Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/459

 EGG EGG PLANT 451 uppermost, and next to the source of heat sup- plied by the animal in sitting. As this is de- veloped into the foetus, the albumen first fur- nishes nourishment to it, and when this is con- sumed more is supplied by the yolk. Eggs of the hen are hatched by being kept at a temper- ature of 104 for three weeks. Their vitality has been retained after they have been exposed to a temperature of 10 F. ; and it is a remark- able fact that the freezing point of new-laid eggs is much lower than that of the water and albumen of which they principally consist, both of which congeal at about the same temperature. Eggs that have been once frozen, or have been long kept, freeze at the point their constitu- ents would require. The specific gravity of new-laid eggs is from 1-08 to 1*09; by keep- ing they diminish in weight from evapo- ration of water, and the substitution of air through the pores of the shell. This diminu- tion has been observed to continue for two years ; an egg weighing originally 90T5 grains being reduced, as remarked by Dr. Thomson, to 363*2 grains. When they have lost so much weight as to float upon water, they are gener- ally unsound. The preventing of this evapora- tion by covering their surface with a coating of varnish, wax, gum arable, or lard, checks their putrefaction. The Scotch sometimes drop them into boiling water for two minutes, by which the membrane within the shell is par- tially coagulated and rendered impervious to air. Hens' eggs vary so much in gravity, that it is a wonder they continue to be sold by numbers instead of weight. A dozen of the largest have been found to weigh 24 oz., while the same number of smaller ones of the same stock weighed only 14 oz. The fair average weight is about 22^ oz. to the dozen. The relative weights of the portions of the egg as given by Dr. Thomson are : shell and mem- brane, 106-9; albumen, 604*2; yolk, 288'9. About one third of the entire weight may be regarded as nitrogenous and nutritious matter ; a greater proportion than that of meat, which is rated at only from 25 to 28 per cent., while the nutritive portion of the oyster is only about 1 2 per cent. The white of the egg, from its ten- dency to coagulate into a hard and indigestible substance, is likely to disagree with the stomach of invalids, when the yolk may prove perfect- ly harmless. Raw eggs are more wholesome than boiled, or even than those lightly poached, which are very digestible. Eggs become more difficult of digestion by being kept. In medi- cine the shell is used as an antacid, its animal composition seeming to adapt it better for the stomach than chalk, the mineral form of car- bonate of lime. The white is employed for clarifying liquors and sirups, which it accom- plishes by entangling the small particles float- ing in them as it coagulates, and either rising with them to the surface, or sinking to the bottom. An astringent poultice is formed by causing it to coagulate with a piece of alum briskly stirred with it. This, under the name of alum curd, is used as an application to the eye in some forms of ophthalmia. The white is also used as an antidote to corrosive subli- mate and salts of copper. The yolk is some- times given in jaundice, and forms an excellent diet in dyspepsia ; it is preferable to the white in making emulsions. The largest eggs of which we have any account are some found in 1850 in alluvium in Madagascar. They belong to a bird which it is supposed has recently be- come extinct, to which M. Saint-Hilaire has given the name of epiornis maximus. Two of the eggs are preserved in the French acade- my, and casts are to be seen in the principal museums of the world. One of them measures 13 in. on its longest diameter, and 8 in. on the shortest. The shell is about one eighth of an inch thick. The capacity of the egg is about 8 quarts, six times that of the ostrich's egg, and equal to 144 hens' eggs, or 50,000 eggs of the humming bird. From some of the bones of the bird which have been preserved, its height is calculated to have been about 12 ft. EGG, Augustus Leopold, an English painter, born in London, May 2, 1816, died in Algiers, March 26, 1863. He became a contributor to the academy exhibition in 1838, and was elect- ed associate of that institution in 1848, and a member in 1860. He produced a great num- ber of pictures illustrative of humorous scenes from Shakspeare, Le Sage, and Scott. EGG PLANT, or Vegetable Egg, the popular name of a species of the solanacece (solanum melongena, Willd.), a native of North Africa. The plant grows to the height of about two feet, with a prickly stem, and with large ovate, downy, prickly leaves ; flowers of a violet Egg Plant (Solanum melongena). color, of some beauty ; fruit, a globose berry, crowding itself out from the downy calyx, which remains until the fruit ripens, and the deep purple color it assumes indicates its per- fection. Its size depends considerably upon richness of soil and warmth of climate ; in