The Chemistry of Cookery

well as cooked, and, of course, also demand the speedy removal of their noxious vapours. Not so with fresh meats. There is nothing in the vapour of beef that can injure the flavour of beef, nor in the vapour of mutton that is damaging to mutton, and so on with the rest. But there is much that can, and does actually improve them; or, more strictly speaking, prevents the deterioration to which they are liable when roasted before an open fire. I will endeavour to explain this. Carefully-conducted experiments have demonstrated the general law that atmospheric air is a vacuum to the vapour of water and other similar vapours, while each particular vapour is a plenum to itself, though not to other vapours; or, otherwise stated, if a given space, at a given temperature, be filled with air, the quantity of aqueous vapour that it is capable of holding is the same as though this space contained no air at all, nor anything else. But this same space may contain a much smaller quantity of aqueous vapour, and yet be absolutely impenetrable to aqueous vapour, provided its temperature is unaltered. Thus, if a bell-glass, filled with air, under ordinary pressure, at the temperature of 100° Fahr., be placed over a dish of water at the same temperature, a quantity of vapour, equal to 1/30th (in round numbers) of the weight of the air, will rise into the bell-glass, and there remain diffused throughout. If there were less air, or no air at all (temperature remaining the same), the bell-glass would obtain and hold the same quantity of vapour. If, instead of being filled with air, it contained at the outset only this 1/30th of aqueous vapour, it would now be an impenetrable plenum, behaving like a solid to aqueous vapour—no more could be forced into it while its temperature remained the same. But while thus charged with aqueous vapour, there would still be room for vapour of alcohol, or turpentine, or ether, or chloroform, &c. It would be a vacuum to these, though a plenum to itself. On the other