This explanation may be further demonstrated by cutting a loaf through the middle from top to bottom, and exposing the cut surfaces. In this case the bread becomes unequally stale, more so near the cut surface than within. The unequal pull due to the greater approximation and adhesion of the fibres and small particles causes a rupture of the exposed surface of the crumb, which becomes cracked or fissured without any perceptible alteration of the size of the visible pores. If the two broken faces be now accurately placed together, the halves thus closely joined, firmly tied, and placed for an hour in the oven, it will be seen on separating them that the chasms are considerably closed, though not quite healed. Careful examination of the structure of the inside, by breaking out a portion of the crumb, will reveal that loosening which I have described. ‘Popped corn’ is a peculiar example of starch cookery. Here a certain degree of porosity is given to an originally close-compacted structure of starch by the simple operation of explosive violence due to the sudden conversion into vapour of the water naturally associated with the starch. The operation is too rapid for the production of much dextrin. CHAPTER XIII. VEGETABLE CASEIN AND VEGETABLE JUICES. AS most of my readers doubtless know, peas, beans, lentils and other seeds of leguminous plants are more nutritious, theoretically, than the seeds of grasses, such as wheat, barley, oats, maize, &c. I was glad to see at the Health Exhibition a fine series of the South Kensington cases, displaying in the simplest and most demonstrative manner the proximate analyses of the chief materials of animal and vegetable food. I refer to them now because they did not receive the attention they deserve. On the opening day there was, out of all the crowd, only one other besides myself bestowing any attention upon them. These cases show 1 lb. of wheat, oats, potatoes, peas, &c. &c., on trays; by the side of these are bottles, containing the quantity of water in the 1 lb., and other trays, containing the other constituents of the same quantity; the starch, gluten, casein, the mineral matter, &c., thus displaying at a glance the nutritious value of each so far as chemical analysis can display it. Those Irishmen and others who think I have been too hard upon the potato, will do well to take its nutritive measure thus, and compare it with that of other vegetable foods. I should add that these cases form a part of the permanent collection of the South Kensington Museum, and therefore may be studied at any time.