very closely the pearl barley prepared in Europe approaches rice 
in its nutrient ratio. The Indian cleaned barley is, as we have seen, much 
richer in albuminoids. This arises from two causes, one of which is the 
higher percentage of nitrogen naturally present in the average whole barley 
grain as grown in India ; the other is the imperfect way in which the Indian 
“barley is cleaned previous to use as food. Some room there is evidently for 
improvements in the mode of carrying out the cleaning or pearling operation, 
A recently invented Dutch process might be used. It produces a pearled grain 
of larger size than that obtained by the usual operation. The pearled grain 
attains a higher percentage ; its shape is nob spherical, but much resembles 
