36 
TONERS ADDRESS. 
As might be inferred, the Indians who have Hved in 
a temperate ch'mate and on productive soil, and had 
Httle if any intercourse with predatory hunting bands, 
being thus left to their own resources, would perpetuate 
family peculiarities and at the same time progress most 
in the peaceful arts. Certain tribes dwelling in the val- 
leys and on the plains bordering on the Rocky Mount- 
tively late invention. Herodotus in describing the Scythians alludes 
to the substance called butter and describes the manner of making it, 
which leaves the inference that we derive the art from them. Hippo- 
crates mentions it as a medicine, and is the first to use the word " but- 
ter." This article was not known to the Greeks until a late period, and 
was only used by them as medicine, not as food. The Romans only used 
butter as a medicine. Pliny, however, mentions the fact that the bar- 
barous nations (meaning the Germans) made not only cheese but also 
butter, which was a most pleasant kind of food, and its use distin- 
guished the rich from the poor. It was not considered an article of 
food as late as the time of Galen. The ancient Christians in Egypt used 
butter to burn in their lamps at religious festivals; the same use was 
permitted on Christmas festivals at Rome, when there was a scarcity 
•of oil. The butter spoken of in early history it is evident did not 
have the consistence and form in which it is made in our time, but 
was a thin oily substance, which was not cut or spread, but poured 
and flowed as thin oil. In the cathedral of Rouen, and several other 
old churches, there are towers called "butter towers," because butter 
is used in the lamps that light them. It is probable that the Hebrews 
used butter as a food, although there is some doubt as to the meaning 
of the various texts upon which such a supposition is founded, as 
they imply that the mode of making it was by squeezing from 
cream or sour milk as in making cheese, rather than by churning to 
separate the fatty particles from the caseine which alone forms the but- 
ter. Corroborative of the fact that butter is but a comparatively re- 
cent addition to the food supply, we may remark that even now in 
Southern Europe it is seldom used on the table. In Italy, Spain, Portu- 
gal, and France, it is sold in the apothecary shops, and is but little 
used as an article of diet. In those warm countries, however, olive- 
oil takes the place butter occupies in cooking in other parts of the 
world. 
