EUROPEAN CHEESES.—The most remark able of these are the following : Parmesan is chiefly made at Parma and other places in Lombardy, of the curd of skimmed milk hardened by heat. Its flavor is said to be owing to the rich pastures of. that part of Italy, where all plants, from the greater quantity of bright sunshine than in Britain, have doubtless their aromatic properties greatly increased. Swiss cheese is of various kinds ; but the chief sorts are the Gruyere or Jura cheese, and Schabzieger or green cheese : the last is flavored with the seeds and leaves of the inelilot ofkinalis). German cheeses are of different kinds ; but none are celebrated, unless we except that of Westphalia, which is made up into round balls or short cylinders, under a pound weight each. The peculiar flavor which this cheese acquires, arises from the curd being allowed to become putrid before it is compressed. In Holland very good cheese is made, particularly the Edam and Gouda cheeses : the former is very salt, and keeps well at sea. In many parts of the Continent, and even in the interior of Poland and Russia, there are imitations of English cheese made ; but what may be called the indigenous cheese of the Russian empire is nothing more than salted curd put into a bag and powerfully pressed, and taken to market as soon as it is made, in the same manner as butter is. In someplaces, insterail of a press, the whey is forced out of the curd by putting it into a long cloth midway be tween the two ends, while a person at each end twists the cloth in an opposite direction, and thus wrings out the whey. In some miserable Russian villages the curd is exposed for sale in small lumps, retaining the marks of the fingers, which shows that no other pressure has been employed than what can be given with the hand. In France the Roquefort cheese is the most esteemed, and next that of Neufclaatel. The former some what resembles Stilton, but is much in ferior, and the letter is a cream cheese, seldom exceeding a quarter of a pound in weight.
The cheese manufacture is a large and important one in the Northern and West ern States, and the exportation is great and increasing. New York is the chief station for export, and the quantity which reaches that city may be estimated from the following abstract from the Patent Office Report for 1847.
The Albany Journal gives the following statement of the amount of Cheese re ceived at Albany and Troy during the past twelve years : 1836, pounds, 14,060,000 1837, " 15,500,000 1838, " 13,810,000 1839, " 14,530,000 1840, " 18,820,000 1841, " 14,170,000 1842, " 19,004,000 1843, " 24,331,000 1844, " 26,677,500 1845, " 27,542,861 1846, " 35,560,180 1847, " 40,314,000 This last having a value of $2,860,354.
The importation of cheese into Great Britain is larger than that of butter. The total quantity in 1346 from Europe amounted to 249,664 cwt., and from the
United States to 91,901 cwt. The Ameri can cheese, however, is said to have some faults which need to be corrected to ren der it acceptable to the English market. These are stated by Mr. Coleman to be, first, the softness of the rind, which ren ders them liable to crack, and which is imputed to their richness, and the remedy for which is to let the cheese, when taken from the press, remain in brine so strong that it will take up no more salt, for four or five hours. It must not, however, be kept too long in the brine, as it may re ceive injury. The second fault complain ed of is the acid and sharp taste. This is imputed to some improper preparation of the rennet, and possibly to something wrong in the feed or pastures. Cheese of good quality is manufactured in Saxony from potatoes. These are boiled, peeled and pulpified with rasps. I lb. of sour milk is added to 5: lbs. of this pulp, mixed well and set aside for four days. It is then kneaded, the moisture drained off, and they are potted. They improve by age. CHEMITYPE. A newly invented style of printing, the object of which is to su persede, to a great extent, wood-cutting. By this method, an etching or engraving made in metal in the usual way, may be converted into a high relieve stamp, to be used for printing on an ordinary press, as is the case with common wood engravings. The following statement may in general illustrate the character of the invention: On a highly polished plate of pure zinc an etching or engraving is made in the usual manner, which, under common cir cumstances, would be fitted for impres sions on an engraver's press, having the same harmony and proportion of all the respective etched or engraved lines. The tracery thus deepened me now to be fused or incited down with a negative metal, and the original metal plate (zinc) cor roded, or etched by means of a certain acid, thus snaking the characters of the former drawing appear in the shape of a high relieve stamp. This effect is only produced in consequence of the metal composition in the lines of the tracery not being acted upon by the acid on ac count of the galvanic agency subsisting between the two metals, and the acid corroding only the zinc.
As every drawing on the metal plate is completely exact on the relieve stamp, the practice is absolutely independent ; the exact and accurate representation of the original sketch is always to be expect ed. Wood-engraving cannot, in most cases, be superseded by this novel me thod; but in many other instances the new practice is preferable, chiefly when colored printing is required, in the repre sentation of maps, plans, architectural drawings, &c., &e. At the same time, the correction or improvement of any drawing can be much better executed than in wood-engraving.