Scientific Notes. 
427 
1878.] 
still perfectly good and sweet, their natural characteristic flavours being well 
preserved. Some lime-fruit juice biscuits, for instance, which are more than 
a year old, have preserved, in a very perfect manner, the peculiar flavour by 
which the juice of the lime can always be distinguished from that of the 
lemon. The primary principle of Dr. Morfit’s process is the getting rid of 
nearly the whole of the natural water contained in the substance to be pre- 
served, by submitting it to a certain degree of heat, the place of the water 
being supplied by gelatin. The compound is then dried, and in this state may 
be kept for any length of time, or else it may be made up into biscuits by in- 
corporating it with biscuit-powder. Let us take Dr. Morfit’s method of 
preserving beef as an example. The beef must be as free from fat and bone 
as possible, and should be first stewed in its own liquor, or with the least 
possible quantity of water, and seasoned or not according to taste. The whole 
is then reduced, by any available mechanical means, to a state of smooth and 
fine pulp, and triturated with a solution of gelatin in water. One pound of 
gelatin is enough for 15 pounds of meat, fowl, or fish, the gelatin being dise 
solved either in a sufficiency of water or in the natural juice of the substanc- 
itself. In the case of fruit— such as gooseberries, currants, or plums — they 
are stoned or skinned when necessary, and cooked or not, as the case may be. 
They are then made into a pulp and mixed with gelatin dissolved in water or 
their own juice, heated so as to insure a thorough mixture of the ingredients, 
and then poured into coolers. In certain cases the gelatin may be replaced by 
mucilage of Irish moss, but the result, although cheaper, is not so good. Dr. 
Morfit’s method of condensing milk without the use of sugar is of great in- 
terest, seeing that the Swiss and other descriptions of condensed milk, which 
are now so largely sold, cannot be taken by delicate infants or by persons of 
weak digestion, owing to the large amount of sugar in them. One pound of 
gelatin is dissolved in one gallon of fresh milk at a temperature of from 130° 
to 140° F., the whole being allowed to set into a jelly, which is dried. The 
dried jelly is then dissolved in another gallon of fresh milk, and allowed to set 
and dry as before, the operation being repeated with fresh milk until the 
original pound of gelatin has taken up eight gallons of milk or more. Con- 
somme of meat may in like manner be condensed until one pound solid shall 
represent thirty times its weight of fresh beef. As may be readily guessed, the 
process may be carried on without any of the expensive plant and trouble- 
some manipulation involved in the usual modes of condensing milk and 
making Liebig’s extract, besides which, in the latter case, the whole of the 
nitrogenous parts of the meat are preserved intadl. From a hygienic point of 
view, the lime-fruit juice biscuits ought to be admirably suited for use in the 
Navy. Without entering into the question as to whether it is the citric acid, 
or the phosphatic salts, or the potash, contained in the lime-juice that is the 
real anti-scorbutic agent, it is sufficient to say that the 40 per cent, of Mont- 
serrat lime-fruitjuice preserved by Dr. Morfit’s process, and incorporated with 
the biscuits, has preserved all its properties without any change for more than 
a year, and, a priori, there is no reason to suppose that it would not keep good 
for ten or twenty times that period. It may be mentioned, in conclusion, that 
the different jellies may be dried into hard tablets or flakes at a uniform tem- 
perature of from 38° to 40° C., and sent into the market in this convenient form , 
as well asunder the more bulky guise of biscuits. A few cases of lime-fruit 
juice tablets, prepared according to Dr. Morfit’s method, would probably have 
saved the lives of several brave men during the late expedition to the Polar 
regions. Speaking from a purely scientific point of view, and judging by the re- 
sults we have already described, the principle of Dr. M orfit’s invention seems to 
be theoretically a sound one. These results we must regard at present as ten- 
tative, and it only remains to the inventor of the process to confer a large 
benefit on the community by extending its application, thereby notably in- 
creasing our not too abundant stock of hygienic and alimentary products. 
The Ross microscope, as remodelled by Mr. F. H. Wenham, and described 
in the “ Quarterly Journal of Science” for 1873 (p. 422), has again been 
greatly improved by the same ingenious gentleman. The general form of the 
stand resembles the former one, but the weight has been diminished without 
