At this conference a permanent organization was effected under the name of the National Pure Food and Drug Congress. (526,527.)

2. Society for the Promotion of Health.-Dr. R. KENNEDY SCOBELL, a lecturer on health, employed by a firm of wholesale dealers in proprietary remedies, and president for the Society for the Promotion of Health, says that at each meeting of the society there are demonstrations of pure food, and women are instructed in the choice of foods. The club regards pure food as essential to health. (50-52.) 3. Effect of agitation upon exports.—Mr. HELLER thinks the agitation of the food question, which affects nearly all the manufacturers, will hurt our exports, because it will be believed that our foods are to a great extent adulterated. One of the largest plants in the country runs only three days in the week now (May, 1899); and one of their salesmen, in traveling over his territory, sold only 7 gross of cans, though he had formerly always sold a carload on the same trip. Mr. Heller calls attention to Secretary Wilson's remarks that the agitation in regard to meat will in time cost the country more than the war with Spain, owing to the injury done to the meat industry. (181, 182.) See also Enforcement of the mixed-flour law, effect upon exports, p. 28.

II. MIXED FLOUR.

A. Adulterants used.-1. In wheat flour.-Mr. AUGUSTINE GALLAGHER, president of the Modern Miller Company, says that before the enactment of the mixed-flour law the principal adulterant used was cornstarch made by glucose mills. Another adulterant was corn flour made by the corn mills; and in a few instances barytes was discovered. In Georgia, mineraline or ground clay had been moved from point to point by freight as a commodity, but did not come into general use. He does not think it went farther than 200 miles. The production of an article made from ground clay is quite an industry in Tennessee and Georgia, but he is convinced that the business of adulterating breadstuffs with that material was confined to those two States where the adulterants were produced. (3,4, 135.) Dr. WILEY testifies that glucose factories make a high grade of starch known as flourine, which is finely ground and has been extensively used for mixing with wheat flour. (21.)

Professor JENKINS says that the Connecticut Agricultural Station has found no adulteration in any of the hundreds of samples of flour, taken in Connecticut, which it has examined. It has found considerable quantities of corn in one or two samples referred to it from other States. (450.)

Mr. BERNARD A. ECKERT, president of the Eckert-Swan Milling Company, testifies that up to the time of the passage of the pure-flour law his firm had to compete with flour which was not wheat flour, though sold as such. Many millers, and also dealers, mixed cheaper substances with wheat flour, and sold the mixture under their regular brands. This not only injured the honest millers and defrauded the consumers, but also began to militate against the millers in their foreign trade. Shipments of American flour having been inspected in other countries and found to contain foreign substances, the question of laws to exclude American flour, or at least of adopting a rigid system of inspection, was being agitated. (26, 27.)

Mr. FURBAY says patent flour has been discovered by the Agricultural Department to be adulterated with corn. (61.)

In replying to a question whether the cracker and biscuit trusts were using adulterated flour. Mr. GALLAGHER states that he personally inspected two or three bakeries, and found no evidences of adulterated flour, the character of the goods produced there being such that an undue amount of starch would ruin them; but some of the goods produced by the combined bakers would bear more starch than the old-fashioned crackers. (7.)

2. In feed stuffs.-Mr. GALLAGHER has been informed by several members of the trade that mineraline is used in feed stuffs. The adulteration of shorts in this way is very easy.

(4.)

3. In starch.-Professor MITCHELL says flourine, a by-product of glucose, has occasionally been used as an adulterant for white starches. (118.)

B. Pancake flour.-Mr. GALLAGHER says the basis of a great many pancake flours is cornstarch or corn flour. Corn flour is corn meal pulverized, and is made by a direct milling process. Cornstarch is made by a process in which an acid treatment is used to separate the starch cells. Considerable evidence was introduced before the Ways and Means Committee of Congress to show that free sulphuric acid remained in the starch. According to the information of people who carry on the business, the sugar and gluten are extracted from the cornstarch. Makers of pancake flour add to wheat flour cornstarch or corn flour, and some put in rice. They all use soda, salt, and tartaric acid for leavening purposes. (136, 137.)

Mr. GEORGE W. SMITH, a flour dealer of Chicago, says pancake flours are all mixed. When the ground buckwheat comes in, in October, it is worth $6 a barrel. The wholesaler will buy low-grade spring-wheat flour worth about $1.75, and use 2 barrels of that to 1 barrel of buckwheat, marking the mixture buckwheat flour. If the purchaser asks for pure buckwheat flour he can get it. (134.) Mr. FURBAY says the Hazel Pure Food Company makes a self-raising flour, known as pancake flour, containing a raising preparation, but not alum. The preparation is a very small proportion of the flour. (62.)

Mr. P. M. HANNEY, a manufacturer of cereal foods at Franklin Park, Ill., says that some of the preparations he manufactures, such as pancake flour, have to be stamped, on account of the ruling that they come within the mixed-flour law. Pancake flour is made of whole-wheat flour, some corn and rice flour, salt, and a little raising preparation-60 per cent being whole-wheat flour. It is not put up to deceive or cheapen, but to make flour more palatable. (59.)

C. Enforcement of the mixed-flour law.-1. Methods.-Mr. GALLAGHER says that in enforcing the mixed-flour law he went to a mill in Kansas which had borne a good reputation, but which he knew had been mixing flour, and found stored on the premises a large amount of glucose starch. The act gives no one power to prevent millers from occupying their premises with adulterants, but he informed the miller that he would take a memorandum of the amount of starch on hand, and the next agent would see if he still had the same amount; if not, he would find out what he had done with it. As a result the miller took out a license, and now mixes flour according to law. (2.)

Mr. Gallagher says that his usual mode of testing flour is by the sense of touch, which will detect excessive starchiness. When in doubt, he would send a sample to the laboratory, where a microscope of 350 diameters reveals the presence of corn granules in the wheat very readily. After that, samples are submitted to the Chemical Bureau of the Treasury Department. (7.)

2. Effectiveness in stopping adulteration. Mr. AUGUSTINE GALLAGHER, giving the results of his experience while acting as a revenue agent in charge of the enforcement of the mixed-flour law of 1898, testifies that in a number of cases flour has been found mixed with products other than wheat, and not properly stamped in accordance with the law. He believes that since the act took effect no flour in the United States has been adulterated with ground clay (mineraline) or ground stone (barytes). The effect of the act has been to destroy the use of those articles. There have been only one or two cases in which flour was made and offered for sale contrary to law, but a great deal of mixed flour made previous to the enactment of the law was found and was held to be taxable under section 49. (1,3.) Mr. Gallagher says the principal corn products are corn flour and starch, the latter being produced by glucose factories. Manufacturers of both these products claim that they are healthful, and in the case of corn flour the truthfulness of the statement is not questioned. Before the enactment of the mixed-flour law they claimed further that where mixing was done their customers were so informed, and the goods were sold on their own merits; that not only the dealers but the consumers, knowing what they were buying, wanted the goods, and that therefore there was no reason for the legislation. The result of the enforcement of the act, however, is that 95 per cent of the people engaged in mixing corn products into wheat flour have retired from that branch of the business; they say that people absolutely will not buy mixed corn and wheat flours when they know it, except the flours in small packages which everybody expects to be mixed, such as buckwheat flour, which is often mixed with from 15 to 20 per cent of wheat flour so that the cake will hold together better when baked. The claims of those who said they could sell mixed flour just as well branded as not branded are answered by their failure to do so. To-day they have absolutely no mixed-flour trade, proving that people want pure flour. The enforcement of the flour act has accomplished more in three months than was ever claimed for it by the most extravagant. It has stopped the adulteration of wheat flour. (5, 136.)

Mr. Gallagher has heard no complaint concerning the law, except (1) in regard to self-raising flours, (2) from the glucose trust, which claims that its business has been hurt, and (3) from the millers of corn, who have lost the special customers for whom the mixing was done. (6.)

Mr. ECKERT thinks that every honest miller and dealer feels that the law has accomplished what was intended, and knows of no other act that has given as general satisfaction. He has not heard of any surreptitious mixing of flour in disregard of the law, except that a Government expert testified that there had been a shipment of 10,000 barrels of flour surreptitiously mixed with mineraline, or terriana, in North Carolina. He attributes the good effect of the law to the requirement that mixed flour must be branded, and says the tax "cuts no figure at all." (27, 28.)

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Mr. FURBAY thinks the operation of the law has been beneficial. It has removed some of the difficulties of his business. It is the only law he knows of which seems to be at all effective in preventing the importation of adulterated food. (62.) 3. Effect upon exports.-Mr. GALLAGHER testifies that the export trade in wheat flour increased between 24 and 25 per cent during the first three months of the operation of the mixed-flour law. It was claimed by those who assumed to represent the mixers that the enactment of the law would ruin the corn-milling business of the country and injure the small dealers and the corn growers. As a matter of fact, while the wheat flour exports increased more than 24 per cent during August, September, and October, 1898, corn-mill exports increased during those months about 48 per cent as compared with the same months of 1897. (6.) Mr. Gallagher thought the exports of flour in 1899 would amount to several million barrels more than ever before. At the time of his testimony (May, 1899), the increase had been about 20 per cent. He attributed the increase very largely to the mixed-flour law. (136.)

Mr. Gallagher says that foreign importers of American flour are a unit in admiration of the promptness with which the American people came to the rescue of the flour millers and of the present system of guaranteeing the purity of their goods. He submitted a number of letters received from representative importers of American flour in Great Britain and on the Continent of Europe, testifying that the enactment of the law had improved the trade in American flour by restoring confidence in its purity. (7-11.)

Mr. ECKERT testifies that in 1896 about 10,000,000 barrels of flour were exported, and that since the mixed-flour law went into effect the exports have been very large. He estimated that in 1899 the exports of American flour would exceed 15,000,000 barrels, the increase being due in part to the feeling that under Government supervision flour purporting to be wheat flour is pure wheat flour. (27.) D. Suggested amendments to the mixed-flour law. -Mr. GALLAGHER advises that the act be amended so as to prevent millers from occupying their premises with adulterants, and by excepting self-raising pancake and buckwheat flours, etc.; also by providing licenses for dealers in mixed flours, so as to compel them to keep records, and by providing a penalty for failure to report business transactions. (2,3.)

Mr. ECKERT thinks the mixed-flour law an excellent law, which ought to remain in force with a few slight amendments, perhaps excluding baking powder in small packages. He suggests that the exception of self-raising flour might lead to the abuse of the law; flour might be put up in packages and called selfraising flour to impose upon the public. (27.)

III. BAKING POWDER.

A. General statements.-Professor MALLET states that four classes of baking powder are used in the United States: First, there are the cream of tartar powders, in which nothing but cream of tarter, bicarbonate of soda, and starch is used; second, alum powders, composed of alum, bicarbonate of soda, and starch; third, the phosphate powders, composed of acid phosphate of calcium, bicarbonate of soda, and starch; fourth, alum phosphate powders, composed of alum, bicarbonate of soda, acid phosphate of calcium, and starch. Nearly all of the powders experimented with by Professor Mallet belong to the last class. (552,566.) Professor Mallet asserts that one great danger in the use of alum baking powders is the danger of imperfect manufacture. If either the alum or the soda is not weighed out in the proper proportions, and an excess of alum is used, there will not be enough soda to decompose all the alum, and some unchanged alum will be left in the bread. Probably there is not much danger that this will occur in the case of the large manufacturers; but the simplicity and cheapness of the manufacture have led a multitude of small men, practically ignorant of chemistry, to go into the business, and not much reliance can be placed upon the accuracy of their work, even in weighing.

In an actual experiment with 27 samples, representing 17 alum baking powders, Professor Mallet found an excess of soda in all cases but two. In the two powders which showed an excess of acid the acidity was in part due to acid calcium phosphate.

In addition to the dangers of the use of wrong proportions in the materials, there is the danger of imperfect mixture, which would result in an excess of alum in some portions of the powder and an excess of soda in others. (551, 552, 559.) Mr. GEORGE C. REW, a chemist and vice-president of the Calumet Baking Powder Company, testifies that all baking powders are alike in containing bicarbonate of soda, an alkaline ingredient which furnishes the leavening gas, but differ

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in the acid matters used to neutralize this soda and free the gas. These acids may be cream of tartar, tartaric acid, alum, acid phosphate of calcium, or any solid acid salt, such as sulphate of sodium. Practically, there are only two classes of baking powders having any great sale-cream of tartar baking powder, now manufactured by the baking powder trust, and the alum and phosphate baking powder. The consumer eating food prepared with cream of tartar baking powder does not take into his stomach one particle of cream of tartar; he eats Rochelle salts. When bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar react upon each other in the oven, the resulting substances are carbonic-acid gas, which, in escaping, puffs up the dough, and Rochelle salts, the active ingredient of Seidlitz powders. The best cream of tartar baking powder on the market contains about 28 per cent of bicarbonate of soda. To neutralize this quantity of acid 62.6 per cent of cream of tartar is required. This quantity will leave in the food 70 per cent of anhydrous Rochelle salts. A teaspoonful of baking powder weighing about 200 grains and making 14 ounces of bread, or 12 good-sized biscuits, will leave in the food 188 grains of Rochelle salts. When alum and bicarbonate of soda are mixed in their equivalent proportions, there will not be one particle of alum left in the food prepared. All alums are double sulphates of sodium and aluminum, in which the sodium may be replaced by potassium or ammonia, and the aluminum by iron or chromium. With an alum phosphate baking powder of good quality, containing 28 per cent of bicarbonate of soda neutralized with acid phosphate of calcium and sodium alum, about 20 per cent of alum is used, the rest of the alkali being neutralized with acid phosphate. The residue left in the food will be hydrate of aluminum and sulphate of soda resulting from the decomposition of the alum, and phosphate of calcium and phosphate of sodium from the acid phosphate. An alum phosphate baking powder containing 20 per cent of alum will leave in the food about 6 per cent of its weight of hydrate of aluminum, and about 20 per cent of its weight of sulphate of soda. Mr. Rew says there is a violent prejudice in the public mind against alum phosphate baking powder, kept alive by advertising and resulting in benefit to some baking powder manufacturers. All baking powder manufacturers use starch to dilute their mixtures and get the gas percentage they wish. If they used more alum than the soda would neutralize, they would be adulterating or filling their baking powder with alum, and as starch is a very much cheaper substance, no manufacturer would use more than his soda required. It is possible to have powder manufactured which would leave some alum, but Mr. Rew has never found such baking powder. (87-89.)

Professor AUSTEN says that the gist of many of the articles on the baking powder question is that alum baking powders are injurious because the material in them is alum, the inference being that the alum would have the same effect on the human system whether it was taken as alum or taken in the form of food prepared with alum baking powder. In like manner it is often assumed that cream of tartar baking powders are wholesome because cream of tartar is a product of the grape. The question is not whether alum taken in sufficient quantities is poisonous. Cream of tartar produces physiological effects if it is taken in sufficient quantities. But neither cream of tartar nor hydrate of alumina is poisonous in the amounts ordinarily received in food, and neither of them, so far as Professor Austen can discover, produce cumulative effects.

Furthermore, the question is not as to the effects of alum in the case of one baking powder, or of cream of tartar in another, because neither alum nor cream of tartar exists in food leavened with baking powder. The essential constituents of the cream of tartar baking powder are cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda. Under the influence of moisture and heat a chemical reaction takes place, with production of carbonic acid gas, which, in escaping, produces the leavening effect, and Rochelle salts, which remains as a residuum in the food. If an alum baking powder is used, carbonic acid gas is evolved and escapes in the same way, and the residuum consists of sulphate of soda and hydrate of alumina. The same leavening effect may be produced with bicarbonate of soda and a carefully measured quantity of hydrochloric acid. In that case the residuum is common salt. The question of the harmfulness of alum baking powders is not at all the question of the harmfulness of alum. It is the question of the harmfulness of the residuum of sulphate of soda and hydrate of alumina. (532,533.)

Dr. Austen, who has been employed by several manufacturers of alum baking powders to conduct special experiments as to the effects of food prepared with such baking powders and to examine the literature of the subject, asserts that the public mind has been prejudiced by the publication of a great many articles in newspapers and journals which were not properly reading matter but paid advertisements. Many of the publications which have printed this matter have made contracts which did not allow them to publish any of opposite tenor. (531, 532.)

Professor MITCHELL says the starch used in mixing baking powders is usually cornstarch. (118.)

Professor MALLET states that no baking powder manufacturers, so far as he knows, make the materials of the powder. They only buy the cream of tartar or alum, as the case may be, the bicarbonate of soda, and the starch, and mix them. (554.)

B. Leavening power.-Professor EATON says that other things being equal the value of a baking powder is dependent upon the amount of gas evolved, some evolving only 5 or 6 per cent and others as high as 14 or 15 per cent. (236.)

Professor WEBER, of the Ohio State University, says that on examination of 36 brands of baking powders during the summer of 1887, of which 8 were cream of tartar powders, 2 phosphate powders, and 20 alum powders, the amount of carbonic-acid gas evolved by the alum powders was found to be one-half as great as that evolved by the other kinds. About twice as much alum powder was required to give the same results. (605.)

In experimenting upon 17 brands of alum baking powders, Professor MALLET found the amount of gas liberated on treatment with water to vary from 37 cubic inches to 100 cubic inches per avoirdupois ounce of baking powder.

"The variability observed appears to be partly due to variation in the proportion of starch or other indifferent matter used, partly to the variable character of the commercial bicarbonate of soda employed (containing a larger or smaller proportion of true bicarbonate), partly to greater or less purity of the other active ingredients, partly to greater or less care in the adjustment to each other in proper proportions of the acid ingredients and the soda, partly to want of due care to insure uniform mixture of the ingredients, but mainly to greater or less absorption of moisture from the air in keeping, different degrees of care in drying the materials, and in putting up the powder in packages for sale, and no doubt difference in age of some of the samples." (558,559.)

Professor WITHERS, of the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, says that of 24 samples of baking powder bought in the open market in that State, without any attempt to secure any particular brand or class of powders, 2 were tartrate powders prepared in New York, 2 were phosphate powders prepared in Rhode Island, and the remaining 20 contained alum. One of these was an alum and tartrate powder, and contained practically no available carbonic acid. Six were alum and phosphate powders; one of these contained practically no carbonic acid, another less than 3 per cent, and another less than 4 per cent. Thirteen were straight alum powders. (617.)

C. Economic considerations.-1. Differences in price.-Professor MALLET says that the average price of alum baking powder is from 10 to 15 cents a pound, and the price of cream of tartar powders is from 40 to 50 cents. The fact that cream of tartar powders are largely sold in spite of this great difference of cost proves that the use of alum is popularly believed to be injurious. (555, 556.)

Professor MITCHELL says there is a sale for alum baking powders, especially in supplying boats, hotels, boarding houses, trains, etc., where the steward must make a showing of economy. (108, 109.)

Professor AUSTEN declares that the economic advantage of the use of alum baking powder is exceedingly great. In Georgia a baking powder is sold for 10 cents, of which 1 teaspoonful raises a quart of flour. An amount of high-grade cream of tartar to give the same degree of gas efficiency would cost nearly $2. To forbid the use of alum baking powder would increase the cost of living by many millions of dollars. Professor Austen has figured the difference in Georgia alone at over $3,000,000 a year. (542, 543.)

Dr. MCMURTRIE, consulting chemist of the Royal Baking Powder Company, says that I pound of tartrate baking powder is equivalent in leavening power to 1 pounds of ordinary alum powder. The relative cost would therefore be 45 cents and 15 cents for the same leavening power, on a basis of a price of 10 cents a pound for alum powder. The contrast between $2 and 10 cents suggested by Dr. Austen is misleading. The saving of $3,000,000 to the inhabitants of Georgia alone, which Dr. Austen estimates to be effected by the use of alum rather than tartrate powders, “would be equal to one-third of the amount paid by consumers for all the alum baking powder made and sold annually in the whole country," "even taking the exaggerated figures put forth in the claims of the alum baking-powder manufacture." (600.)

2. Cost of alum.-Dr. MCMURTRIE asserts that the alum used in making baking powder costs no more than 34 cents a pound, and that the materials of the alum baking powder as a whole do not cost 2 cents a pound. (600.)

Mr. ALLEN MURRAY, a drug and spice miller, says that at one time he furnished burnt alum to be used in the manufacture of baking powder. The price was about 24 cents, but finally got down to 3 cents. At first there was a patent on