BUTTER is not often mentioned in Scripture, and even less frequently than our version would sug for, as already intimated, the word rnvzrl, chemah, must sometimes be understood of curdled milk. Indeed, it may be doubted whether it de. notes butter in any place besides Dem. x.xxii. butter of kine,' and Prov. xxx. 33, the churning of milk bringeth forth butter,' as all the other texts will apply better to curdled milk than to butter. Butter was, however, doubtless much in use among the Hebrews, and we may be sure that it was prepared in the same manner as at this day among the Arabs and Syrians. The milk is put into a large copper pan over a slow fire, and a little leben or sour milk (the same as the curdled milk mentioned above), or a portion of the dried entrails of a lamb, is thrown into it. The milk then separates, and is put into a goatskin bag, which is tied to one of the tent poles, and con stantly moved backwards and forwards for two hours. The buttery substance then coagulates, the water is pressed out, and the butter put into another skin. In two days the butter is again placed over the fire, with the addition of a quantity of bzergoul (wheat boiled with leaven, and dried in the sun), and allowed to boil for some time, during which it is carefully skimmed. It is then found that the burgoul has precipitated all the foreign substances, and that the butter remains quite clear at the top. This is the process used by the Be douins, and it is also the one employed by the settled people of Syria and Arabia. The chief difference is, that in making butter and cheese the employ the milk of cows and buffaloes, whereas the Bedouins, who do not keep these animals, use that of sheep and goats. The butter is generally white, of the colour and consistence of lard, and is not much relished by English travellers It is eaten with bread in large quantities by those who can afford it, not spread out thinly over the surface, as with us, but taken in mass with the separate morsels of bread.
Cheese has been noticed under its proper head —J. K.
MILL [The Heb. has no word properly for mill. The term D'in, the dual of the not-used rn, means two mill-stones, and is used of a hand mill (Is. xlvii. 2)] (Sept. /./At)). The mill for grinding corn had not wholly superseded the mortal for pounding it in the time of Moses. [MORTAR.] The mortar and the mill are named together in Num. xi. 8. But fine meal, that is, meal ground or pounded fine, is mentioned so early as the time of Abraham (Gen. xviii. 6) : hence mills and mortars must have been previously known. The mill common among the Hebrews differed little from that which is in use to this day throughout Western Asia and Northern Africa. It consisted
of two circular stones two feet in diameter, and half a foot thick. The lower is called the 'nether millstone,' rrnrin 119D (Job xli. t6 [24]), and the upper the rider,' 171 (Judg. ix. 53 ; 2 Sam. xi. 21). The former was usually fixed to the floor, and had a slight elevation in the centre, or in other words, was slightly convex in the upper surface.
The upper stone had a concavity in its under sur face fitting to, or receiving, the convexity of the lower stone. There was a hole in the top, through which the corn was introduced by handfuls at a time. The upper stone had an upright stick fixed in it as a handle, by which it was made to turn upon the lower stone, and by this action the corn was ground, and came out at the edges. As there were neither public mills nor bakers, except. the king's (Gen. xl. 2 ; Hos. vii. 4-8), each family possessed a mill ; and as it was in daily use, it was tnade an infringement of the law for a person to take another's mill or mill-stone in pledge (Dent. xxiv. 6). On the second day, in warm climates, bread becomes dry and insipid ; hence the neces sity of baking every day, and hence also the daily grinding at the mills early in the morning. The operation occasions considerable noise, and its simultaneous performance in a great number of houses or tents forms one of the sounds as indica tive of an active population in the East, as the sound of wheel carriages is in the cities of the West. This sound is alluded to in Scripture (Jer. xxv. 10 ; Rev. xviii. 22, 23). The mill was, as now, com monly turned by two persons, usually women, and these, the work being laborious, the lowest maid servants in the house [Thomson, The Land and the Book, c. 341. They sat opposite each other. One took hold of the mill-handle, and impelled it half way round ; the other then seized it, and corn, pleted the revolution (Exod. xi. 5 ; Job xxxi. to, Is. xlvii. 2 ; Matt. xxiv. 41). As the labour was severe and menial, enemies taken in war were often condemned to perform it (Judg. xvi. 21 ; Lam. v. 13). (Jahn, Biblisches Archool. ix. 139). It will be seen that this mill-stone does not materi ally differ from the Highland quern, and is, indeed, an obvious resource in those remote quarters where a population is too thin or too scattered to afford remunerative employment to a miller by trade. In the East this trade is still unknown, the hand mill being in general and exclusive use among the corn-consuming, and the mortar among the rice consuming, nations. [BREAD.]—J. K.