butter no otherwise than as a medicine, never as food. The ancient Christians of Egypt burnt butter in their lamps instead of oil; and in the Roman churches, it was anciently allowed, during Christmas time, to burn butter instead of oil, on account of the great consumption of it otherwise.

Butter is the fat, oily, and inflammable part of the milk; a kind of oil is naturally distributed through all the substance of the milk in very small particles, which are interposed betwixt the caseous and serous parts, amongst which it is suspended by a slight adhesion, but without being dissolved. It is in the same state in which oil is in emulsions; hence the same whiteness of milk and emulsions; and hence, by rest, the oily parts separate from both these liquors to the surface, and form a cream. See EMULSION. When butter is in the state of cream, its proper oily parts are not yet sufficiently united together to form an homogeneous mass. They are still half separated by the interposition of a pretty large quantity of serous and caseous particles. The butter is completely formed by pressing out these heterogeneous parts by means of continued percussion. It then becomes a uniform mass.

Butter melts with a weak heat, and none of its principles are disengaged by the heat of boiling water, which proves that the oily part is of the nature of the fat, fixed, and mild oils obtained from many vegetable substances by expression. See OILS. The half fluid consistence of butter, as of most other concrete oily matters, is thought to be owing to a considerable quantity of acid united with the oily part; which acid is so well combined, that it is not perceptible while the butter is fresh and has undergone no change; but when it grows old, and undergoes some kind of fermentation, then the acid is disengaged more and more; and this is the cause that butter, like oils of the same kind, becomes rancid by age.

In making butter, when the cream has been churned, open the churn, and with both hands gather it well together, take it out of the buttermilk, and lay it into a very clean bowl, or earthen pan; and if the butter be designed to be used sweet, fill the pan with clear water, and work the butter in it to and fro, till it is brought to a firm consistence of itself, without any moisture. When this has been done, it must be scotched and sliced over with the point of a knife, every way, as thick as possible, in order to fetch out the smallest hair, mote, bit of rag, strainer, or any other thing that may have happened to fall into it. Then spread it thin in a bowl, and work it well together, with a proper quantity of salt, and make it up into dishes, pounds, half pounds, &c. The following directions concerning the making and management of butter, including the Epping method, are extracted from the third volume of the Bath Society Papers. In general it is to be observed, that the greater the quantity made from a few cows, the greater will be the farmer's profit; therefore he should never keep any but what are esteemed good milkers. A bad cow will be equally expensive in keeping. When good ones are obtained, a careful servant should be employed to milk them; 25, through the neglect

and mismanagement of servants, it frequently happens that the best cows are spoiled. A farme should himself often see that the cows are milked clean; for if any milk is suffered to remain in the udder, the cow will daily give less, till at length she will become dry before the proper time, and the next season will scarcely give milk sufficient to pay for keeping her. It sometimes happens that some of a cow's teats may be scratched or wounded so as to produce foul or corrupted milk; when this is the case, we should by no means mix it with the sweet milk, but give it to the pigs; and that which is conveyed to the dairy-house should remain in the pail till it is nearly cool, before it be strained, that is, if the weather be warm; but in frosty weather it should be immediately strained, and a small quantity of boiling water may be mixed with it, which will cause it to produce cream in abundance, and the more so if the pans or vats have a large surface. During the hot summer months, it is proper to rise with or before the sun, that the cream may be skimmed from the milk ere the dairy becomes warm; nor should the milk at that season stand longer in the vats, &c. than twenty-four hours, nor be skimmed in the evening till after sun-set. In winter, milk may remain unskimmed for thirty-six or forty-eight hours; the cream should be deposited in a deep pan, which should be kept during the summer in the coolest part of the dairy; or in a cool cellar where a free air is admitted, which is still better. Where people have not an opportunity of churning every other day, they should shift the cream daily into clean pans, which will keep it cool, but they should never fail to churn at least twice in the week in hot weather; and this work should be done in a morning before the sun appears, taking care to fix the churn where there is a great draught of air. If a pump churn be to be used, it may be plunged a foot deep into a tub of cold water, and should remain there during the whole time of churning, which will very much harden the butter. A strong rancid flavor will be given to butter, if we churn so near the fire as to heat the wood in winter. After the butter is churned, it should be immediately washed in many different waters till it is perfectly cleansed from the milk; but here it must be remarked, that a warm hand will soften it, and make it appear greasy, so that it will be impossible to obtain the best price for it. The cheesemongers use two pieces of wood for their butter; and if those who have a very hot hand were to have such, they might work the butter so as to make it more saleable. The Epping butter is made up into long rolls, weighing a pound each; in the county of Somerset they dish it in half pounds for sale; but if they forget to rub salt round the inside of the dish, it will be difficult to work it so as to make it appear handsome. Butter will require and endure more working in winter than in summer; but it is remarked, that no person whose hand is warm by nature makes good butter. Those who use a pump churn must endeavour to keep a regular stroke; nor should they admit any person to assist them, except they keep nearly the same stroke: for if they churn more slowly, the butter will in winter go back, as it is called; and if the stroke

be more quick and violent in the summer, it will cause a fermentation, by which means the butter will imbibe a very disagreeable flavor. Where people keep many cows, a barrel churn is to be preferred; but if this be not kept very clean, the bad effects will be discovered in the butter; nor must we forget to shift the situation of the churn when we use it, as the seasons alter, so as to fix it in a warm place in winter, and where there is a free air in summer. In many parts of this kingdom, they color their butter in winter, but this adds nothing to its goodness; and it rarely happens that the farmers in and near Epping use any color, but when they do it is very innocent. They procure some sound carrots, whose juice they express through a sieve, and mix with the cream when it enters the churn, which makes it appear like May butter; nor do they at any time use much salt, though a little is absolutely necessary. As they make in that country very little cheese, so very little whey butter is made; nor indeed should any person make it, except for present use, as it will not keep more than two days; and the whey will turn to better account to fatten pigs with. The foregoing rules will suffice for making good butter in any country; but, as some people are partial to the west country method, it shall also be described as briefly as possible. 1. They deposit their milk in earthen pans in their dairy-house, and (after they have stood twelve hours in the summer, and double that space in the winter) they remove them to stoves made for that purpose, which stoves are filled with hot embers; on these they remain till bubbles rise, and the cream changes its color, it is then deemed heated enough, and this they call scalded cream; it is afterwards removed steadily to the dairy, where it remains twelve hours more, and it is then skimmed from the milk and put into a tub or churn; if it be put into a tub it is beat well with the hand, and thus they obtain butter; but a cleanlier way, is to make use of a churn. Some scald it over the fire, but then the smoke is apt to affect it; and in either case, if the pans touch the fire, they will crack or fly, and the milk and cream will be wasted.

The Cambridgeshire salt butter is held in high esteem, and is made nearly after the same method as the Epping; and by washing and working the salt from it the cheesemongers in London often sell it at a high price for fresh butter. They deposit it, when made, into wooden tubs or firkins, which they expose to the air for two or three weeks, and often wash them; but a readier way is to season them with unslacked lime, or a large quantity of salt and water well boiled: with this they must be scrubbed several times, and afterwards thrown into cold water, where they should remain three or four days, or till they are wanted; then they should be again scrubbed, and well rinsed with cold water; but, before they receive the butter, care must be taken to rub every part of the firkin with salt: then, if the butter be properly made, and perfectly sweet, it may be gently pressed into the firkin; but it must be well salted when it is made up, and the salt should be equally distributed through the whole mass, and a good handful of salt must be spread

on the top of the firkin before it is heated, after which the head should be immediately put on. They pursue nearly the same method in Suffolk and Yorkshire; and the butter of these counties is often sold in London for that of Cambridge. No people make more butter from their cows than the Yorkshire farmers do, which is certainly owing to the care they take of them in the winter: at that season they house them all, feed them with good hay, and never suffer them to go out, except to water, but when the weather is very serene; when the cows calve, they give them comfortable malt meshes for two or three days after. These cows never answer if they are removed to other counties, except the same care and attendance be given them, and then none answer better. Land, whereon cows feed, very often affects the butter. If wild garlic, charlock, or may-weed, be found in a pasture ground, cows should not feed therein till after they have been mown, when such pernicious plants will appear no more till the following spring; but those cows that give milk must not partake of the hay, as that, also, will diffuse its bad qualities. Great part of the Epping butter is made from cows that feed during the summer months in Epping forest, where the leaves and shrubby plants contribute greatly to the flavor of the butter. The mountains of Wales, the highlands of Scotland, and the moors, commons, and heaths in England, produce excellent butter where it is properly managed; and though not equal in quantity, yet far superior in quality to that which is produced from the richest meadows: and the land is often blamed when the butter is bad through mismanagement, sluttishness, or inattention. Turnips and rape affect milk and butter, but brewer's grains are sweet and wholesome food, and will make cows give abundance of milk; yet the cream thereon will be thin, except good hay be given at the same time, after every meal of grains. Coleworts and cabbages are also excellent food; and if these and savoys were cultivated for this purpose, the farmers, in general, would find their account in it.

Butter forming an important article of commerce as well as food, the legislature has passed various statutes respecting its package, weight, and sale. The principal of these are the 36th and 38th of Geo. III.

Naturalists speak of showers and dews of a butyraceous substance. In 1675, there fell in Ireland, during the winter and following spring, a thick yellow dew, which had the medicinal properties of butter.

BUTTER OF CACAO; an oily white matter, of a firmer consistence than suet, obtained froin the cacao nut, of which chocolate is made. The method of separating it consists in bruising the cacao and boiling it in water. The oil contained in the nut is by this means liquefied, and rises to the surface, where it is left to congeal, that it may be the more easily taken off. It is generally mixed with small pieces of the nut, from which it may be purified, by keeping it in fusion without water in a pretty deep vessel, until the several matters have arranged themselves according to their specific gravities. By this treatment it becomes very pure and white It has no smell,

upon each impression in the mould, which is shut close, and the mould is placed in a small screw press fixed to the work bench, which holds the moulds shut together for a few minutes, till the horn is warmed and softened by being between them; and the business is finally completed by means of a pressing vice: the fashes, or edges, being clipped off by shears, are then filed smooth and round in a lathe.

Sailor's buttons have the holes (generally four) drilled in them by means of a lathe, the upper part of which is represented in fig. 2. a, a, a, a, are four spindles, all turning together by a common foot-wheel, like a grind-stone, by means of two straps, e, f, each of which turns two spindles. At the end of the spindles, is a hook, uniting them with four other spindles, b, b, which are supported by passing through holes in a metal standard, A; and their points projecting beyond this, are formed into small drills. The spindles, A, are placed at some distance asunder, to admit the pulleys for the straps; but the hooks acting as universal joints, allow the ends of the drills, b, to come very near. The button is placed in a concave rest, B, and thrust against the drills by a piece of wood. The standard A can be changed for another with more distant holes, to suit larger buttons; and the rest, B, can be elevated or depressed for the same purpose. Ornaments are often formed on the surface of plain horn buttons by means of a thin brass plate, out of which the pattern is cut. The plate is applied to the surface of the button, and the uncovered parts of the surface, being rubbed with emery powder, present a rough appearance, while those which are protected by the brass have a fine black polish.

Large buttons are first made from pieces of bone, and the smaller ones cut, afterwards, from the spaces left between the first; so that the materials are made to yield the utmost; and the remains are sold to farmers for manure, to the makers of hartshorn, cutlers, &c. Various hard woods are cut into large buttons in the same manner, and afterwards dyed black in an infusion of sulphate of iron and gall nuts. Oak, beech, or elder, are chiefly used in this country. Buttons intended to be covered with cloth, silk, &c. are called also moulds. They are made from the refuse chips of bone, sawn into thin flakes, and perforated in the centre by two operations, illustrated in fig. 1. One end of the spindle D, has a tool b, screwed into, and moving along with it. The other end of the spindle is connected by a peculiar kind of joint, with a lever ef, whose fulcrum is e; the other end f, being connected with a second lever and handle g, which the operator holds in his left hand. The right hand is employed in holding the flake of bone d opposite the tool b, against a piece of wood firmly fixed into the iron standard E by two screws; then, by drawing the handle g forwards, the tool b being at the same time in rapid motion by the foot wheel, with which c is connected; its centre pink, is pressed against the bone, and drills a hole through in the centre of the intended button; while its two other points describe a deep circle in the bone, about half through its thickness. The flat surface is cut smooth by the intermediate parts of the tool.

The piece is now moved a small distance, to cut out another button from a fresh part; and when as many as the flake of bone will contain are thus cut half through, the other side is presented to the tool. The point k is inserted into the hole made from the other side by the former operation. The other two teeth of the tool now cut another deep circle, exactly opposite the former, at the same time cutting the flat surface smooth. By this means the bone is cut through, and a button mould left sticking on the point of the tool. By drawing back the handle g, the tool recedes, and the button meeting a fixed piece of iron plate, is forced off the tool, and falls into a small box F, completely finished. So rapid are these operations, that a girl of ten or twelve years of age will cut out in one minute, twenty-five or thirty buttons. Moulds are chiefly used at present sewn up in a piece of the same cloth with the garment for which they are designed. They were formerly covered by women, &c. with the most costly materials. Each had a large needle fixed in the table opposite the part where she was seated, and a bobin, containing the thread to cover the button. The mould was stuck by the hole in its centre upon the needle, and the end of a thread of silk, mohair, and sometimes gold thread, put through the centre at the same time, to fasten one end; the thread was then wound about the button mould to cover it, and give such an ornamental surface as fashion dictated. Some mar afactured silk buttons are still used. These are not finished until the superfluous hairs and hubs of silk are taken off, which is done in the following manner: a quantity are put into a kind of iron sieve, called by workmen a singeing box. Then a little spirit of wine being poured into a shallow iron dish, and set on fire, the workman moves and shakes the singeing box, containing the buttons, over the flame of the spirit, by which the superfluous hairs, hubs of silk, &c. are burnt off, without damaging them. Great care, however, must be taken that the buttons in the singeing box be kept continually in motion; for if they are suffered to rest over the flame, they will immediately burn. When all these loose hairs, &c. are burnt off by the flame of the spirit, the buttons are taken out of the singeing box, and put, with a proper quantity of the crumbs of bread, into a leather bag, about three feet long, and of a conical shape: the mouth or smaller end of which being tied up, the workman takes one of the ends in one hand and the other in the other, and shakes the hand briskly with a particular jerk. This operation finally cleanses the buttons, and renders them very glossy.

The basis of metal buttons is generally an inferior kind of brass, pewter, or other composition: the shanks made of brass or iron wire are a distinct manufacture; but the buttons are cast round the shank in the following manner. The workmen have a metal pattern consisting of a great number, say from four to twelve dozen of buttons, connected in one plane by very small bars. An impression from this pattern being taken in sand, the shanks are pressed into it, each in the centre of one impression; the part which is to enter the butto top being made to

project a little above the surface of the sand. The whole surface of it is now covered with the fused metal, to which sometimes a portion of zinc is added, for the purpose of making it flow freely, and producing a sharp impression. The metal being cooled, the buttons are taken from the moulds, cleaned from the sand by brushing, and are ready for the lathe, where the edges are filed round and smoothed. A person is then employed in smoothing the back of the button and turning the projecting part of the shank. This operation is also performed in the lathe, as well as that of smoothing the face of the button.

The next operation, polishing, is generally performed by women. The shank of the button being secured, the face is rubbed on a board covered with leather, and spread with powder of rotten-stone; in a second polishing a finer powder is employed; and the last polish is given by holding the button lightly to a circular board, which is covered with soft leather spread over with still finer powder of the same materials. The board is moved by the lathe.

The last operation is boiling or washing, for the purpose of communicating a purer white to the surface. This is performed by boiling a quantity of granulated tin in a solution of cream of tartar. A portion of the tin being dissolved, and the buttons arranged on a grating of wire, being immersed in the solution, their surface is covered with a thin layer or wash of the metal, which improves their whiteness without affecting the polish.

Plated buttons are cut by a fly-press, at the flatting-mill, out of copper plate, covered on one side with silver. The copper side is placed upwards in stamping it out, and the die or hole through which they are stamped, is rather chamferred at its edge, to make the silver turn over the edge. These pieces are called blanks, and they are now introduced into a furnace to undergo the annealing process, which fits them for that of stamping. This is done by a machine very similar to the common pile-driver. The striking part, which is from one to two hundred weight, carries the die on its lower surface, and the plate or button is fixed beneath it. It is raised by means of a pulley and rope, which the workman moves partly with his hands and partly with one foot, placed in a stirrup. In this manner it is drawn up with a sudden dexterous jerk; and, when it is sufficiently elevated, let go as suddenly. When any impression is to be given to a plated button, after the shank has been attached, the latter is introduced into a cavity, formed by two pieces of steel, which, when united together, form a cone, and the top is convex, to correspond with the concave back of the

button.

The soldering on of the shank is performed on each button separately by means of the flame of a lamp and a blow-pipe. Silver solder is generally employed. For plain plated buttons, the next operation is to smooth the edges with a file in the lathe. To clean the backs, the buttons are dipped in acid; and to whiten them they are boiled in cream-of-tartar and silver. The backs are then brushed clean as they revolve in the lathe, when they are ready for burnishing. This

is also performed in the lathe: the blood-stone or burnishing substance being an ore of iron, fixed in the handle; and frequently dipped in water. To render the polish still more perfect, a stone of finer quality is afterwards employed, and this finishes the button.

Gilt buttons are stamped from copper, with sometimes an alloy of zinc, and laminated in the flatting mill and stamped, after the manner of the plated button. The stamping rendering the face slightly convex prevents the buttons from sticking together in gilding. But the soldering of the shanks is managed in a different manner from that of the plated buttons. Each blank is furnished with a small spring, like a pair of tweezers, which holds the shank down upon it in the proper place. A small portion of spelter and borax, mixed with water, is now placed round each shank, and ten or twelve dozen of buttons being thus prepared, are placed on a flat iron plate, which is placed in an oven of temperature sufficient to fuse the solder; when this is accomplished they are withdrawn, and while yet warm, are thrown into a liquor which is called the pickle, and is composed of water with the addition of aqua-fortis, or weak nitric acid. The action of the acid makes the surface black, and the edges of the buttons are then filed and smoothed in a lathe. They are then dipped in a second pickle more diluted with water, by which the surface is cleaned, and, after being burnished in the lathe, are ready for the process of gilding.

Five grains of gold are fixed by act of parliament as the legal quantity for gilding twelve dozen of buttons of one inch diameter. It is put into an iron ladle with a small quantity of quicksilver, and exposed to heat till the metals are united. The buttons are then placed with the amalgam of gold and mercury in an earthen pan, together with as much aqua-fortis as will moisten the whole, and the mixture is stirred with a brush until they are completely whitened: this is called the quicking of them, An operation now succeeds called drying off, or separating the mercury from the gold, and fixing the latter on the buttons. This is accomplished by shaking them over a fire in a flat iron pan until the mercury appears to melt. The buttons are now thrown into a felt cap, and stirred about with a brush, that the amalgam may be equally spread over their surface, and, while it is at that temperature which renders the mercury nearly volatile, the buttons are returned to the pan, the increased heat drives off the mercury in a state of vapor, and the gold begins to appear distinctly. This process is repeated, and, if any white spots should remain, the buttons are put into a cylindrical copper box with a lid, and turned round on a charcoal fire to heat all the parts equally, until the remaining mercury is separated. The buttons now have only to be burnished by the same operation as has been described in respect to finishing plated buttons. In some cases they are double and treble gilt.

Sometimes gilt buttons are milled on the edge like coin, and the machine employed is similar to that which is used for milling coin. The milling tool is a small steel roller, on the circumference