JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, LITERATURE, AND ART. 469 
may be useful to us. A given quantity of the alkali (100 grains) 
is rubbed down in a porcelain mortar to a fine powder; boiling 
water is poured on it, a little at a time; and the rubbing is con¬ 
tinued until the alkali is dissolved. To half of the clear liquor add 
a table-spoonful of the infusion of cabbage, and the whole will be 
of a green colour. Take a dropping tube, seven or eight inches 
long, and divided into thirty equal parts: fill it with sulphuric 
acid, so diluted that the quantity contained in twenty-two divisions 
of the dropping tube will saturate fifty grains of crystallized sub¬ 
carbonate of soda; then drop so much of the test acid into the 
sample as will j ust change its green colour to crimson, constantly 
stirring the mixture. The quantity of acid used will shew the per 
centage of alkali in the sample. A simple apparatus for this pur¬ 
pose is made by Mr. Bate, philosophical instrument maker, 21, 
Poultry. 
Of the Essay by (we imagine) the late Mr. Wadd, “On Cook¬ 
ery,” we say little; for this best or worst of all reasons, that the 
“cookery” of many of us poor veterinarians is necessarily too 
simple to borrow much from the researches of science; and it 
would seem that cookery must now be regarded as a science, 
when physicians write so learnedly upon it, and establish the 
u nervous glands” as the sovereign judges of the table; and one 
professional author boasts of having invented “ seven culisses, nine 
ragouts, thirty-one sauces, and twenty-one soups;” and we are 
told, from undoubted authority, that “ La gastronomic est la con- 
naisance raisonnee de tout ce qui a report a Thomme, en tout ce 
qu’il se nourrit.” 
This essay contains many amusing anecdotes, and much sound 
philosophy. The author a little approaches our province when he 
enters his protest (and to which we add ours, for the health and 
the life of the beast is here concerned, as the history of inflamma¬ 
tory fever would too clearly show) against that absurd fashion which 
- ■ ■ ■ ■ •■-makes modern meat 
Too dear to buy, too tat to eat. 
Among the miscellaneous papers we find a description of the 
method of preserving butter, by M. Thenard. It is that used by 
the Tartars, and 
Consists in fuzing the butter in a water-bath, at a temperature of 190° F., 
and retaining it quiescent in that state until the caseous matter has settled, 
and the butter become clear; it is then to be decanted, passed through a 
cloth, and cooled in a mixture of salt and ice, or, at least, in spring-water, 
without which it would crystallize, and not resist so well the action of air. 
Preserved in close vessels and cold places, it may be kept for six months as 
good as it was on the first day, especially if the upper part be excepted.— 
The flavour of rancid butter may, according to M. Thenard, be removed 
almost entirely by similar meltings and coolings. 
3 p 
