402 



NA TURE 



[Feb. 26, 1880 



of a mile in diameter, and from four to six hundred feet in 

 depth. For many years it has ceased to emit lava, but 

 so recently as 1874 several large fissures opened in the 

 floor and sides, and from them stones of considerable 

 size, ashes, and vast volumes of vapours were emitted. 

 The descent into the crater is easily effected. We found 

 steam issuing at high pressure from several orifices in the 

 floor, around which crystals of sulphur and other pro- 

 ducts of sublimation had collected. On the south-west 

 side of the crater, about twenty feet from its floor, we saw 

 a large opening apparently going down a considerable 

 depth into the heart of the mountain. From it loud 

 surging noises proceeded, as if much-agitated lava existed 

 within it, but no lava could be seen, and the air which 

 proceeded from it was so fearfully hot that it was 

 impossible to approach within many feet. At the orifice 

 itself I believe it would have readily melted lead. Hot 

 sand and blue and green flames are frequently emitted 

 from this bocca. 



A small fis erman's boat carries the letters twice a 

 week to Stromboli, but as the weather was particularly 

 fine, we determined not to wait for it, and started on 

 January 5 in a small open boat, with four rowers. The 

 distance is about twenty-three miles, and the course 

 passes between the group of islets, eleven miles from 

 Lipari, of which Panaria is the largest member. The sea 

 was perfectly calm all day, and we had to row every inch 

 of the way. A few miles from Stromboli we came upon a 

 parrot-billed turtle asleep upon the surface of the water, 

 and rowing gently up to it, the sailors secured it before it 

 had time to dive. We arrived somewhat late in the 

 evening and started for the summit (3,090 feet) the next 

 •morning at seven o'clock. The ascent is steep, and 

 occupied us two hours. The great conical shadow of the 

 mountain was seen stretching many leagues out to sea, 

 and gradually approaching the base of the mountain as 

 the sun got higher in the heaven?. From the time of 

 Pliny the inhabitants of Stromboli have asserted that 

 the eruptive force is always weaker in calm than in 

 stormy weather. They reiterated this again and again, 

 and undoubtedly changes in the atmospheric pressure 

 may effect it. Our calm day was unfortunately followed 

 by a comparatively inactive condition of the volcano. It 

 gave forth, indeed, enormous quantities of steam, but red- 

 hot ashes were only ejected at long intervals of time, and 

 never to a height exceeding 200 feet, and the sight at the 

 summit of the mountain was altogether less interesting 

 than that presented by Vesuvius even in its condition of 

 piccolo cruzione a year ago. We descended rapidly over 

 steep beds of fine volcanic ash, reached the base of the 

 mountain before noon, and returned to Lipari in the after- 

 noon. Some days later while steaming from Messina to 

 Naples, we passed within sight of the crater of Stromboli, 

 which was obviously in a state of increased activity. 



G. F. Rodwell 



SOMETHING ABOUT MILK 



A SPECULATOR upon the possible fluctuations of 

 that inscrutable phase of human attribute which we 

 know as "fashion" or "custom" might find material for 

 a lucubration of no small interest in a forecast of probable 

 results, supposing the influence exercised by it on many 

 of our largest branches of trade were to extend itself to 

 certain others which appear thus far to have escaped it, 

 and are therefore more or less unprepared to encounter 

 one of its eccentric revolutions. 



And yet in an age when the successive crazes for 

 novelty are certainly as rampant as ever they were among 

 the haut-mondc of the ultra-a;sthetic Greek metropolis, it 

 is hardly safe to reckon upon the endurance of any purely 

 customary feature of life merely on the strength of its 

 universality or even its long standing. Probably not one 

 •man in a thousand takes the trouble to realise to himself 



the degree in which many of our most indispensable 

 demands are really maintained by conventional habit. 

 And in no instance is this more likely to escape apprecia- 

 tion than in that of the so-called " necessaries," whose 

 "intermittent service" is as much taken for granted as 

 the return of daylight. 



The milk-supply of any large centre of population, to 

 be anything like efficient, must rest upon a series of 

 conditions so various, so complicated, and so linked 

 together, that probably no one unacquainted with the 

 details of both the material itself and the machinery of 

 its delivery, has any idea of the extent to which the 

 dislocation of any one of them might entangle the whole. 

 Complex and unstable in its physical constitution to a 

 degree far beyond any other of the "perishables" in 

 hourly requisition, milk of every description is for this 

 very reason in tenfold greater risk of imparting a shock to 

 the foundations of its trade if society should happen to 

 rush into any modification of its conventional uses. 

 Every one is prepared to awaken in the morning to a 

 sense that the world has decreed a new system of coiffure, 

 or set up another Dagon of Form or Colour since last night ; 

 but should the popular vote be found to have discarded 

 the teaspoonful of cow' s milk which the habit of years has 

 mingled with certain sups of boiling vegetable infusion, 

 and which in fifty cases out of a hundred bears as trivial 

 a part in the actual nutriment of the body as it does in 

 the gratification of the palate — surely we have but a faint 

 conception of the dismay which would greet the reduction 

 of the milk-supply by some thousands of tons daily, from 

 a cause so easily conceivable. 



The miniature ocean of milk in consumption during 

 every four-and-twenty hours in the United States alone 

 has approached, if not exceeded, 200,000,000 of gallons ; 

 a quantity approximately sufficient to fill the Grand Junc- 

 tion Canal half way from London to Birmingham, with 

 something to spare for locks and evaporation. NVe may 

 picture to ourselves society stretching itself one dull 

 morning and observing that after all this antiquated 

 " fad " of mixing a driblet of milk with the infusions of 

 tea or coffee is a very curious one — difficult to trace, and 

 still harder to account for. Indeed our doctors and 

 chemists are telling us that many of the choicest qualities 

 of milk are annihilated by contact with a hot liquid, and 

 that in the particular case of tea it is even so far decom- 

 posed, or recomposed, that it is absolutely not milk at all 

 that reaches our digestive organs, but a mixture of semi- 

 saponified fats with an entirely new compound of curds 

 and tannin. As a correspondent of one of the food 

 journals has aptly observed, "there may be nothing like 

 leather, but a leather lining to one's stomach is hardly 

 an illustration of the eternal fitness of things. 



'• The habit is really a culpable waste, and it is time we 

 laid our heads together to blow it up." Then the dairy 

 trade would me to find its business cut down to one-third 

 of what it was, the demand for milk being suddenly 

 limited to creaming, cookery, and babies, and a vast 

 industry would be upset, until it had perforce adjusted 

 itself to the new requirements. 



Upon some few conditions of this order, or rather upon 

 the absence of popular appreciation of them, have grown 

 up several of the standard prejudices on the matter of 

 milk and its value and method of use, which it is often 

 thought impossible to combat, and which therefore it has 

 been the aim of dairies and milk-sellers rather to com- 

 promise than to make evident. It is true that science is 

 still but on the threshold of the subtle changes charac- 

 teristic of all compounds which originate in the action of 

 vitality ; and theories " understanded of the people," are 

 not easy of diffusion so far as to bear the fruit of popular 

 common-sense. Yet if it were practicable by a sort of 

 bird's-eye view of the whole question to enforce a general 

 apprehension of a few comparatively simple facts, there is 

 no doubt that both the public and the trade would benefit 



