See SANDFU, Encycl.

BUTTER is a substance so well known, that it is needless to give here any definition of it. It is one of the three component parts of milk, the other two being whey and cheese. It is evident from the processes by which butter and cheese are made, that these two parts are not completely dissolved in the serum or whey, but only diffused through it like an emulsion. They may indeed be separated from it by rest alone, without any artificial preparation.

Butter, though used at present as food in most countries of Europe, was not known, or known very imperfectly, to the ancients. This, we think, is completely proved by Professor Beckmann in the second volume of his History of Inventions. In our translation of the Hebrew Scripture, there is indeed frequent mention made of butter at very early periods; but, as the Professor well observes, the greatest masters of biblical criticism unanimously agree, that the word so translated signifies milk or cream, or four thick milk, and cannot possibly mean what we call butter. The word plainly alludes to something liquid, which was used for washing the feet, which was drunk, and which had sometimes the power of intoxicating; and we know that mare's milk may be so prepared as to produce the same effect. See KOUIMISS, Encycl.

The oldest mention of butter, the Professor thinks, is in the account of the Scythians given by Herodotus (lib. iv. 2.), who says, that "these people pour the milk of their mares into wooden vessels, cause it to be violently stirred or shaken by their blind slaves, and separate the part which rises to the surface, as they consider it as more valuable and delicious than what is collected below it." That this substance must have been a soft kind of butter, is well known; and Hippocrates gives a similar account of Scythian butter, and calls it σούρωσις, which Galen translates by the word θυμός. The poet Anaxandrides, who lived soon after Hippocrates, describing the marriage feast of Iphicrates, who married the daughter of Cotys' king of Thrace, says, that the Thracians ate butter, which the Greeks at that time considered as a wonderful kind of food.

Dioscorides says, that good butter was prepared from the fattest milk, such as that of sheep or goats, by shaking it in a vessel till the fat was separated. To this butter he ascribes the same effects, when used externally, as those produced by our butter at present. He adds also, and he is the first writer who makes the observation, that fresh butter might be melted and poured over pulse and vegetables instead of oil, and that it might be employed in pastry in the room of other fat substances. A kind of food likewise was at that time prepared from butter for external applications, which was used in curing inflammation of the eyes and other disorders. For this purpose the butter was put into a lamp, and when consumed the lamp was again filled till the desired quantity of fat was collected in a vessel placed over it.

Galen, who distinguishes and confirms in a more accurate manner the healing virtues of butter, expressly remarks, that cow's milk produces the fattest butter; that butter made from sheep's or goat's milk is less rich; and that ass's milk yields the poorest. He expresses his astonishment, therefore, that Dioscorides should say that butter was made from the milk of sheep and goats. He affirms us that he had seen it made from cow's milk, and that he believes it had thence acquired its name. "Butter (says he) may be very properly employed for ointments; and when leather is befouled with it, the same purpose is answered as when it is rubbed over with oil. In cold countries, which do not produce oil, butter is used in the baths; and that it is a real fat, may be readily perceived by its catching fire when poured over burning coals." What has been here said is sufficient to shew that butter must have been very little known to or used by the Greeks and the Romans in the time of Galen, that is, at the end of the second century.

The Professor having collected, in chronological order, every thing which he could find in the works of the ancients respecting butter, concludes, that it is not a Grecian, and much less a Roman, invention, but that the Greeks were made acquainted with it by the Scythians, the Thracians, and the Phrygians, and the Romans by the people of Germany. He is likewise decidedly of opinion, that when these two polished nations had learned the art of making it, they used it not as food, but only as an ointment, or sometimes as a medicine. "We never find it (says he) mentioned by Galen and others as a food, though they have spoken of it as applicable to other purposes. No notice is taken of it by Apicius; nor is there any thing said of it in that respect by the authors who treat on agriculture, though they have given us very particular information concerning milk, cheese, and oil."

The case, however, is now very different. It is, in this country at least, in general an article of food, that the proper methods of making and curing it have engaged the attention of some of our ablest writers on agriculture. In addition to what has been said on these subjects under the titles Butter and Dairy (Encyclopedia), our readers will probably be pleased with the following method of curing it, which is practised by some farmers in the parish of Udney, in the county of Aberdeen, and gives to their butter a great superiority above that of their neighbours.

Take two parts of the best common salt, one part of sugar, and one part of saltpetre; beat them up together, and blend the whole completely. Take one ounce of this composition for every fifteen ounces of butter, work it well into the mass, and store it up for use.

Dr James Anderson, from whose View of the Agriculture of the County of Aberdeen this receipt is taken, says, that he knows of no simple improvement in economics greater than this is, when compared with the usual mode of curing butter by means of common salt alone. "I have seen (continues he) the experiment fairly made, of one part of the butter made at one time being thus cured, and the other part cured with salt alone: the difference was inconceivable. I should suppose that, in any open market, the one would sell for BUT

Butter, 30 per cent. more than the other. The butter cured with the mixture appears of a rich marrowsy consistence and fine colour, and never acquires a brittle hardness nor tastes salt; the other is comparatively hard and brittle, approaching more nearly to the appearance of tallow, and is much fatter to the taste. I have ate butter cured with the above composition that had been kept three years, and it was as sweet as at first; but it must be noted, that butter thus cured requires to stand three weeks or a month before it is begun to be used. If it be sooner opened, the salts are not sufficiently blended with it; and sometimes the coolness of the nitre will then be perceived, which totally disappears afterwards.

The following observations respecting the proper method of keeping both milk and butter are by the same author, and we trust may prove useful. Speaking full of the county of Aberdeen, he says, "The pernicious practice of keeping milk in leaden vessels, and salting butter in stone jars, begins to gain ground among some of the fine ladies in this county, as well as elsewhere, from an idea of cleanliness. The fact is, it is just the reverse of cleanliness; for in the hands of a careful person nothing can be more cleanly than wooden dishes, but under the management of a flatter they discover the secret which stone dishes indeed do not.

"In return, these latter communicate to the butter and the milk, which has been kept in them, a poisonous quality, which inevitably proves destructive to the human constitution. To the prevalence of this practice I have no doubt we must attribute the frequency of palsy, which begin to prevail so much in this kingdom; for the well known effect of the poison of lead is bodily debility, palsy—death!"