CASEUM. 
about six feet in length, somewhat curved or bent, 
and of sufficient strength to bear the pressure of 
the whole power of a labourer. Its head, or part 
for contact with the soil, is so flattened as to act 
rudely like a mould-board; and is provided, at 
the heel, with a peg on which the workman 
presses his foot, in the application of his power, 
—and, at the point, with a narrow, sharp piece 
of iron, which serves the purpose of a shock or 
share, to penetrate the ground. This simple in- 
strument is worked merely with the hand and 
foot of the labourer, and makes but a pitiful rut 
in the soil; and though it might be useful for 
operating among rocks or between large stones, 
it is monstrously unsuited to the tillage of a free 
field; and, besides doing the work of tillage in a 
most miserable fashion, it involves three times 
the cost per acre of what would be occasioned by 
the plough. Yet, in spite of both expostulation 
and example, it preposterously continues to be 
very generally used in many districts of the He- 
brides. : 
CASEUM, or Caszrn. The basis or proper 
matter of cheese. Caseum is very generally 
identified with the curd of skimmed milk, ob- 
tained by means of rennet, and completely se- 
parated from the whey by washing with water; 
and in this state, it is white, insipid, and inodor- 
ous, insoluble in water, soluble in alkalies, and 
convertible, by means of alcohol, into a fetid 
adipocirous substance, But, by some chemists, 
this curd is believed to hold in combination with 
caseum some acid or earthy salt or other foreign 
substance, on which its insolubility in water de- 
pends; and pure caseum is contended to be a 
viscid body resembling gum or mucilage, inco- 
agulable by either heat or air, soluble in either 
hot or cold water, and obtainable from spontane- 
ous curd, or the curd of naturally souring milk, 
by artificially separating it from some acetic acid 
which it holds in combination. Spontaneous 
curd is washed and digested with water ; as much 
carbonate of potash is added as is sufficient to 
unite with the acetic acid; and the mixture is 
resolved into caseum and acetate of potash. “In 
order to separate the caseum from the accom- 
panying acetate, the solution, after separating 
the cream which collects on its surface by repose, 
is mixed with a little sulphuric acid; and the 
precipitated sulphate of caseum, carefully washed, 
is dissolved in water by means of the smallest 
possible quantity of carbonate of potash. If al- 
cohol is then freely employed, the caseum itself 
is thrown down; but if the solution is mixed 
with about its own volume of alcohol, a deposit 
of sulphate of potash with some curd and cream 
takes place, and the filtered liquor contains 
caseum in a state of great purity.” 
Soluble caseum, when thoroughly evapora- 
ted, has an appearance very similar to gum ara- 
bic, and remains for a long period unchanged, 
and with perfect retention of its solubility in 
water. It is so adhesive that it might be em- 
I. 
CASHMERE GOAT. 
ployed as a cement for paper, porcelain, and 
glass ; so nutritive, that it might be made into 
solution with water, flavoured with sugar and 
aromatics, and used for food by invalids; and 
so portable and easily preserved, that it might 
be stored for distant voyages, and employed, in 
mixture with water, sugar, and butter, as a sub- 
stitute for milk. When kept in a moist condi- 
tion, caseum undergoes a kind of fermentation, 
similar to that which takes place in moist gluten; 
but, except for its subjectability to this change, 
it bears, in its insoluble state, a close resemblance 
to albumen,—and in its soluble state, a close re- 
semblance to gum. Caseum, according to the 
analysis of Gay-Lussac and Thenard, consists of 
59°781 per cent. of carbon, 7'429 of hydrogen, 
11409 of oxygen, and 21°381 of nitrogen; and 
when burnt, it yields 6°5 per cent. of its whole 
weight of a white ash, the greater part of which 
is phosphate of lime. The pungency of old 
cheese is ascribed by some chemists toa yellow 
pungent oil, but by most to a peculiar proximate 
principle called caseic acid. 
CASHEW - NUT-TREE,—botanically Anacar- 
diwm. An evergreen, tropical, fruit-tree, of the 
turpentine-tree tribe. It forms a genus of itself, 
and takes for its specific name occidentale. It 
grows wild in both the West Indies and the Hast 
Indies, and has been known in Britain since the 
close of the seventeenth century. In its native 
regions, it usually attains a height of about 
twenty feet ; but in Britain, though easily raised 
from any of its annually imported nuts, it rarely 
attains a height of three feet, and is exceedingly 
difficult to be brought to flower. Its nut or ker- 
nel grows on the apex or exterior of its fruit ; and, 
by this singular habit, gives occasion to the name 
anacardium, which signifies “ without a heart.” 
The fruit is as large as an orange, and is full of 
an acidulous juice, which the Americans often 
mix with their punch. The nut is much broader 
at the end next the fruit than at the other end; 
but is otherwise of the shape and size of a hare’s 
kidney. A thick, black, inflammable, and very 
caustic oil intervenes between the outer shell and 
the skin of the kernel; and this blisters the 
mouth of any person, who incautiously attempts 
to crack the shell with his teeth. The eastern 
specimens of the tree slightly differ from the 
western, and are regarded as constituting a dis- 
tinct variety, under the designation A. 0. indicum. 
The milky juice of this variety stains linen a deep 
and indelible black colour; and the juice of its 
succulent fruit is used as a remedy for diarrhea 
and diabetes, A closely allied species, called by 
Lamarck Anacardium longifoliwm, and by Spren- 
gel Anacardium cassuviwm, constitutes a separate 
genus under the name of Semicarpus,—taking 
for its specific name anacardium, and deriving 
its generic name of semicarpus or “ fruit-marker, ” 
from the marking use which is made of the juice 
of its fruit. 
CASHMERE GOAT, A nobler species of the 
27, 
