The  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
1359 
Water  and  Temperature;  Milk  a  Mixture 
Does  a  vessel  of  water,  placed  in  a  farmer’s  cellar 
on  a  cold  night,  help  prevent  it  from  freezing?  Is 
milk  a  mixture  or  a  compound?  reuben  m.  greene. 
Vermont. 
EAT  AND  COLD.  —  A  vessel  of  water, 
placed  anywhere,  helps  keep  the  neighbor¬ 
hood  above  freezing  until  the  water  itself 
is  frozen.  It  does  not  have  to  be  in  a 
cellar,  nor  does  the  cellar,  if  there  is  one, 
have  to  belong  to  a  farmer.  Our  names 
for  relative  temperatures,  “hot”  and  “cold,”  merely 
refer  to  the  average  temperatures  in  which  we  live; 
absolute  temperature  is  a  motion  of  the  particles  of 
which  all  substances  are  made.  When  there  is  no 
such  motion,  we  have  the  “absolute  zero”  which  has 
never  been  quite  reached,  although  a  Dutch  scient¬ 
ist  has  nearly  attained  it.  If  we  take  as  a  measure 
of  “hotness”  the  hotness  of  boiling  water  to  ice, 
then  ice  is  nearly  three  times  that  hotness  above 
“absolute  zero.”  (Our  ordinary  Fahrenheit  zero 
the  time,  more  or  less.  Now  if  the  vessel  of  water 
in  a  given  space,  and  to  get  a  practical  result  it 
must  be  a  closed  space,  and  not  too  large  for  the 
amount  of  water,  is  warmer  than  its  surroundings, 
it  will  give  them  more  energy,  as  heat,  than  it  takes 
from  them:  that  is,  it  tends  to  keep  the  space  warm 
till  it  is  taking  in  from  the  space  just  as  much 
heat  as  it  gives  out.  And  now,  if  that  space  itself 
tends  to  lose  heat,  that  is.  if  it  is  colder  outside 
than  it  is  within,  another  curious  fact  comes  into 
play.  To  get  the  particles  of  water,  moving  about 
with  the  amount  of  internal  energy  we  name  “32  de¬ 
grees  Falir.”  to  stop  moving  about  and  settle  down 
to  a  more  quiet,  though  still  somewhat  active,  state 
we  call  ice,  still  at  32  degrees  Falir.,  we  must  get 
a  definite  amount  of  energy  away  from  them.  That 
is,  ice  at  32  degrees  has  considerably  less  energy 
than  water  at  32  degrees.  So  your  vessel  of  water 
will  continue  to  give  up  energy  to  the  space  till  it 
ones  who  approve  their  action  in  this  regard. 
MILK  FAT. — In  that  water  there  are  minute 
droplets  of  a  “mixed  fat.”  That  is,  there  are  the 
glycerine  salts  of  three  or  four,  perhaps  more,  fatty 
acids,  and  this  mixture  of  fats  is  kept  from  lump¬ 
ing  up  and  floating  to  the  top  by  forces  which  are 
scarcely  understood  at  all.  We  can  give  you  fairly 
long  names  for  them,  hut  we  cannot,  as  yet.  explain 
how  they  act.  Some  think  that  each  fat  droplet 
has  a  little  skir  of  the  casein,  the  stuff  that  makes 
the  bulk  of  cheese,  about  it,  and  that  this  can  be 
broken  by  considerable  force  in  fresh  milk  and  by 
a  moderate  amount  of  force  in  slightly  sour  milk. 
In  any  event,  when  these  bits  of  fat  do  join,  they 
rise  to  the  top,  taking  with  them  an  unknown  body 
which  has  been  named  “vitamine”  which,  in  some 
way,  greatly  assists  in  the  growth  of  young  crea¬ 
tures  and  aids  adults  in  keeping  in  good  health.  Cod 
liver  oil  also  has  this  substance,  in  good  proportion. 
as5.;- ^ 
Barrelling  Apples  in  the  Orchard.  Fig.  C01 
is  only  a  little  colder  than  ice  to  the  absolute  zero.) 
WORK  OR  ENERGY. — Now,  work,  or  energy,  act¬ 
ing  on  matter,  may,  and  usually  does,  change  its  ex¬ 
ternal  arrangement,  its  shape.  It  also  changes  its 
internal  arrangement,  more  or  less  permanently,  and 
part  of  this  change  we  call  “heat.”  For  instance, 
a  cold  nail  is  hit  by  a  cold  hammer  on  a  cold  anvil. 
All  three  get  hot,  but  we  notice  ther  change  most  in 
the  nail,  since  all  its  share  of  the  effect  is  concen¬ 
trated  in  its  small  bulk.  Experiment  shows  that  the 
same  amount  of  work  done  on  various  substances 
does  not  make  them  all  equally  hot.  There  is  no 
reason  known  for  this;  it  is  one  of  the  inherent 
qualities  of  things  as  we  find  them.  Of  all  things 
so  far  examined,  and  nearly  everything  has  been 
examined,  it  is  found  that  water  is  the  hardest 
thing  to  heat,  that  is,  it  takes  more  energy  to  heat 
it  than  any  other  substance.  The  converse  of  this, 
of  course,  is  that  it  gives  out  more  heat,  for  a  given 
weight,  as  it  cools  down,  than  any  other  thing. 
RADIATION  AND  ABSORPTION.  —  All  things 
tend  to  share  that  energy  we  call  “heat”  with  one 
another;  we  say  that  the  cooler  ones  “absorb”  and 
the  hotter  “radiate”  heat,  but  those  terms  are  mere¬ 
ly  relative.  All  things  both  radiate  and  absorb  all 
is  frozen.  After  it  is  frozen  it  still  takes  energy  to 
cool  it  more,  but  by  this  time  you  have  lost  interest 
in  it,  as  the  potatoes  are  frozen,  and  a  chunk  of 
warm  ice  is  not  an  attractive  heating  proposition. 
To  get  very  much  protection  the  vessel,  or  vessels, 
of  water  must  be  fairly  large  compared  with  the 
space  they  are  to  protect,  and  must  be  refilled  with 
warm  water  from  time  to  time.  Some  farmers  are 
lucky  enough  to  have  a  spring  in  the  cellar,  and 
by  leading  the  stream  from  this  around  the  walls 
they  get  absolute  protection.  Two  or  three  pails  of 
fairly  warm  water  will  hold  out  frost  surprisingly 
well  in  a  small  space,  but  a  cellar  of  any  size  needs 
too  much  water  to  make  this  scheme  practical. 
COMPOSITION  OF  MILK.— Milk  is  a  mixture, 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  known.  To  begin  with, 
there  is  about  S5  to  88  per  cent  water,  in  fact,  in 
most  States,  there  may  not  be  more  than  SS  per 
cent  of  water,  but  some  Holstein  cows,  who  have 
never  been  taught  to  read  law,  insist,  in  the  early 
stages  of  attempting  to  fill  the"  tummies  of  large 
and  wobbly  IJolstein  calves,  on  putting  89  per  cent. 
“Ignorance  of  the  law  excuses  no  one,”  and  the 
calves,  and  occasional  human  infants  who  are  un¬ 
fortunate  enough  to  be  “bottle  babies”  are  the  only 
but  the  taste  is  not  the  same.  In  this  water,  also, 
is  the  cheese-stuff  we  just  mentioned.  It  belongs  to 
the  great  class  of  “proteins,”  found  in  all  animals 
and  vegetables,  and  differing  somewhat,  according 
to  the  source,  but  having,  in  nearly  every  case,  six 
and  a  quarter  per  cent  of  nitrogen  combined  with 
the  carbon  and  hydrogen.  There  are  also  some  sul¬ 
phur  and  some  phosphorus  atoms  among  those  pres¬ 
ent,  but  here,  again,  we  know  little  of  how  they  are 
hitched,  or  where.  The  casein  is  held  in  solution, 
or  in  a  sort  of  solution  which  some  of  us  prefer  to 
call  “dispersion,”  by  the  lime  which  is  present.  The 
casein  has  some  of  the  properties  of  an  acid,  so  that 
there  is  probably  a  true  compound  present.  But  the 
hold  of  the  casein  on  the  lime  is  so  weak  that  very 
little  of  almost  any  of  the  things  which  we  really 
know  to  be  acids  will  take  the  lime  away,  and  the 
casein  will  appear  as  a  soft  mass  which  dries  to  a 
horny  solid.  There  is  practically  3  per  cent  of 
the  casein. 
LACTOSE  OR  MILK  SUGAR.— Dissolved  in  the 
water,  also  (and  in  this  case  it  seems  to  be  a  true 
solution),  is  some  5  per  cent  of  a  peculiar  sugar, 
found  nowhere  else,  and  named,  of  course,  milk 
sugar,  lactose.  It  is  like  cane  sugar,  in  that  it  can 
