That this curve follows the general sweep of the coast under water, appears most probable, the coast line, the curve of 100 fathoms and the ranges of hills discovered by Lieuts. Maffitt and Craven all seem to indicate it. That the direction of the stream is given in a general way by the configuration of the bottom of the sea, it is hardly possible to doubt, while admitting that it receives modification from other, and perhaps more general, causes. The after progress of this mighty stream, and of its branches if it does divide, remains yet to be traced and and so also its heading in the Gulf of Mexico.

I forbear to mingle doubtful speculation upon causes, with the inductions in regard to temperatures, which it has been the object of these observations to supply and of this lecture to bring to your notice.

ART. XXIX.—On Fermented and Aërated Bread, and their Comparative Dietetic Value; by J. DAUGLISH, M. D.*

[Extracted from the London Medical Times and Gazette, vol. i, p. 468, 1860.]

SINCE the new process of preparing bread has been introduced, -a process which effects the raising of bread wholly by mechanical means, imparting to it the most perfect vesicular structure, while it leaves the constituents of the flour wholly unchan

* As most of our readers are doubtless aware, Dr. Dauglish is the author of a new system of bread making that has excited considerable interest among chemists during the last twelvemonth.

An extended description of this method was read at the Aberdeen meeting of the British Association in Sept., 1859, by Dr. Odling, from whose paper we take the following extracts.

"It is well known that the vesicular character of ordinary bread results from the development of carbonic acid gas uniformly throughout a mass of fermenting dough, whereby a loose spongy texture is imparted to what would otherwise be a dense sodden lump of baked flour and water. In fermented bread the carbonic gas thus generated within the substance of the dough is a product of the transformation or degradation of one of the constituents of the flour, viz., of the starch or sugar.

In the plan of Dr. Dauglish the carbonic acid is produced independently and superadded to the flour which consequently need not undergo any degradation whatever. Water charged with carbonic acid (common "soda water") is mixed under pressure with the flour and the resulting dough, which becomes vesicular when the pressure is removed, is divided into loaves and baked in the ordinary way. "The advantages claimed for the new process, are, 1st. Its cleanliness. Instead of the dough being mixed with naked arms or feet, the bread, from the wetting of the flour to the completion of the baking is not, and scarcely can be touched by any one. 2d. Its rapidity. An hour and a half serves for the entire conversion of a sack of flour into baked loaves, whereas in the ordinary process, four or five hours are occupied in the formation of the sponge, and a further time for the kneading, raising, and baking of the dough. 3d. Its preventing deterioration of the flour. In making fermented bread from certain varieties of flour, not in themselves unwholsome, the prolonged action of warmth and moisture induces a change of the starchy matter of the flour into dextrine, whereby the bread becomes sodden and dark colored. This change is usually prevented by the addition of alum, which is indeed AM. JOUR. SCI.—SECOND SERIES, VOL. XXX, No. 90.—NOV., 1860.

ged and uncontaminated, there has not been wanting those who doubt whether the process of fermentation, by which bread has been hitherto prepared, is not really beneficial in other respects than that of imparting the vesicular structure to it; whether, in fact, the changes which the constituents of the flour -especially the starch-undergo, are not essential to healthy digestion in the stomach.

Although I believe there are few members of the Medical profession who will be prepared to maintain that fermentation is beneficial, still, as some do hold such an opinion, and have asserted likewise that starch which has not undergone the fermentive process is wholly unfit for human food, I am desirous of stating what I believe are good reasons for rejecting the process of fermentation for the new one which I have introduced.

In order to dispose of the assertion that starch requires to be prepared by the fermentive changes to render it fit for human food, it is but necessary to remark, that the proportion which the inhabitants of the earth, who thus prepare their starchy food, bear to those who do not, is quite insignificant. Indeed, it would appear that the practice of fermenting the flour or meal of the cereal grains is followed chiefly by those nations who use a mixed animal and vegetable diet, while those who are fed wholly on the products of the vegetable kingdom reject the process of fermentation entirely. Thus, the millions of India and China, who feed chiefly on rice, take it for the most part simply boiled; and that large portion of the human race who feed on-maize, prepare an almost necessary ingredient in the manufacture of bread from glucogenic flour. But in operating by the new process, there is no time for glucogenic change to take place, and consequently no advantage in the use of alum, with any description of flour. 4th. Its certainty and uniformity. Owing to differences in the character and rapidity of the fermentation, dependent on variations of temperature, quality of the yeast, &c., the manufacture of fermented bread frequently presents certain vagaries and irregularities from which the new process is entirely free. 5th. The character of the bread. Chemical analysis shows that the flour has undergone less deterioration in bread made by the new, than in that made by the fermented process. In other words, the percentage of extractive matters is snialler. The new bread has been tried dietetically at Guy's Hospital and by many London physicians and has been highly approved of. It is well known that for some years past, the use of fermented bread in dyspeptic cases, has been objected to by members of the medical profession, the debris of the yeast being considered unwholesome and liable to induce acidity. 6th. Its economy. The cost of carbonic acid is alleged to be less than the cost of yeast. Moreover, in making fermented bread there is a small but necessary waste of the saccharine constituents, which is avoided by the new process. 7th. The saving of labor and health. It substitutes machine labor for manual labor of a very exhausting kind. The sanitary condition of journeymen bakers was investigated some time ago by Dr. Guy, and found to be most lamentable, from their constant night work and from the fatiguing and unwholesome character of their labor, particularly the kneading In a politico-economical point of view, the process is important as removing bread-making from a domestic manual work, to a manufacturing, machine work."

From the character of the apparatus, the process can only be used profitably on a large scale, and not in small bakeries.

F. H. S.

it in many ways, but they never ferment it. The same is true with the potato-eater of Ireland, and the oatmeal-eater of Scotland. Nor do we find that even wheat is always subjected to fermentation; but the peculiar physical properties of this grain appear to have tasked man's ingenuity more than any other, to devise methods of preparing from it food which shall be both palatable and digestible. In the less civilized states, a favorite mode of dressing wheat grain has been, by first roasting and then grinding it. On the borders of the Mediterranean it is prepared in the form of maccaroni and vermicelli, while in the East it is made into hard thin cakes for the more delicate, and for the hard working and robust into thicker and more dense masses of baked flour and water. Even in our own nurseries wheaten flour is baked before it is prepared with milk for infants' food. The necessity of subjecting wheaten grain to these manipulations arises from its richness in gluten, and from the peculiar properties of that gluten. If a few wheaten grains are taken whole and thoroughly masticated, the starchy portion will be easily separated, mixed with the saliva and swallowed, whilst nearly the whole of the gluten will remain in the mouth in the form of a tough tenacious pellet, on which scarcely any impression can be made. A similar state of things will follow the mastication of flour. In this condition, the gluten is extremely indigestible, since it cannot be penetrated by the digestive solvents, and they can only act upon its small external surface; hence the necessity to prepare food from wheat in such a manner as shall counteract this tendency to cohere and form tenacious masses. This is the object of baking the grain and flour as before mentioned, of making it into maccaroni, and of raising it into soft spongy bread; by which latter means the gluten. assumes a form somewhat analogous to the texture of the lungs, so that an enormous surface is secured for the action of the digestive juices; and this I believe is the sole object to be sought in the preparation of bread from wheaten flour.

Wheat is said to be the type of adult human food. It supplies, in just proportions, every element essential to the perfect nutrition of the human organism. And yet in practice we find that the food which we prepare from it, and furnish to the inhabitants of our large towns and cities, is quite incapable alone of sustaining the health and strength of any individual. This is the more remarkable, since in Scotland we find that the food prepared from the oat, a grain possessing the same elements of nutrition as wheat, though in a coarser form,-furnishes almost the exclusive diet of a very large number of the hardiest and finest portion of the population.

In the large towns of France wheaten bread certainly forms a very large proportion of the diet of the laboring classes, but not