the Highlands of Scotland, and the animals being killed in the cold weather, the meat takes the salt readily, but it is a less prevalent practice than formerly. It is called mairt in Scotland to signify Michaelmas time-the period when it is prepared.

G.-BY PRESSURE.

The River Plate, and also the Texan Pressure Meat Preserving Companies, have adopted Henley's process of meat preserving, by which the meat is cut into thin slices and subjected to pressure, which causes much of the juice and fat to be removed from the meat, and the meat and juices are treated and preserved separately. It remains to be seen whether meat with the juices pressed out of it can be sold, or will be valuable as food. It will not be meat in the ordinary sense of the word.

CHAPTER III.

BONE.

THE value of bones as food is not a recent discovery, since the knuckle bones of veal and the marrow of marrow bones have long been in request, but it is only of late years that a proper estimate has been made of the nutritive material, which by a careful process may be extracted from them.

Bones consist principally of two substances, viz., gelatin, which may be obtained by immersing them in weak muriatic acid, and mineral matter which may be separated by burning the gelatin, and so great is the proportion of each, that the form of the bone is still retained when either is taken away.

The following is the chemical composition of dry ox-bones, in 100 parts:

Hence one-third of the weight of dry bone consists of nitrogenous matter, which when extracted could be used as food. This is a much larger proportion than is found in fresh bread or meat.

But besides these elements, there are others in fresh bones which are of great value in nutrition. Such are oil, nitrogenous juices, and flavouring matters which vary with the kind of bone.

Bones consist of three parts which require notice as foods. The solid shaft, as of the long marrow bones, the cellular structure of the flat bones, and the cartilaginous ends of the bones at the joints.

The solid shaft cannot be used as food by the process of boiling, since it does not disintegrate by that agency, and in order to extract the gelatin, it is desirable to grind the bone before boiling it. The marrow is, however, very valuable both as a fat and for its agreeable flavour, and may be roughly reckoned as equal in nutriment to half of its weight of butter. The cancellated bones may be first roughly broken and then disintegrated by digestion in a closed vessel with hot water for twelve to twenty-four hours. The cells contain fluid which consists of water, fat, and nitrogenous and flavouring matters, which are valuable and agreeable additions to foods, so that this class of bones is the most valuable for food.

The ends of the bones are composed of cartilage, and as in early life they contain but little bony matter, they are easily detached by boiling, and may almost in their entirety be used as food, but in later life they are firmly attached to the rest of the bone, and are filled with bony matter.

Bone cartilage of the ox and calf has the following ultimate composition per cent.-(Frémy).

It is evident, therefore, that the chemical composition and the nutritive value of bones, will vary with the class and age of bones, and particularly with the care which has been taken to extract all the food material that can be obtained from them.

When the shin and leg bones are sawn into small pieces and boiled in an open vessel for 7 hours, they lose 10 per cent. of their weight, and the loss extends to 19 per cent. after 9 hours boiling. The cancellated bones, as the vertebræ, ribs and flat bones generally, lose 16 and 24 per cent. after having been boiled 7 and 9 hours. The loss of weight indicates soluble matter and, in a general sense, food.

Mr. F. Manning undertook for me a series of chemical enquiries into this subject which have sufficed to show how much greater is the true nutritive value of bones than is ordinarily allowed, and consequently the use which should be made of those structures by all who would not waste, and by the poor who cannot afford to waste food. If we first take a mixture of ordinary flat bones, as the spine, ribs, and shoulder blades, we find that after they have been properly digested in boiling water for about eighteen hours they yield 748 grains of carbon,

and 20·1 grains of nitrogen for each pound of bone. The shin bones give a yet higher nutritive value, viz., 817.6 grains of carbon and 28.5 grains of nitrogen. If we compare this with the composition of one pound of beef, we find that the latter is equal to about three pounds of shin bones in carbon, and to six pounds in nitrogen, so that the nutritive value of bones may be reckoned at one-third that of beef in carbon, and onesixth in nitrogen.

CHAPTER IV.

CHARACTERS AND COMPOSITION OF LEAN AND FAT MEAT.

EACH kind of meat has its own characteristic flavour, so that the tastes of different persons, or of the same person at different times, may be gratified by selection. This depends chiefly upon the juices contained in the fibres of the flesh, and on minute quantities of flavouring matters incorporated with the fat, as well as upon the oily or fatty matters mixed with the juices of the flesh. A fine quality of meat has abundant and full flavoured juices, with a considerable proportion of fatty matter, and appears red and pulpy, but inferior meat is paler and more fibrous in appearance, with but little of the proper flavour peculiar to the animal.

Each animal is also cut up into joints as shown in the following diagram of the side of an ox, and it is well known that different joints or parts of the same. animal have different flavours, and not only such parts as are distinct in function as the liver and the flesh, but even those whose function is identical. Thus the flavour of a leg of mutton differs from that of a