close amber malts. As the grains are sometimes objected to by the cow-feeders when the roasted malt is used in the mash-tun, it will answer equally well when thrown into the where the quantity can be easily adjusted to the colour required.

copper,

ELECTRICITY.

On the injurious influence of Electro-chemical Action in the Process of Brewing.

It is now admitted that electricity is a powerful agent in all processes both natural and artificial. Wherever heat is liberated spontaneously in any process, it must proceed from one or more of the substances employed, acting upon others of a different nature; and when heat is thus produced, it may be supposed to proceed from chemical action, and thus evolving electricity.

Fermentation is a process of this nature, and the production of alcohol may be said to be partly effected by galvanic or electric action. Although fermentation has always been considered a very uncertain operation, and subject to every fluctuation of weather, we entertain some doubts upon that subject, and are also inclined to think that the

causes influencing fermentation are not so little under control as may be generally supposed. If alcohol be the production of a regular chemical action during the process of fermentation, by disturbing the progress of that action, we will no doubt materially interfere with the results. If we find that in certain situations, and under certain circumstances, fermentation goes on much more regularly and uniformly than in others, while using precisely the same kind of materials, we have a right to suppose that the want of uniformity must proceed from causes, which may be traced and removed. That the direct application of common electricity or voltaic electricity materially affects fermentation, there cannot be the slightest doubt; indeed it is established by several undeniable facts.

We shall, however, in the first place, insert an abstract of a paper on this subject, which was communicated by the author, to the British Association at their meeting in Liverpool, in 1837.

"I trust I may be excused in drawing the attention of the meeting of the British Association to a short notice of the injurious influence which electricity exerts on the fermentation of the worts of the brewer and the wash of the distiller. The powerful and injurious effects produced by this agent in the manufacture of beer, I endeavoured to point out, in a little work, lately published, on Brewing; which, although it has excited some notice among a few

practical men, yet the subject has not received that attention which its great importance deserves. But I entertain a hope, that this matter will stimulate some members of the Association minutely to examine the nature and extent of the electrical agency, and, by well-devised experiments (towards which, if required, I should most willingly give any information or assistance,) succeed in convincing brewers and distillers of the necessity of studying the laws which regulate this all-powerful agent, in order that they may avoid its injurious effects in the manufacture of beer or spirits. Beer, to the industrious classes in this country, may be considered a necessary of life; and its wholesomeness and purity must, therefore, be of vital importance. The quality varies exceedingly in different parts of the kingdom, and what is considered good beer in one district, may in other parts be pronounced execrable. One great cause of the inferiority of beer and ale in the country, and of the great diversity of flavour, is the want of competition; it being only in the large towns that effectual competition exists. In the country districts there is little or none. The brewers have been long in the habit of purchasing all the public-houses in their neighbourhood, and these houses being limited in number, the labouring classes are prevented from selecting their own beverage, and have no choice but to drink that of the proprietors of the public-houses, who are also the

brewers. Most of such beers are very imperfectly manufactured, and are usually foul and yeast-bitten, and have a very disagreeable, rank bitter, derived from the yeast left in the beer, instead of its being thrown out by a proper process. This bitter, although often mistaken for it, is very different from the agreeable and aromatic flavour of the hop. Yeastbitten beer is particularly injurious to wet-nurses in the suckling of infants. In some districts, unsound, stale beer, is the favourite beverage; so that, from long use, good, sound beer, would not be appreciated, but rejected. A frequent cause of such inferior beers proceeds from want of proper attention being paid to cleanliness, which produces tainted worts, and consequently bad fermentations. I suspect, however, that it very often proceeds from electric or galvanic agency: the fermenting vessels, being very frequently sunk in the ground, are particularly liable to be affected by all electrical and atmospherical changes, as I have had many opportunities of observing. It is to the latter that I wish to direct the attention of the meeting. It has long been familiarly known, that thunder sours beer; but, though generally known, very few brewers have inquired into the cause, or adopted means to prevent this atmospheric, or other action, affecting beer during thunder-storms, or in the different electric states of the earth and atmosphere. The extreme rapidity with which the electricity is evolved during

a thunder-storm, is strikingly exhibited in a distiller's fermenting back. These fermenting backs are often made of cast iron, and either fixed in the earth, or connected with it by an intermediate iron vessel, employed in regulating the temperature. A very short time after a thunder-storm begins, or when the atmosphere is highly charged with electric matter, the appearance in the back altogether changes. The usual healthy character of the fermentation disappears; and it is now attended with a hissing noise and frothy head: and when samples are drawn and examined, is found to have risen, instead of fallen in gravity many degrees, and to contain 5 per cent. or more, of acid. Under these circumstances, the distiller has no alternative but to run off his wash into the stills, although they may be as high as 10 or 12 degrees above water, or occasionally of much higher gravity.

"But the chemical agency exercised by a highly electrical state of the atmosphere, is not confined solely to the fermentation of vegetable substances; it affects even the smelting of iron. It is well known to iron-masters and smelters, that in certain conditions of the atmosphere, and particularly during sultry summer weather, they can never, with certainty, calculate upon producing good, soft, tenacious iron, technically called No. 1; it is much more generally the white, hard, inferior kind, called No. 3, or a mixture of Nos. 2 and 3. Now, in such cir