Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/175

BAK In another quart of warm water, while you are stirring in more flour, till it become as thick as before ; then again shake dry flour over it, and leave it for two hours longer — repeat the same method about twice more, always suffering it somewhat longer to be at rest, and the bread will become as light as if a pint of barm had been used. Nor does this method require above a quarter of an hour more time than the usual way of baking ; and the author of it asserts, that his bread has never been heavy nor bitter. With respe<5t to the difference of seasons, J. Stone dire £ts that, in summer, the water should be used blood-warm ; in winter, or cold frosty weadier, as hot as the hand can bear it without pain ; while in the former season the dough should be covered up very warm, and strewed over with flour every time tepid water *s added, to eep in the heat : after using six or eight quarts of such water to every bushel of flour, in the gradual manner before describ- ed, it will be found that die whole body of flour which is mixed with the warm water, by means of a single tea-spoonful of barm, is brought into considerable agitation, so that it waxes or ferments with- out difficulty. — See also Yeast. Having already, on a former oc- casion, alluded to the adulterations practised by bakers, a subject we propose to resume under the head of Bread, we shall conclude this article with a ([notation in point, abridged from the XXI Yth volume of the Monthly Review, for January 1/51. — " Heaven gives us good corn, but our bakers, it is said, have sought out many inventions. Alum is no proper ingredient in the composition of this great sup- BAL C'ji port of life ; and lime must be still worse : — we tamely permit a few ignorant mechanics to mingle poison widt our daily food, and gradually to ruin and destroy our health, the greatest blessing of all ; under the idle pretence of hu- mouring a ridiculous prejudice, in favour of a fashionable but artiiicial hue, in opposition to the sweet, wholesome, natural complexion of the corn !" Baking-Stove (portable.) See Stove. BALANCE, one of the six simple powers in mechanics, prin- cipally used for determining the equality or difference of weights in such bodies as are liable to this computation. There are two kinds of weights principally used at present; the an* cient, or the Roman steel-yard, and the modern, which consists of a lever or beam suspended exacfly in the m:dd!c, having scales or ba- sons attacl ed to each extremity. If the arms of the balance be of equal length, and similar weights placed in the scale, the balance will consequently be in equilibrio. But if one of the arms be in length to the other as ten to nine, the balance may still be so con- structed, that both the arms with their scales shall equiponderate. This vile contrivance, however, jusdy deserves to be branded with infamy; because a weight of nine pounds put into the longer arm, will counterpoise another of tea pounds placed in the shorter one; but the fraud may be instantly dis- covered, by shining die weight from the one scale to the odier, in which case the balance will lose its equip* BALDNESS, a defect of hair chiefly on the forepart of the head, L 4 Among