CALIFORNIA. [From late San Francisco Papers.] Meat Biscuit.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 555, 9 August 1851, Page 4

CALIFORNIA. [From late San Francisco Papers.] Meat Biscuit.

A gentleman of Texai, G. Borden, Esq., has discovered a method of producing a substitute for meat and bread, combining the nourishing virtues of both, in a form moßt convenient for packing and transportation, containing as much nutriment in a pound as is contained in over five pounds of meat and nearly one of flour. The advantages in military operations, especially where they hare to be conducted in quarters where supplies are not easily obtained, as on the western frontiers of Missouri and in the Indian country generally, and also for the use of emigrants, can scarcely be calculated. Most of our citizens who crossed the plains to reach California, would have experienced almost a pleasure trip, compared with what they did experience, could they have been in possession of an article of food, four or five ounces of which daily is sufficient to sustain a the energies, strength, and spirit of a man while engaeed in his usual occupation. It would do away with a large portion of the baggage necessary to a moving army, at once putting our soldiers upon an equality with the Indians in their facility for travel in consequence of little baggage. The sustaining, alimentive Qualities of this food have been tested by Col. Sumner,

and upon his representations the War Department, impressed with the importance of this new article of foo<l, has determined to test it among the frontier troops, having ordered a large amount for that purpose. The Galveston Civilian says that the inventor has made extensive preparations for its manufacture at Galveston, having large buildings employed for the purpose. An engine of ten-horse power, with two cylinder boilers, constitutes the power to drive the machinery, which consists of biscuit machines to knead, roll, and cut the dough, a giist mill to pulverise the biscuit, a fan to raise the fire in the blast furnace for heating the oven, and tbe guillotine, a powerful machine to cut the meat into small pieces > the better to facilitate the boiling. The process of making this food, which Mr. Borden calls "Meat Biscuit/ is thus described by the Civilian: There are four wooden cauldrona or tubs for boiling the meat and evaporating the liquid or broth — the two for boiling the meat, holding twenty-three hundred gallons, will each boil seven hundred pounds of meat in twelve to sixteen hours. The other two for evaporating, will contain some fourteen hundred gallons each. All the tubs are heated or boiled by steam passing through long coiled iron pipes, supplied at pleasure either from the escaped steam from the «ngine, or direct from the boiler. When the meat is so far boiled or macerated that the liquid or broth contain! the entire nutriment, the me«ty or corporeous portions are separated by a simple process of filtering, no that the broth %oca% oca into the evaporator pure and free from fibrous matter. It is then evaporated to a degree of consistence resembling the golden or Stewarts sugar house syrup ; iia uniform density being determined by a liquid or »yrup guage. One pound of this Byrup or extract contains the nutriment of some eleven pounds of meat (including ita usual proportion of bone) as first put into the cauldron. This extract is then mixed with the best and finest flour, kneaded and made into biscuit by means of the maobines before mentioned. The biscuit is baked upon pans, in on oven so constructed as to produce a uniform firmness. The propoition is as two pounds of extract are to three pounds of flour : but, by baking, the five pounds are reduced to four pounds of biscuit, and this will make, what the inventor claims, tbe nutriment of over five pounds of meat in one pound of bread, which contains, besides, over t(>n ounces of flour. The hiscuit resembles in appearance a light colored sugar cake. It is packed in air-tight casks or tin cannistera of different sizes, part of the biscuit being pulverized by grinding in a mill for the purpose, and thus packed with the whole biscuit. Every one can speculate for himself upon the great blessing which a supply of this article would be to our miners, in their prospecting tours and journeys between the different placers, as well as during their residence among the mountains. Each footman could carry a sufficient quantity to laat him during all necessary migrations. And in our military operations against the Indians in the State, its convenience is readily perceived. A hope is entertained bj some of the officers of the army now here that a supply of the " meat biscuit" will be sent out here. — Alta California. Lynching. — Anotheh Man Hung. — Lynch law has again been carried into effect, and another murderer sent to his last account. On Saturday March 29th, at Brown's bar, on Weber Creek, Andrew Scott, of St. Genevive, Mo , without any provocation further than a slight misunderstanding, murdered Mr. Baker, his partner, inflicting five severe stabs with his knife, any one of which would have caused his death. Scott was taken into custody, and although the excitement occasioned by the dreadful act was interne, he was allowed trial by a jury of twelve men. (After a fair representation of the whole case, the jury found him guilty, and sentenced him to be hung, which verdict was immediately put into execution. Mr. Baker is said to have been a gentleman in every respect, while his murderer, beyond all doubt, was a most ferocious villain, this being the third or fourth time that he has stained his hands with the blood of his ftllow man. One of his victims was Dr. McManus of St. Genevive. His narrow escape from the gallows on that occasion, instead of acting as a salutary warning, and making him a better man, only served to harden his heart, as is too often the case with the vicious man when the law in mercy fails to execute its judgments upon him, and now he has reaped the terrible fruits of his own sowing. We understand he is most respectably connected at home.— Sacramento Union. The Transcript gives a long and full account of the lynching of three men, Rigler, Allen and Miller, at Nevada City, for having robbed a Mr. Napper of upwards of #2000, a short time since. The robben were demanded and finally seized by the indignant populace, from Justice Edwards' court. A lynch court was or* ganised and a trial regularly gone through with. Allen concluded finally to make a confession of the whole affair. Fifteen hundred dollars were recovered and the prisoners punished— Allen and Miller receiving twenty lashes each and Rigler thirty-nine

Conious Stout : A Boy found in a Wolp's Din. — Extract of a letter received by Philip Sleeman, Esq., of Plymouth, from bis brother, Colonel YV. H. Sleeman : <( Court of Lucknow, Hmdostan, India, October 3, 1850. I must now tell you about a poor boy who was found in a wolfs den, with a she wolf and three stout whelps. When dug into by some of my troops they all bolted together, and the boy ran so fast on all fours that he outstripped the whelps, and was with difficulty taken by a mounted trooper. The mother of the whelps had carried him off from his parents some years before, and brought him tip as her own offspring in her den. I hare more instances of the same kind, and had what they ctll a * wild man of the woods' brought to me yesterday, sent by the King of Oude. He was caught twenty-five years ago in a jungle in the woods, when about eighteen years of age. He had been brought up by a wolf, but she died, and he was taken in a starving state by a hermit, who weaned him from eating raw flesh. One of the then king's soldiers got him from the hermit and presented him to the king, by whom, and his successors, he has been ever since taken care of. It was many years before he could be made to wear clothing, and even now dislikes the society of men. He speaks, but only in reply to questions, and then it is with difficulty understood."