Foreign Notices : — Russia. 93 



of skirrels, | oz. of pure sugar. The first chemist who extracted the sugar 

 was Marcgraff. — Id. 



Liquors may be cooled in hot tveather, and are cooled in hot countries, by 

 immersing the vessels which contain them in deep wells, or placing them in 

 cisterns in a good cellar. Cucumbers, onions, cabbages, turnips, and other 

 vegetables are salted in casks, and the casks sunk in wells, or buried deep in the 

 earth, and thus preserved the whole year, in Poland and Russia. The casks 

 are, of course, water-tight. This last practice may be useful in America ; and 

 the first, with regard to liquors, in every family in Britain, where beer, or even 

 water, is drunk. — Henry Dilhe. BrowrCs Close, Edinburgh, Feb. 1833. 



Art. II. Foreign Notices. 

 RUSSIA. 



Isle of Cronstadt, near St. Petersburg, June, 1835. — Accident, which we 

 cannot always guard against, occasioned my not seeing the 40th Number of 

 your Magazine [Vol. VIII. p. 559.] till this spring, else I should have re- 

 deemed my promise to you last summer. I must, however, before I proceed 

 further, embrace this opportunity of returning you my best thanks for the 

 handsome manner in which you are good enough to notice my communica- 

 tions, assuring you that I shall feel the highest satisfaction, if my feeble efforts 

 can, in the slightest degree, aid the comforts of the poor. 



By the Wesleys, Captain Tindall, I send you samples of the produce of 

 various kinds of grain used in this country, which might assist the rising gene- 

 ration ; for I am convinced, from what I have read, and the little I have seen, 

 that the adult population of England will not use grits, though by the number 

 of different grain employed, and the various ways of cooking them, the labour- 

 ing population might have occasional changes of diet at a cheap rate. The 

 first point is to encourage the use of broth, which, thickened by any of the 

 grits, would be pleasant and nutritive. The bones of the meat should be 

 boiled a long while, or digested, and the meat added, so as not to have all its 

 nutritive juices extracted. I think Rumford observes that an Englishman 

 throws half his dinner up the chimney : a Scotchman does better, his porridge 

 and kail are good settlers of the appetite. Another most extensive source of 

 food in this part of the world is broth made of dried fish, of which I shall send 

 you samples, if I can get them in time from the fishing stations up the coun- 

 try. In the meanwhile you will get one specimen of what is used in common, 

 called by the Russians snetky, and in Latin, I think, (Salmo Eperldnus minor. 

 The manner of drying, lam told, is to throw the fish, when caught, into brine, 

 and then dry them in a cool oven, laying them on straw, to prevent them from 

 being burnt. Soup must be made of them, without boiling them to rags, and 

 thickened with one of the kinds of grits, barley, perhaps. I can eat it without 

 repugnance, nay, with satisfaction ; and it forms the broth of my servants, as 

 well as of all the lower ranks of society during the long fasts. What led me 

 to the idea of sending you this sample was, reading that small fish were so 

 plentiful with you, that they are used for manure ; and, surely, it would be more 

 humane to dry a part, and use it to vary the food of the poor, than to plough 

 it down in a field. The baker's oven, when the bread is baked, might be used 

 for the purpose of having the fish dried. 



Owing to our long winters, we are forced to pay the most particular atten- 

 tion to our supply of vegetables, and, among the rest, we salt French beans, 

 spinach, and the green of celery and parsley, using the latter two to relish our 

 soups. The process is simple, and, I think, fully explained in Vol. VIII. p. 184. 

 A layer of vegetables and one of salt, put in alternately till the keg is full, and 

 a stone resting on a board, to press it down, form the whole process. Broad 

 beans and peas are dried, and the latter, taken young, are most excellent. You 

 will ever kindly keep in mind that the dishes I recommend are not for luxury, 



