Q. For the determination of adulteration of milk by water, to determine its specific gravity with the lactometer, do you know of any better method than that employed by the Board of Health as shown on this trial? A. None.

Q. Suppose brackish water be added to milk, will that vary its gravity? A. It will.

Q. How? A. Increase it.

Q. Will all brackish water do that? 4. No.

Q. How is that, Doctor? A. If the brackish water contains very little salt it will make the milk lighter; in other words if the brackish water is lighter than the milk itself it will make the milk lighter; if the brackish water is heavier it will make the milk heavier.

Q. Is there not a great deal of brackish water, which when added to milk will make it heavier and make it stand higher by the lactometer? A. I think not, unless it was so brackish as to impart a very strong taste to the milk.

Q. Is there not a great deal of brackish water up the Hudson river where the tide water ends and fresh water begins; where a great deal of milk sent to New York comes from? A. About Newburgh?

Q. Somewhere about there? A. The river is full of brackish water.

Q. Is not brackish water there which will not lower the gravity of milk? A. I cannot say.

Q. Assuming that brackish water be added to the milk with the effect of making it heavier, will the lactometer tell that adulteration?

A. It will not.

Q. Then there is an adulteration by brackish water which the lactometer will not detect? A. Not the lactometer alone.

Q. The lactometer and all the usual tests? A. The taste will detect it.

Q. Will analysis detect that addition?

(Objected to as irrelevant; objection sustained.)

Q. Will analysis determine the condition of brackish water? A. It will.

By Mr. PRENTICE-Doctor, when you speak of the hydrometer used for the purpose of milk as being less accurate, or when

you

refer to the accuracy of the hydrometer as used in various liquids, do you use the term accurate as referring to a degree of accuracy, or as to the determination of the fact itself of density-in other words, if the question is whether or not a fact exists, will the word accurate give your opinion correctly?

(Objected to; objection sustained.)

Q. You say you tested the lactometer used by the Board of Health? A. I used it, not tested it.

BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, sworn and examined by Mr. PRENTICE, testified as follows:

Q. You are a chemist by profession? A. I am.

Q. You have also taken a degree of doctor? A. I hold the degree of doctor, but I am not a practising physician.

Q. How long have you been in the profession of chemistry, and what has been your experience? A. I have been in the profession of chemistry since 1837, at which time I became an assistant in the department of chemistry under my father at Yale College, where I remained until 1847, when I became professor of chemistry applied to the arts in the scientific school at Yale College; I then held that chair until 1849, when I added to it the appointment of professor of medical chemistry and toxicology in the university of Louisville, Kentucky; I held the two chairs parallel until 1855, when I resigned the Kentucky appointment, returning permanently to New Haven, where I have since, until the present time, resided as professor of chemistry in Yale College, and at present specially connected with the medical department of that institution.

Q. You are one of the editors of the scientific journal known as Silliman's Journal? A. I am.

Q. And you are acquainted with the milk question, so called; the literature upon it and the general subject? A. I am.

Q. You are acquainted with this class of instruments called hydrometers and the lactometer? A. Yes, sir.

Q. Which is used in testing specific gravity in milk? A. Yes, sir.

Q. Is milk a defined chemical compound? A. It is not; milk

is an emulsion; it is substantially water to the amount of 85 to 87 per cent., more or less, and the remainder is made up in part of substances soluble in water, and in part of substances insoluble in water; all those substances insoluble in water are embraced chiefly under the name of fat, and are held in suspension in the fluid.

Q. Is chemical analysis alone capable, with entire certainty, of determining if a given sample of milk has been treated with water? A. Science has not taught us to distinguish with certainty between the water that is natural to milk, and within certain degrees the amount of water which may have been accidentally or fraudulently added to it; we have no precise means of determining which is natural and which is added water within limits.

Q. Tell me what do you understand by commercial milk? A. I understand by commercial milk that average product that is sold in commerce, and which represents not the milk of one cow but the milk of many cows.

Q. Is there such a thing as normal or standard milk? A. In the scientific sense, no; you might as well ask if there were normal wine; there is normal alcohol, but because wine contains alcohol we cannot speak of normal wine nor normal roast beef; there is good milk and bad milk, good wine and bad wine, strong wine and weak wine, good beef and bad beef, but there is not a normal standard in these things; normal alcohol we have.

Q. Is there a minimum and maximum standard of specific gravity of milk? A. I conceive there is-that a minimum and maximum must be established as the result of a pretty large range of observation.

Q. What is the average between those two? A. According to the best of my memory I should say a fair statement of the general. average, throwing out extremes as exceptional, would be from 27 to 28 thousandths as the minimum, to 33 or 34 thousandths as the maximum, that is to say 1.027 or 1.028 for the minimum, and 1.033 or 1.034 for the maximum; I can give you the corresponding degrees of the scale upon the New York Board of Health hydrometer or lactometer if you desire it, I believe.

Q. What will you say of the standard of 1.029 as a safe and reliable standard for commercial milk? A. I should say that, as far as my reading and knowledge go, it was a standard in favor of the

milkmen; that it is lower than the accepted standard of France, which is 1.030, and that in some sense, and perhaps in a general and best sense, it may be considered a safe standard.

Q. Is the hydrometer an accurate instrument for determining the specific gravity of liquids? A. It is, if properly made and used.

Q. Is there any more accurate method of determining the specific gravity of liquids than by the use of such an instrument? A. No, it is a preferred method for liquids lighter than water, and for many that are denser than water, both for the rapidity and the accuracy with which it may be used. It is an instrument of incomparable practical importance, alike in the arts and in the sciences.

Q. What is the best opinion, according to the best authorities, with regard to the use of the lactometer for detecting the watering of milk?

(Objected to; objection overruled; exception.)

A. As I understand the best knowledge on that subject, it is that, within certain limits, the lactometer is very generally if not universally accepted as a means of determining the watering of milk. This, I believe, will be found to be true by examining the writings of Bouchardat, Quevenne, Von Baumhauer, and all the other authorities that are considered, both abroad and at home, as the best representatives. I would qualify that answer, if you please, by one remark. It is not intended to apply to extreme cases, nor even to an individual case. You may have the milk of a cow that in an exceptional condition may contain an enormous and unusual quantity of cream, and the hydrometer would fail utterly. With that qualification, I think the answer is correct.

Q. I will limit it to the use of the lactometer for detecting the watering of commercial milk? A. I consider it a suitable and an accurate instrument for that purpose. My answer is affirmative.

Q. I will ask you, if you should find a sample of commercial milk which, at a temperature of 60 Fahrenheit, should show a degree of 90 on the lactometer, what would that determine? A. It would at once excite the suspicion that the milk had been falsified with water, if I understand your question, that it should read at 90 on the lactometer?

Q. Yes sir. A. It would at once excite suspicion that it had been falsified with water, but it would not be, without observation, sufficient evidence that it had been watered.

Q. You do not mean to say it would be no evidence? A. Oh, no; it would not be conclusive evidence.

Q. Suppose a sample of milk, commercial milk, which to the eye as it appears in the glass and upon the lactometer is tested, and and also by the taste, and on the lactometer shows at 60 Fahrenheit a degree of 90, these observations occurring, what would it determine? A. Almost absolutely convincing the mind of the observer that it had been tampered with by the addition of water.

Q. Is there any more accurate method of determining? A. Well, practically no.

Cross-examined by Mr. LAWRENCE :

Q. Professor Silliman, have you personally tested milk with the hydrometer? A. Do you ask that question of the hydrometer in general, or the Board of Health instrument?

Q. The modification of the hydrometer which is called the lactometer. A. I have.

Q. Very often? A. Very often.

Q. How many times? A. I cannot say how many times; every year during the last forty years.

Q. Have you ever used the lactometer of the Board of Health of New York? A. I have not.

Q. Do you know whether its mechanical construction is correct? A. I conceive from the examination that I have made of the instrument that it is very skilfully constructed for its purpose, inasmuch as the stem is very small in proportion to the bulb.

Q. Did you not assist the other day in court at the reading by four lactometers which were alike in bulb and stem? A. I did. Q. They differed I believe? A. Slightly.

Q. Can you point out any mechanical defects about the Board of Health's lactometer? A. I do not know that I exactly understand the purport of your question.

Q. Will you take that instrument and see whether you can discover any mechanical defects in its construction? A. Judging merely from the external form, the appearance of the instrument