Chapter IV: Part 4

_Chemical Affinity_.--The attraction of the particles of bodies of different kinds to each other is often striking and curious; as, for instance, those of salt to those of water. The salt attracts the water, and the water the salt, till at last, if there is a sufficient quantity of water, all the salt is attracted particle by particle from itself, and taken up and united to the water. The salt is no longer visible to the eye, and is said to be dissolved or in solution; but this change of form is due to its affinity for the water, and the resulting attraction of the one to the other. The same phenomena are observed, and they are due to the same cause, in other solutions; as when we infuse our tea or sweeten it with sugar. The attraction of water, or one of its elements rather, for other substances, sometimes shows itself in vehement forms. When a piece of potassium, for example, is thrown into a vessel of water, its attraction for the water is such, and of the water for it, that it instantly takes fire, and the two blaze away, particle violently seizing on particle until the elements of the water unite part for part with the metal. It is the mutually attractive force that causes the heat and flame which accompany the combination; and this force is most violently active in the union of dissimilar substances. Unions of a quieter kind, though not less thorough, occur even between solids when placed in contact. For instance, sulphate of soda and sulphate of ammonia, when placed side by side, will diliquesce, and in liquid form unite into a new combination. Sulphuric acid, when we mix it with water, generates great heat; and this is due to its attraction for the water. Sometimes two fluids unite together, and, in doing so, pass from the liquid into the solid form; as, _e.g._, sulphuric acid and chloride of calcium. Attraction of this nature is called chemical: it takes effect between dissimilar particles, and results in combinations with new properties. It operates not only between solid and solid, solid and liquid, and liquid and liquid, but between these and gases, and gases with one another; and these as well as those combine into new substances, and evince in the act not a little violent commotion. Thus, phosphorus catches fire in the atmosphere at a temperature of 140 degrees, and it goes on rapidly combining with the oxygen, burning with a dazzling white light, and producing phosphoric acid. Indeed, most metals have an affinity for the oxygen in the air, and oxydise in it with more or less facility; and a metal, as such, has more value than another according as it has less affinity for that element, and is less liable to oxydise or rust in it. This is one reason, among others, why gold is the most precious metal, and the conventional representative of highest worth in things.

There are some metals, such as lead, for instance, which oxydise readily, but this process stops short at the surface in contact with the air, and so forms a coating which prevents the metal from further oxydation; so that here, as in so many things else, strength is connected with weakness.

_Electricity_.--This, in the most elementary view of it, is a more or less attractive or repellant force latent in bodies, and which is capable of being roused into action by the application of friction. It is excited in a rod of glass by rubbing it with silk, and in a piece of sealing-wax by rubbing it with flannel, though the effect is different when we apply first the one and then the other to the same body. Thus, _e.g._, if we apply the excited sealing-wax to a paper ring, or a pith-ball, hung by a silk thread from a horizontal glass rod, it will, after contact, repel it; and if, thereafter, we apply to it the excited glass rod, it will attract it; or if we first apply the excited glass rod to the paper ring, or pith-ball, it will, after contact, repel it; and if thereafter we apply to it the excited sealing-wax, it will attract it. The reason is, that when we once charge a body by contact with either kind, it repels that kind, and attracts the opposite; if we charge it from the glass, _i.e._, with vitreous electricity, it refuses to have more, and is attracted to the sealing-wax; and if we charge it from the sealing-wax, _i.e._, with resinous electricity, it refuses to have more, and is attracted to the glass-rod; only it is to be observed that, till the body is charged by either, it has an equal attraction for both. From all which it appears that kindred electricities repel, and opposite attract, each other.

Two pieces of gold leaf suspended from a metal rod, inserted at the top of a glass shade full of perfectly pure, dry air, will separate if we rub our foot on the carpet, and touch the top of the rod with one of our fingers; for the motion of the body, as in walking, always excites electricity, and it is this which, as it passes through the finger, causes the phenomenon; though the least sensation of damp in the glass would, by instantly draining off the electricity, defeat the experiment. What happens in this case is, that one kind of electricity passes from the finger to the leaves, while another kind, to make room for it, passes from the leaf to the finger; and the leaves separate because they are both more or less charged with the same kind of electricity, and kindred electricities repel each other. Ribbons, particularly of white silk, when well washed, are similarly susceptible of electrical excitation; and they behave very much as the gold leaf does when they are rubbed sharply through a piece of flannel. Gutta-percha is another substance which, when similarly treated, is similarly affected.

This power is a very mysterious one, and of a nature to perplex even the philosophic observer. Certain bodies, such as the metals, convey it, and are called conductors; certain others, such as glass and porcelain, arrest it, and are called insulators. It is for this reason that the wires of the telegraph are supported by a non-conductor, for if not, the electric current would pass into the earth by the first post and never reach its final destination. Glass being an insulator, it was found that, if a glass bottle was filled with water, and then corked up with a cork, through which a nail was passed so that the top of it touched the water, it would receive and retain a charge as long as it was held in the hand; and this observation led to an invention of some account in the subsequent applications of electricity, known, from the place of its conception, as the Leyden jar. This is a glass jar, the inside of which is coated with tinfoil, and the outside as far as the neck, and into which, so as to touch the inside coating, a brass rod with a knob at the top is inserted through a cork, which closes its mouth. By means of this, in consequence of the isolation of the coatings by the glass, electricity can, in a dry atmosphere, be condensed, and stored up and husbanded till wanted.

A series of eggs, arranged in contact and in line, give occasion to a pretty experiment. In consequence of the shells being non-conductors, and the inside conducting, it happens that a current of electricity, applied to the first of the series, will pass from one to another in a succession of crackling sparks, in this way forcing itself through the obstructing walls. This effect of electricity in making its way through non-conducting obstructions accounts for the explosion which ensues when a current of it comes in contact with a quantity of gunpowder; as it also does for the fatal consequences which result when, on its way from the atmosphere to the earth, it rushes athwart any resisting organic or inorganic body.

_Magnetism_.--Unlike electricity, which acts with a shock and then expires, magnetism is a constant quantity, and constant in its action; and it has this singular property, that it can impart itself as a permanent force to bodies previously without it. Thus, there being natural magnets and artificial, we can, by passing a piece of steel over a magnet, turn it into a strong magnet itself; although we can also, when it is in the form of a horse-shoe, by a half turn round and then rubbing it on the magnet, take away what it has acquired, and bring it back to its original state. The magnetic property is very readily imparted (by induction, as it is called) to soft iron, but when the iron is removed from the magnetising body, it parts with the virtue as fast as it acquired it. To obtain a substance that will retain the power induced, we must make some other election; and hard steel is most serviceable for conversion into a permanent magnet.

The properties of the magnet are best observed in magnetised steel; and when we proceed to test its magnetic power, it will be found that it is most active at the extremities of the bar, which are hence called its poles, and hardly, if at all, at the centre; that while both poles attract certain substances and repel others, the one always points nearly north and the other nearly south when the bar is horizontally suspended; and that, when we break the bar into two or any number of pieces, however small, each part forms into a complete magnet with its virtue active at the poles, which, when suspended, preserves its original direction; so that of two particles one is, in that case, always north of the other; nay, it is probable that each of these has its north pole and its south, as constant as those of the earth itself, which, too, is a large magnet.

The magnet acts through media and at a distance, as well as in contact; and it has an especial attraction for iron, the more so when the conducting medium is solid, such as a table; and so when the magnet is horizontally suspended, or poised, in the vicinity of iron, its tendency to point north and south is seriously disturbed. The disturbance of the bar, or needle, in such a case, is called its _deflection_; and it is corrected by so placing a piece of soft iron or another magnet in its neighbourhood as to neutralise the effect, and leave said bar, or needle, free to obey the magnetism of the earth. The needle, it is to be remarked, does not point due north and south, neither, when poised freely on its centre, does it lie perfectly horizontal; in our latitude it points at present 20 deg. west of north, which is called its _declination_, and its north pole slopes downwards at an angle of 68 deg., which is called its _dip_.

By holding a rod of iron, or a poker, for a length of time parallel to the direction of the needle, so as to have the same declination and the same dip, it will gradually assume and display magnetic virtue, and this will ere long become fixed and powerful under a succession of vibratory shocks. There is a beautiful experiment in which a needle, when magnetised, can be made to float on water, when it adjusts itself to the magnetic meridian, and will incline north and south the same as the needle of the compass.

_The Chemical Action of Electricity and Magnetism_.--These agents possess powers which develop wonderfully in connection with chemical combination. Thus, if we suspend a piece of iron in a vessel which contains oxygen gas, and apply to the metal an electric current, it will immediately begin to unite rapidly, and form an oxide with oxygen, emitting, during the process, intense heat and a bright flame. Zinc, too, when similarly acted on, will ignite in the common atmosphere and burn away, though with less intensity, till it also is, under the electric force, reduced to an oxide. It is presumed that many other chemical combinations take place because of the simultaneous joint development of electric agencies, as in copper, water, and aquafortis, nitrate of copper, &c. So also it happens that, when a plate of iron is for some time immersed in a copper solution, it comes out at length covered over with a coating of copper. And it is because there is electricity at work that a silver basin will be coated with copper when we pour into it a copper solution, and at the same time place in it a rod of zinc, so that it rests on the side and bottom, though no coating will form at all when there is no rod present to excite the electric current. The same phenomena will appear if we deposit a silver coin in the solution in question: the coin will come out unaffected, unless we excite affinity by means of a rod of iron. It is under the action of an electric current that one metal is coated with another. The metal, copper say, is steeped in a solution of the coating substance, and connected by means of wires with a galvanic battery, under the action of which the metal in solution unites with the surface of the plate immersed in it. Heat also is developed under magnetic influence, and that often of great intensity. Thus, if we connect the poles of a voltaic battery by means of a platinum wire, heat will develop to such a degree that the platinum will almost instantaneously become red hot and emit a bright light, and that along a wire of some considerable length. A similar effect is noticeable when we substitute other metals, such as silver or iron, for platinum. And the _electric light_, which flashes out rays of sunlike brilliance, is the result of placing a piece of compact charcoal between the separated but confronting poles of a powerful galvanic battery, light, developing more at the one pole and heat more at the other of the incandescent substance.

Kindred, though much milder, results will show themselves under simpler, though similar, contrivances. A flounder will jump and jerk about uneasily if we lay it upon a piece of tinfoil and place over it a thin plate of zinc, and then connect the two with a bent metal rod; which will happen to an eel also, if we expose it to a gentle current from a battery.

By means of electric or magnetic action we can separate bodies chemically combined, as well as unite them into chemical compounds; as will appear if we place a piece of blotting paper upon tinfoil, and this upon wool; if we then spread above these two pieces of test-paper, litmus and turmeric, the one the test of acids, and the other of alkalis, and saturate both with Glauber salt (which is by itself neither an acid nor an alkali, but a combination of the two), and, finally, connect each by means of a piece of zinc with the poles of a battery, the test-papers will immediately change colour, as they do the one in the presence of an acid simply, and the other of an alkali simply, but never in a compound where these are neutralised; thus proving that the compound has in this case been decomposed, and its elements disintegrated one from another.

A very powerful magnet can be produced by coiling a wire round a bar of soft iron, and attaching its extremities to the poles of a galvanic battery, when it will be found that its strength will be proportioned to the strength of the current and the turns of the coil. This is especially the case when the bar is bent into the form of a horse-shoe, and the wires are insulated and coiled round its limbs. The force communicated to a magnet of this kind, which is often immense, is the product of the chemical action which goes on in the battery, and, in a certain sense, the measure of it. How great that is we may judge when we consider that, evanescent as it is in itself, it has imparted a virtue which is both powerful and constant, and ever at our service.

_Summary_.--Thus, then, on a review of the whole, we find all things are endowed with attractive power, and that there is no particle which is not directly or indirectly related, in manifold ways, to the other particles of the universe. There is, first, the universal attraction of gravitation, under which every particle is, by a fixed law, drawn to every other within the sphere of existence. There is, secondly, the attraction of cohesion or aggregation, which acts at short distances, and unites the otherwise loose atoms of bodies into coherent masses. There is, thirdly, the power by which elements of different kinds combine into compounds with new and useful qualities, known by the name of chemical affinity. And, lastly, related to the action of affinity, aiding in it and resulting from it, there are those strange negative and positive, attractive and repellant polar forces which appear in the phenomena of electricity and magnetism, agencies of such potency and universal avail in modern civilisation.

On the permanency of such forces and their mutual play the universe rests, and its wonderful history. With the collapse of any of them it would cease to have any more a footing in space, and all its elements would rush into instant confusion. What a Hand, therefore, that must be which holds them up, and what a Wisdom which guides their movements! Verily, He that sends them forth and bids them work His will is greater than any one--greater than all of them together. How insignificant, then, should we seem before Him who rules them on the wide scale by commanding them, while we can only rule them on the small by obeying them! And yet how benignant must we regard Him to be who both wields them Himself for our benefit and subjects them to our intelligence and control!

FOOTNOTES:

[B] This paper on "Attraction" is the substance of a lecture which I composed on the basis of notes taken by me when. I had the honour of attending the Prince of Wales at the course given, on the same subject by the late Professor Faraday. The Professor, having seen the _resume_ I had written, warmly commended the execution, and generously accorded me his sanction to make any use of it, whether for the purpose of a lecture or otherwise, as might seem good to me. It is on the ground of this sanction I feel warranted to print it here.

_THE OIL FROM LINSEED_.

Various processes have for a long time been in use for the purpose of extracting the oils from different species of nuts and seeds, a few of the more interesting of which are not unworthy of brief notice and description.

In Ceylon, where cocoa-nuts and oil-producing seeds abound, the means employed by the natives in the last century for extracting the oils were of a most primitive character. A few poles were fixed upright in the ground, two horizontal bars attached to them, between which a bag containing the pulp of the seed or nut was placed. A lever was then applied to the horizontal bars, which brought them together, thus creating a pressure which, by squeezing the bag, gradually expressed the oil from the pulpy substance. This rude machine was at that time of day one of the most approved for the purpose.

The system of pestle and mortar was also in use, but as the process was necessarily very slow, this method was seldom resorted to. An improvement on this system was invented by a Mr. Herbert, whose design it had been to construct a powerful and efficient machine which should combine cheapness and simplicity. It consisted of three pieces of wood, viz., an upright piece fixed in the ground, from the lower and upper extremities of which there projected the two other pieces, the top one attached to the joint of a long horizontal lever, and the lower one to the joint of a vertical one. The fixed upright post and the horizontal lever formed the press. The bag of pulp being put between the upright one and the vertical, the pressure was obtained by suspending a negro or a weight from the lever.

In another press of the same or a similar kind, the bags were placed in a horizontal frame, and a loose beam of wood pressed down on it by a lever.

Another form of press had cambs and wedges; also a modification of it by Mr. Hall of Dartford, who applied the pressure by means of a steam-cylinder. The cambs are arranged alternately, so that one is filled while the other is being pressed. This brief notice will suffice to give an idea of such machines as are wrought by lever pressure.

We pass on, therefore, to later inventions and improvements.

First, The Dutch or _stamper_ press, invented in Holland; second, the _screw_; and, third, the _hydraulic_:--

(1.) _The stamper press_ is something like a beetling-machine, in which wedges are driven in between the bags, containing, of course in a bruised condition, the seed to be pressed.

(2.) _The screw press_ has an ordinary square-threaded screw, and it acts in the same way as press for making cider or cheese.

(3.) _The hydraulic press_. Here the pressure is produced by means of a piston driven up by the force of water, the immense power of which is, in great part, due to its almost total incompressibility. This is by far the most perfect form of press. Its power must be familiar to all who remember the lifting of the tubes of the Britannia Bridge, and the _launching of the Great Eastern_.

An oil-mill is in form something like a flour-mill. The operation begins at the top, where the seed is passed through a flat screw or shaker and then through a pair of rollers, which crush it. These rollers are of unequal diameter, the one being 4 feet, and the other 1 foot; but they are both of the same length, 1 foot 4 inches, and make fifty-six revolutions in a minute. By this arrangement it is found the seed is both better bruised and faster than when, as was formerly the case, the rollers were of the same diameter. A pair of rollers will crush 4-1/2 tons of seed in eleven hours, a quantity enough to keep two sets of hydraulic presses going.

After the seed is crushed in this way, it is passed under a pair of edge stones. These stones weigh about seven tons, are 7 feet 6 inches in diameter and 17 inches broad, and make seventeen revolutions a minute. If of good quality, they will not require to be faced more than once in three years, and they will last from fifteen to twenty. They are fitted with two scrapers, one for raking the seed between the stones, the other for raking it off at the proper period. One pair of stones will grind seed sufficient for two double hydraulic presses, and the operation occupies about twenty-five minutes. The seed is now crushed and ground, but before it is passed on to the press it is transferred to the heating-kettle.

The heating-kettle is composed of two cylindrical castings, one fitting loosely into the other, so that a space is left between them for a free circulation of steam all round both the sides and bottom of the interior vessel. The internal casting is again divided horizontally into two partitions, one above the other therefore, by two plates, between which also there is a space left for the admission and circulation of steam; and a communication is kept up between the upper compartment and the under by means of a stripping valve. Besides this, there is a communication from the internal kettle through the external one, and also a shaft passes between the two horizontal parts to give motion to the stirrer, which revolves thirty-six times a minute. A cover encloses the top, and it is through this the vessel is charged. The upper portion is filled first, where the contents introduced are allowed to remain ten or fifteen minutes, after which the valve is opened and the whole falls into the lower kettle, where it is kept till wanted. The seed is then taken away from the lower kettle by an opening, and bestowed in bags of sufficient size to make a cake of 8 lbs. weight after the oil is pressed out of it. Indeed, the compartments of the heating-kettle are of a size to contain enough to charge one side of a hydraulic press. These, therefore, are so constructed as to render the operation continuous, the upper one being discharged into the under as soon as its contents are withdrawn to the press. The seed is heated to the temperature of 170 degrees Fahr., when it is drawn off and placed in the bags.

In another form of kettle the seed is heated on a hot hearth, and on the top of the hearth is a loose ring, within which a spindle revolves to stir the seed. After the requisite temperature has been reached, the ring is raised and the seed swept into the bags, which are made of horse-hair. There is great loss of heat in this method, however, as the seed is exposed to the atmosphere, which of course cools it.

We now come to the final operation, the mode of expressing the oil. The screw press we do not need to describe, as it consists simply of two plates, brought together by a screw, in the same way as the press used for squeezing apples in the manufacture of cider, and the cheese press. Let us look therefore at the stamper press. It consists of an iron box, open at the top, at each end of which are two plates, capable of containing between them a bag of seed which shall yield a cake weighing 9 lbs. To one of the inner plates of the box is attached a wedge, beside which is inserted another filling up, and then the driving wedge is introduced; and lastly, another block is let in between this wedge and the other plate as soon as the bags have been placed vertically in the press-box. A stamper of wood, worked by cambs on a revolving shaft, is allowed to fall about 1 foot 10 inches, at the rate of fifteen strokes a minute, for about six minutes. This stamper is 16 feet long by 8 inches square, and falls on the head of the wedge, and drives it in to a level at the top of the box. Another stamper is employed to drive down an inverted wedge, so as to release the working one, and enable the attendant to take out the cake. A press of this kind will turn out only about 12 cwts. of cake a day.

We come now to the hydraulic press. This is certainly the most approved invention that has yet been adopted, and it is simply a Bramah press adjusted for the purpose. It has been in use for about thirty years, though it was, of course, at first less skilfully and scientifically constructed than it is now. In one of the earliest of these presses, the box which contains the seed runs on a tramway in order to facilitate its removal from the heating-kettle, so that each time the bags have to be replenished the whole box has to be removed; and this causes no inconsiderable loss both of power and time, for it has, when filled, to be replaced on the ram and lifted bodily upwards in order to bring it flush with the top of the press, which fits the press-box and acts as a point of resistance. In this arrangement there are introduced only one press and one set of small pumps.

The next press we come to is Blundell's, which is admitted to be by far the most efficient in use to-day. Here there are two distinct presses, or a double hydraulic press, fed by two pumps, one 2-1/2 inches and the other 1 inch in diameter, both connected with the separate cylinders by hydraulic tubing. The stroke of these pumps is 5 inches, and they make thirty-six strokes a minute. The larger pump is weighted to 740 lbs. on the square inch, and the smaller to 5540 the square inch. The diameter of the rams is 12 inches, and the stroke 10 inches. Each press is fitted to receive four bags of seed, and it produces 64 lbs. of cake at each operation. After the heated seed has been placed in the bags, the attendant proceeds to fill one press, and then he opens the valve between the large pump and the charged press, which causes the ram to rise till there is a pressure of forty tons, whereupon the safety-valve of the large pump opens, and is kept so by a spring. While this operation is going on, the attendant is occupied with filling the second press; which completed, he opens the communication between the large pump and the second press, taking care first to replace the safety-valve. The ram of this press is then raised to the same height as the other, after which the safety-valve rises a second time. The attendant, as he closes the valve which opens the communication between the large pump and the press, at the same time opens the valve between the small pumps and the presses; and the pressure, amounting to about 300 tons, exerted by the small pump, is allowed to remain on the rams for about seven minutes. From which it appears that, allowing three minutes for emptying and charging the press, the process of expressing the oil takes only three minutes in all; and it is done by this press in this brief time in the most effectual manner. The oil, as it is expressed, passes through the canvas and hair bags to a cistern, known as the spill-tank, which is just large enough to contain the produce of one day's working. The presses are worked by oil instead of water, as it keeps both presses and pumps in better order. Each of them will produce 36 cwts. of cake per day of eleven hours, while the yield of oil is about 14 cwts. The oil is pumped from the spill-tanks to larger ones, capable of holding from 25 to 100 tons, where it remains for some time in order to settle previously to being brought to the market.

I do not intend to enter into the relative merits of the various presses, but content myself with having explained to you the manner in which the oil is produced.

Before concluding, it may be interesting to give you some idea of the vast extent of this manufacture. It appears, according to the official returns, that in the year 1841 we imported 364,000 quarters of seed.

THE OIL FROM LINSEED.

______________________________________________________
| 1842 | 368,000 | 1847 | 439,000 | 1852 | 800,000 |
| 1843 | 470,000 | 1848 | 799,000 | 1853 | 1,000,000 |
| 1844 | 616,000 | 1849 | 626,000 | 1854 | 828,000 |
| 1845 | 666,000 | 1850 | 668,000 | 1855 | 757,000 |
| 1846 | 506,000 | 1851 | 630,000 | 1856 | 1,100,000 |
______________________________________________________

Now if we take the last year's imports, we shall find that the produce would amount to about 144,000 tons' weight of oil-cake, and above 56,000 tons of oil.

The cake is used for feeding cattle, and the oil for burning, lubricating, painting, &c.; and a very large quantity is exported.

We find that to crush the seed imported in 1856 it required from 150 to 160 double hydraulic presses, nearly 100 of which were in Hull. This shows the extent of our commerce in the seed of flax, to say nothing of its fibre; and is one more instance of the great results which may be wrought out of little things. What a beautiful illustration of the bounty of Providence; and what an encouragement to the ingenuity of man! Who knows what treasures may yet lie hidden in neglected fields, or to what untold wealth the human family may one day fall heir?

_HODGE-PODGE: OR, WHAT'S INTILT._

WRITTEN NOV. 20, 1875, AT STAGENHOE PARK.

The subject and treatment, as well as title, of this Lecture are suggested by the answer of the hostess at a Scottish inn to an English tourist, who was inquisitive to know the composition of a dish which she offered him, and which she called Hodge-Podge. "There's water intilt," she said, "there's mutton intilt, there's pease intilt, there's leeks intilt, there's neeps intilt, and sometimes somethings else intilt." The analysis was an exhaustive one, and the intelligence displayed by the landlady was every way worthy of the shrewdness indigenous to her country; but her answer was not so lucid to her listener as to herself, as appeared by his bewildered looks, and his further half-despairing interrogatory. "But what is _intilt_?" said he, impatiently striking in before she had well finished. "Haven't I been tellin' ye what's intilt?" she replied. And she began the enumeration again, only with longer pause and greater emphasis at every step, as if she were enlightening a slow apprehension,--"There's water intilt, there's mutton intilt;" quietly and self-complacently adding, as she finished, "Ye surely ken now what's intilt." Whether her guest now understood her meaning, or whether he had to succumb, contented with his ignorance, we are not informed; but few of my readers need to be told that "intilt" is a Scotch provincialism for "into it," and that the landlady meant by using it to signify that the particulars enumerated entered as constituents _into_ her mysterious dish.

My aim is to discourse on the same constituents as they display their virtues and play their parts on a larger scale, in a wider economy; and when I have said my say, I hope I may be able to lay claim to the credit of having spoken intelligibly and profitably, though I must at the outset bespeak indulgence by promise of nothing more than the serving up of a dish of simple hodge-podge. The question I put in a wider reference is the question of the Englishman, as expressed in the Scotchwoman's dialect, What's intilt? and I assume that there enter into it, as radically component parts, at least the ingredients of this motley soup. Into the large hodge-podge of nature and terrestrial economics, as into this small section of Scotch cookery, there enter the element of water, the flesh of animals, and the fruits of the earth, as well as the processes by which these are brought to hand and rendered serviceable to life. The ingredients of hodge-podge exist in _rerum natura_, and the place they occupy and the function they fulfil in it are no less deserving of our inquisitive regard.

Thus, there is water in it, without which there were no seas and no sailing of ships, no rivers and no plying of mills, no vapour and no power of steam, no manufacture and no trade, and not only no motion, but no growth and no life. There is mutton, or beef, in it, and connected therewith the breeding and rearing of cattle, the production of wool, tallow, and leather, and the related manufactures and crafts. There are turnips and carrots in it, the latter of such value to the farmer that on one occasion a single crop of them sufficed to clear off a rent; and the former of such consequence in the fattening of stock and the provision of animal food, that a living economist divides society exhaustively into turnip-producing classes and turnip-consuming. There are leeks and onions in it, and these, with the former, suggest the art of the gardener, and the wonderful processes by which harsh and fibrous products can be turned into pulpy and edible fruits. And there are pease and barley in it, and associated therewith the whole art of the husbandman in the tillage of the soil and the raising of cereals, with the related processes of grinding the meal, baking the bread, preparing the malt, brewing the beer, and distilling the fiery life-blood at the heart.

Now, to discourse on all these, as they deserve, would be a task of no ordinary magnitude, but the subject is an interesting one, and to treat of it ever so cursorily might not unprofitably occupy a reflective moment or two. Water is the first topic it is laid upon me to talk about, and I begin with it all the more readily because it suggests a sense of freshness, and thoughts which may float our enterprise prosperously into port.

I. Water, as already hinted, is an element of vast account in the economy of nature, and is a recreation to the heart and a delight to the eye of both man and beast. To have a plentiful supply of it is one of the greatest blessings of God to the creature, and to be able to bestow it wisely and employ it usefully is one of the most serviceable of human arts. It is too valuable a servant to suffer to go idle, and many are the offices it might do us, if, as it travels from the mountains to the sea-board, we caught it in its course, harnessed it to our chariot, and guided it to our aim. We should turn it to account every inch of its progress, and compel it, as it can, to minister to our requirements by its irresistible energy. Its merely mechanical power is immense, and this is due in great part to its incompressibility; for it is in virtue of this quality alone we can, by means of it, achieve feats not otherwise feasible. How else could we have raised to its sublime height that stupendous bridge which spans the Menai Straits, and which is the wonder of the beholder, as it is the boast of the designer? It stands where it does by the help of some mechanism indeed, but the true giant that lifted it on his shoulders and bore it to its airy elevation was the incompressible force of water, a fluid which is, strangely, the simple product of the combination of two elastic transparent gases, oxygen and hydrogen, neither of which apart has the thew and sinew of its offspring. Nay, it is this single element, which, acted on by heat or acting through machinery, fetches and carries for us over the wide globe, and is fast weaving into one living web the far-scattered interests of the world.

Water was in primitive times utilised into a motive power by the help of a mechanism of rude design, which yet is hardly out of date, and might recently be seen in its original, still more in modified form, in certain back-quarters of civilisation. A stream, guided by a sluice, was made to play upon four vertical paddle-blades, attached to a shaft which they caused to revolve, and which moved a millstone, resting upon another through which it passed. It was a primitive mill, which superseded the still more primitive hand-mill, or quern; and I myself have seen it at work in the Shetland Islands, and even the north of Scotland, though it is now done away with even there, still more farther south, and its place supplied and its work done by overshot and under-shot wheel-gear, and improved machinery attached, of less or more complexity. One of the most recent improvements is the Turbine, a sort of Barker's mill; it is of great power, small compass, and acts under a good fall with a minimum expenditure of water-power.

Passing from the consideration of water as a motive power in its natural state, I ask you to notice briefly the gigantic force it can be made to develop under the action of heat. In its normal form the power of water is due, as I have said, to its incompressibility; in the state of vapour, to which it is reduced by heat, its power is due to the counter force of expansion. It was when confined as a state prisoner in the Tower of London that the Marquis of Worcester began to speculate on the possibilities of steam, though he little dreamed of its more important applications, and the incalculable services it might be made to render to the cause of humanity. Suddenly, one day, his musings in his solitude were interrupted by the rattling of the lid of a kettle, which was boiling away on the fire beside him, when, being of a philosophic vein, he commenced to inquire after the cause; and he soon reasoned himself into the conclusion that the motive power lay in the tension of the vapour, and that the maintenance of this must be due to successive additions of heat. The thought was a seed sown in a fit soil, for it led to experiments which confirmed the supposition, and inaugurated others that have borne fruit, as we see. It was a great moment in the annals of discovery, and from that time to this the genius of improvement has moved onward with unprecedented strides; and this in the application of steam-power as well as the results, stupendous as these last have been. For as there is no department of industry that has not made immense advances since, none on which steam has not directly or indirectly been brought to bear with effect; so there has been no end to the ingenuity and ingenious devices by which steam has been coaxed into subjection to human use and made the pliant minister of the master, man. All these results follow as a natural consequence from the first discovery of its motive power by the Marquis of Worcester, and the subsequent invention of James Watt, by which the force detected was rendered uniform, instead of fitful and spasmodic, as it had been before. And yet, important as was the discovery of the one, and ingenious as is the invention of the other, both are of slight account in the presence of the great fact of nature observed by the English nobleman and humoured by the Scottish artisan. The _genie_ whom the one captured and the other tamed, is the great magic worker, apart from whose subtle strength their ingenuity had been wasted, and had come to naught.

But here I must restrain my rovings, and recall my purpose to descant on other points. And indeed the uses of water are so numerous and varied that the subject might well engross a lecture by itself; and I must needs therefore cut the matter short. It is only Hodge-Podge, moreover, I have undertaken to dish up before you, and I must keep my word. For, fain as I am to dilate on the many economic virtues of water, I must not forget that the pot contains other ingredients, and that the dish I am serving out of it would yield but poor fare, if it did not.

2. I come therefore to the next ingredient in the soup I am providing; for, as the housewife said, "there's mutton intilt," and it is the most important ingredient in the mess. But the animal which produces it, like the kindred animals that produce the like, serves other purposes as well, and these no less essential to the exigency of the race; and it is of them I propose to speak. It is beside my design to enter on the domain of the sheep-breeder, and attempt an account of the different kinds reared by the farmer; enough to say that, numerous as these are, they are all fed and tended for the benefit of the human family, and that they minister to the supply of the same human wants.

The child, as it frolics on the lawn, stops his gambols and steps gently aside to coax, to caress his woolly-fleeced companion; and the mother talks softly to her child of the innocent darlings, and asks if they are not lovely creatures, and beautiful to look at, as they timidly wander from spot to spot, and nibble the delicate pasture. So it is to the lively fancy of childhood, and so it is to the mother whose affections are naturally melted into softness in the presence of simplicity; but when economic considerations arise, and the question is one of service and value, all such sentimental and aesthetic emotions pass out of court, and only calculations of base utilitarianism fill the eye from horizon to horizon. No doubt the creatures are lovely and beautiful to behold on the meadows and hill-sides of the landscape, which they enliven and adorn; but man must live as well as admire, and unless by sacrifice of the sheep he must not only go without hodge-podge to his dinner, but dispense with much else equally necessary to his life and welfare. The cook requires the sacrifice, that he may purvey for the tables of both gentle and semple; the tallow-dealer requires the sacrifice, that he may provide light for our homesteads, and oil for our engines, both stationary and locomotive; and the wool-merchant and the currier insist on stripping the victim of his fleece, and even flaying his skin, before they can assure us of fit clothing and covering against cold and rain for our bodies and our belongings. And what a wretched plight we should be in, if the sheep, or their like, did not come to the rescue, or the help they are fitted to render were not laid under contribution! For not only might we be fated to go often dinnerless to bed, and to live all our days in a body imperfectly nourished, but our evenings would in many cases be spent without light, and our journeys undertaken without comfort, and our outer man left to battle at odds, unshod and unprotected, with the discomforts of the highway and the inclemency of the seasons. Of all the services rendered by the sheep to the race of man, perhaps the most invaluable is that which is accorded in the gift of wool; and it is for the sake of this alone that, in many quarters, whole flocks, and even breeds, are reared and tended,--so great is the demand for it, and such the esteem in which it is held for the purpose of clothing the body and keeping it in warmth.

3. But, again, to advance a step further, there are, as the landlady of the inn remarked, "neeps intilt." On this part of the subject, that I may pass to the next topic on which I mean to speak, and which is of wider range, I intend to say little. I have already referred to the important place assigned to this vegetable by a living economist as affording a basis for grouping society into two great classes. To the farmer it is of equal, and far more practical, importance; for it is, by the manner of its cultivation, a great means of clearing the land of weeds; it is the chief support of sheep and cattle through the months of winter; and it is one of the most valuable crops raised on British soil, and of equal account in the agriculture of both England and Scotland. The culture of turnips on farms involves considerable expense indeed, and is sometimes attended with loss, and even failure; but they are of inestimable value in cattle husbandry, as without them our sheepfarms would soon be depopulated, and the animals hardly outlive a winter. One function they, and the like, fulfil in nature, is turning inorganic matter into vegetable, that the component elements may in this form be more readily assimilated into animal flesh and blood; while their introduction as an article of farming is of great importance as rendering possible and feasible a regular rotation of crops.

4. But I must, as I said, hasten on to another ingredient of the dish we are compounding; I refer to barley, for that too, as our gracious hostess would say, is "_intilt_." From this single grain what virtues have been developed! what mildness, what soothing, what nourishment, and what strength! What a source it is to us of comfort, of enjoyment, and of wealth! There is barley-water, for instance, a beverage most harmless, yet most soothing; meet drink for the sick-room, and specially promotive of the secretions in patients whose disease is inflammatory, and who suffer from thirst. Then there is barley-bread, extensively used in both England and Scotland, than which there is none more wholesome to the blood and more nourishing to the system; the meal of which is of service too in the shape of a medical appliance, and, when so used, acts with most beneficial effect. But its strength is not so pronounced or decisive either in the form of an infusion or in that of bread, much as in these forms it contributes to health and vigour: it is not when it is put into the pot, or when bruised by the miller, that it comes out in the fulness of its might; it is when it is immersed in water, and subjected to heat, and metamorphosed into malt. In this form it can be converted into a beverage that is simple and healthful, and, when used aright, conducive to strength of muscle and general vigour of life; but when it has undergone a further process, which I am about to describe, it evolves a spirit so masterful that the weak would do well to withstand its seductiveness, for only a strong head and a stout will dare with impunity to enter the lists with it, and can hope to retire from the contest with the strength unshorn and a firm footstep.[C]

Whisky, which is what I now refer to as the highest outcome of the strength of barley, is, like hodge-podge, of Scotch incubation, and deserves, for country's sake and the fame it has, some brief regard. The process by which the grain is prepared may be described as follows. The grain is first damped, then spread out on a floor, and finally a certain quantity of water and heat applied, when it begins to germinate, which it continues to do to a certain stage, beyond which it is not allowed to pass. At this moment a Government official presents himself, and exacts a duty of the manufacturer for the production of the malt, the authorities shrewdly judging that they are entitled to levy off so valuable an article a modicum of tax. The grain thus prepared is now in a state for further manufacture, and it passes into the hands of the brewer or distiller, to be converted into a more or less alcoholic drink.

First the brewer produces therefrom those excellent beverages called beer and porter, and so contributes to our refreshment, enjoyment, and strength. These beverages are, in one shape or other, nearly in universal demand, and the money spent upon the consumption of Bass and XX almost passes belief. They are exported into every zone of the world, and consumed by every class. And then the distiller takes the grain in the same form, and, by slow evaporation and subsequent condensation, extracts the pure, subtle, and potent spirit we have referred to, and which, in more or less diluted form, we call whisky, or Scotch drink. And this article also, in spite of cautions, is in large demand and extensively exported, though perhaps not so much is consumed among us as was fifty years ago. It is not by any means so bad an article as it has a bad name; for when of good quality, and moderately indulged in, it is perfectly wholesome; only when the quality is bad, or the indulgence excessive, do evil results follow. And indeed such are its merits when good, that it is said dealers sometimes export it to France and other parts, from which it is imported again to this country, transfused into splendidly labelled brandy bottles, and sold untransformed as best brandy!

Little do we think, when eating our quiet dinner at a Scottish country inn, what power and wealth are represented in the hodge-podge which belike forms one of the dishes, and which, by suggestion and in the style of the housewife, we are now analysing. As we disintegrate the mess, and resolve it into its elements, we may well bethink ourselves of the cost of our board on the planet, and of the value of the articles we are daily consuming. To help you to a clearer idea of this, in regard to the article barley alone in the form of malt, let me commend to your attention the following statistical statement:--

A Parliamentary return of 1876 shows that the quantity of _malt_ charged with _duty_ during the year was--

BUSHELS. DUTY. England, 54,655,274 L7,412,621 Scotland, 2,927,763 396,241 Ireland, 3,346,606 453,883 ---------- ---------- Total of United Kingdom, 60,929,633 L8,262,746

The quantity of barley imported into the United Kingdom during the year was equivalent to 2,736,425 quarters. See how great a fire a little spark, hodge-podge, kindleth!