things turn very easily into sugar. You can make sugar of linen rags, by boiling them gently in oil of vitriol. Dame Nature makes the sugar for us in malting. She always does make sugar in grain for the young sprout to start from. The change of starch into sugar goes by the name of the 'saccharine fermentation;' about which there's a curious fact I have to mention presently.

The rest of the carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen in the malt is in the shape of gum or mucilage, and coloring-matter. In the barley, before it became malt, there was a small quantity of a substance called diastase. This contains the other chemical element of things that live and grow; animals plants: nitrogen. There is very little diastase in barley; not more than one part in five hundred; but without it the change of starch into sugar could not be set a going.

"Now, Chemistry says, that there are such and such things in malt; but it does not follow that there may not be more. Those niceties in the composition of things that make flavors and perfumes, most of them are not to be laid hold of or shown up by the art and instruments of philosophers, at least at present, and all we know about them, is by their effect on our palates and our noses; as the Doctor says, on our gustatory and olfactory nerves.' But, howall this does not signify for our present purpose; and to understand the chemical part of brewing, we need only look upon malt as so much grain turning into so much sugar.

ever,

"Seeing then that we know, in a general way, what water, and malt, and hops, are made of, and that we've got them to make beer with; the question is, how to use them for that important purpose. As I said before, I am not going to describe the process of brewing. Talking as I am to the wives and daughters of England, which latter will, of course, become the former in good time, I should as soon think of

lecturing on the darning of stockings or sewing of buttons on; to say nothing of the crochet which is so favorite a fancy just at present. No: I trust that the practice of brewing, and let me add of baking, and of cookery in all its branches, is as familiar to all young ladies as geography, astronomy, and the use of the globes, callisthenic exercises, elocution, dancing, and deportment; and if I pretended to teach them how to brew, the next piece of conceit I should be guilty of, would probably be in the words of my learned friend the Doctor, instructing my parent's maternal parent in the art of applying the power of suction, in order to extract the contents of gallinaceous ova.' After which trying quotation, ladies and gentlemen, you'll perhaps allow me to take a sip of a beverage, which by name comes under the head of this discourse; however 'tis only the celebrated Adam's Ale: and no bad thing neither, when genuine, which is hard to get in these times, except in your cottage near a wood, if you happen to be so fortunately situated, in a sanitary point of view."

Having refreshed himself with a glass of water, the lecturer proceeded:

"The first step in brewing consists in making an infusion of malt. Never mind about the physicky sound of this phrase. In other words, we will say mashing, if you like. But I use it because, in doctors' language, the word infusion means a liquor made by steeping a thing in hot water, to soak the goodness out of it, as counter-distinguished from boiling out the virtue; which last process is called decoction. Infusion is enough to extract the goodness from malt; the goodness being the sweet, or sugar, whereinto the starch of the barley was turned, when it was changed to malt. It is a great point to make the infusion properly. The water ought to be of the right degree of heat, which to

make good beer, in a general way, is one hundred and seventy degrees by Fahrenheit's thermometer to begin with. A mistake in this particular may occasion the beer to turn sour, or become blinked, which when it used to be afore the thermometer was known, was often set down to witchcraft by the wisdom of our ancestors, in the times of priesteraft and superstition.

"Water enough to stir and separate the malt, is first poured into a proper vessel—that is, a mash-tub;—the malt is now put into it and stirred about: more water is then added at a greater heat; the mash, or mixture of malt-andwater, is let stand for two hours, at the end of which it is drawn off, and is now called wort, or sweet-wort, in the vulgar tongue, and infusion of malt, or 'solution of the saccharine and extracted matter of malt,' by the learned.

"Now, to make wort it is not necessary that the grain used should all have been malted. About one part of malt mixed with two of raw grain in the mash-tub, will communicate the nature of malt to the whole quantity of goods. The raw grain or barley must be cut into fine meal; meal powdered to dust, does not answer the purpose. This is a curious instance of 'saccharine fermentation,' and is the fact concerning it, that I alluded to just now: how to account for it, nobody knows, I believe, further than that through contact with the sweet of the malt, a movement takes place in the starch of the grain, between its particles of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen; they altering their places with respect to each other, in such a way as to take that form of vegetable matter which we call sugar. But this is little more than merely stating a circumstance we can't explain.

"The starch in rasped potatoes even, may be turned into sweet or saccharine stuff, in the same way, by means of

mashing or steeping with malt; and then a sort of beer may be made from it, and was made from it, so Mr. Booth says, in his Treatise on the Art of Brewing,' published under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. By his account, beer was so brewed from potatoes by a Monsieur Dubrunfaut, a Frenchman; and we are told it 'resembled the beer which is made in Paris. Perhaps it may resemble, and something more, not a little of the beer that is sold in London, too.

"Brewers seem to approve of brewing from raw grain; though I believe that, on their part, is against the laws, which however don't prevent private persons from so doing, if they choose. But one, who was a tolerable authority on the subject, William Cobbett, doesn't hold with it at all. He says, As to using barley in the making of beer, I have given it a full and fair trial, twice over; and I would recommend it to neither rich nor poor. The barley produces strength, though nothing like the malt; but the beer is flat, even though you use half malt and half barley; and flat beer lies heavy on the stomach, and of course, besides the bad taste, is unwholesome.' Cobbett's 'Cottage Economy,' page 26, paragraph 38. How the truth may be, I can't say; but I can easily understand how the sort of sugar made in the sprouting of a seed, or 'germination,' may yield beer, different in point of taste and flavor from what that does which is produced in the mash-tub; the principles of flavor and taste being so very delicate, and perhaps, also, roasting or drying the malt may have some influence in the same particulars. I should be inclined to apply these remarks, likewise, to beer brewed from sugar and treacle, as it may be, and under certain circumstances is sometimes allowed to be, by the Excise. For the subject of a chemical discourse such beer is just as good beer

as any other, and I've no objection to it whatever, as a lecturer; but, as a consumer, if I am to have a choice, I should say, 'If you please, I should rather prefer the genuine original commodity, provided it's all the same to you.'

"When you have got your wort, or sweet-wort, the next step in brewing is to boil the hops with it: thereby making a decoction of hops in infusion of malt. By this operation you get out the bitter principle of the hop; and there is no chemical change in it requiring particular notice.

"The liquor, strained from the hops, having been brought down in the coolers to the proper temperature, which is about seventy degrees, is now put into the tun-tub. In that respect it undergoes the great change that converts it into beer. This is called fermentation. The process of fermentation is set a-going, as you know, by mixing yeast with the wort.

"Now, for the fermentation to take place, it is necessary, that besides carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, there should be nitrogen present in the liquor or substance to be fermented. Wort, from the small quantity of nitrogen still left in the malt, may be made to ferment of itself with some trouble; but, to save that, the yeast is mixed with it. Yeast is the froth of a previous fermentation; and contains nitrogen enough to make the fermentation sufficiently quick. It is a sort of stuff in which you see a continual motion is going on. According to the German chemist Liebig, yeast causes fermentation by communicating its own motion, in a mechanical manner, to the particles of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, that compose sugar, dissolved in the wort, for instance. The hydrogen and oxygen, in sugar, as I said above, stand, in sugar, each to each, in the proportions of twelve, carbon; ten, hydrogen; and ten, oxygen-though some reckon the two last at eleven. In fermentation these