"I heard you sigh yesterday over that magnificent sole you served to us, pale, watery and colorless. My friend R. [Footnote: Mr. R-- -, born at Seyssel, in the district of Belley, in 1757, an elector of the grand college. He may be considered an example of the good effects of prudence and probity.] looked disapprovingly of it, M.H.R. turned his gastronomical nose to the left, and the President S. declared such a misfortune equal to a public calamity. "This happened because you neglected the theory, the importance of which you are aware of. You are rather obstinate, though I have, taken the trouble to impress on you the facts, that the operations of your laboratory are only the execution of the eternal laws of nature, and that certain things which you do carelessly, because you have seen others do so; yet these are the results of the highest science. Listen to me, therefore, with attention, that you may never again blush at your works." Section 1. CHEMISTRY. "Liquids which you subject to the action of fire cannot all receive the same quantity of heat. Nature has formed them differently, and this secret, which we will call CAPACITY FOR CALORIC, she has kept to herself. "You may, therefore, with impunity dip your finger in boiling spirits of wine; you would take it very quickly from boiling brandy; more rapidly yet from water; while the most rapid immersion in boiling oil would heat you easily. "Consequently warm fluids act differently on the sapid bodies presented to them. Those subject to water soften, dissolve, and reduce themselves to boilli. The result is bouillon and its extracts. Those on the contrary treated with oil harden, assume a color more or less deep, and finally are carbonized. "In the first instance, water dissolves and conveys away the interior juices of the alimentary substances placed in it. In the second the juices are preserved, for they are insoluble in oil. If these things dry up it is because a continuous heat vaporizes the humid parts. "The two methods have different names, and FRYING is BOILING in oil or grease substances intended to be eaten. I think I have told you that officially oil and grease are synonymous; heating the latter being but a concrete oil." Section II. APPLICATION. "Fritures are well received in entertainments into which they introduce an agreeable variety. They are agreeable to the taste, preserve their primitive flavor, and may be eaten with the hand, a thing women are always fond of. "Thus cooks are able to hide many things that have appeared on the day before, and remedy unforeseen requisitions on them. It takes no longer to fry a four pound chop than it does to boil an egg. "All the merit of the friture is derived from the surprise, or the invasion of the boiling liquid which carbonizes or burns at the very instant of immersion of the body placed in it.