BAKHMUT, a town of Russia in the government of Ekaterinoslav, near the river from which it derives its name. It owed its origin in the latter half of the 17th century to the discovery of salt-springs, which ceased, however, to be utilised in 1782. Its present importance is chiefly due to the extensive coal-deposits in the vicinity. Population, 16,791.
BAKING. The art of baking consists in heating any thing in an oven or fire so as to harden it, and in this sense the term is used when applied to the manufacture of bread, porcelain, pottery, and bricks. It is also applied to certain modes of dressing or cooking animal food ; thus we speak of baked meats, pies, &c. In the present article the baking of flour or meal for use as human food will alone be treated of.
The origin of baking, as of most arts of primary importance, precedes the period of history, and is involved in the obscurity of the early ages of the human race. Excavations conducted on the site of some of the numerous lake dwellings of Switzerland have resulted in the discovery of abundant evidence that the art of making bread was practised by our prehistoric ancestors as early as the Stone Period. Not only have stones for grinding meal and bak ing bread been discovered, but bread itself in large quan tities has been disinterred, preserved by being carbonised in the fires which frequently destroyed the pile-dwellings of the primitive inhabitants of the world. At Roben- hausen, Meisskomer discovered 8 fi> of bread, a weight which would correspond with about 40 Ib of newly-baked bread. At Wangen there has been discovered "actual baked bread or cake made of the crushed corn, precisely similar to that found about the same time by Mr Meiss komer at Robenhausen. Of course, it has been burned or charred, and thus these interesting specimens have been preserved to the present day. The form of these cakes is somewhat round, and about an inch to an inch and a half in diameter. The dough did not consist of meal, but of grains of corn more or less crushed. In some specimens the halves of grains of barley are plainly discernible. The under side of these cakes is sometimes flat, sometimes con cave, and there appears no doubt that the mass of dough was baked by being laid on hot stones and covered over with gluwing ashes." (Keller s Lake Dwellings, Lee s Translation, p. 63.)
The very early mention of bread in written history further bears out the great antiquity of the art of baking. Bread is first specifically mentioned in Genesis xviii. 5, when Abraham, wishing to entertain the three angels on the plains of Mature, offered to " fetch a morsel of bread ; " and the operation of baking is immediately thereafter alluded to in the instructions to Sarah to " make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth." At the same time, when, in the city of Sodom, Lot entertained two angels, " he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat " (Genesis six. 3). It may be inferred from the mention of unleavened bread that, in those patriarchal times, the two great classes of bread were known and used. At a period little later the art of baking was carried to high perfection in Egypt, which then took the lead in the arts of civilised life. The Egyptians baked cakes and loaves of many varieties and shapes, in which they employed several kinds of flour, and they flavoured their bread with various aromatic in gredients. The chief baker of Pharaoh, who was in prison along with Joseph, doubtless pursued his craft in its essen tial features in the same way as bakers do at the present day.
From ancient Egypt excellence in the art of baking tra velled with the march of civilisation into Greece, and the allusions to bread in the works of classic authors are very numerous. In The Deipnosophists of Athenseus mention is made of no less than sixty-two varieties of bread as known among the ancient Greeks, and minute descriptions of many of them are given. We learn from Pliny (Nat. Hist., xviii. 28) that professional bakers were first introduced into Rome at the close of the war with Perseus, king of Macedon. By the practical Romans the baking trade was formed into a kind of incorporation or guild, with special privileges and immunities attached to the calling. Public bakeries were distributed throughout the city, to which slaves were assigned for performing the heavier and more disagreeable tasks connected with the occupation. Grain was delivered into public granaries by enrolled Saccarii, and it was dis tributed to the bakers by a corporation called the Catabo- lenses. No separate mills for grinding corn then existed, the grain being pounded and sifted in the bakeries, and hence the Roman bakers were known as Pistores. A special magistrate was appointed to take cognisance of every matter connected with the management of public bakeries.
The calling of the baker during the Middle Ages was considered to be one so closely affecting the interests of the public that it was put under strict regulation and super vision, and these special restrictions continued to affect the trade down to very recent times. In England, an Act of Parliament was passed in 1266 for regulating the price of bread by a public assize, and that system continued in operation till 1822 in the case of the city of London, and till 1836 for the rest of the country. The price of bread was determined by adding a certain sum to the price of every quarter of flour, in name of the baker s expenses and profit; and for the sum so arrived at tradesmen were required to bake and sell eighty quartern loaves, or a like proportion of other sizes, which it was reckoned each quarter of flour ought to yield. The following table ex- hibite the assize price of bread in London in 1814:—
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Price of Flour in Shillings. Price of Quartern Loaf. Price of 8-tt) Loaf. Price of 4-tb Loaf. Price of 2-lr, Loaf. Price of 1-tt) Loaf. . d. I. d. i. d. . </. f. d. 30 6i 1 3 o 14 35 71 1 U Gf 31 If 40 8 1 22 o 74 3f If 45 8| 1 4 8 4 2 50 <4 1 54 8J 44 21 60 11 1 i 10$ 5 o 24 70- 1 0| 1 11 Olli 5| 3 80 1 2 2 1| 1 1 6A 31 90 1 l 1 y 2 44 1 21 7| o 34 100 1 5 2 71 1 31 72 4
slowly ; and even at present, in the northern countries of Europe and Asia, loaves of bread are seldom used except by the higher classes of inhabitants. In Sweden, for example, rolls are frequently seen in the towns, but loaves rarely. Towards the end of 1812 the captain of an English packet ordered a Gothenburg baker to bake for him a quantity of bread, to the value of 1 sterling. The baker was confounded at so large an order, and refused to comply till the captain gave him security that he would carry off and pay for the loaves, declaring that he could never dispose of so great a quantity of bread in Gothenburg if it were left upon his hands. In the country part of Sweden no bread is made but rye-cakes, nearly as hard as flint, which are only baked twice a year. About a century ago loaf-bread was almost as rare in the rural districts of Scotland, barley bannocks and oaten cakes then constituting the universal substitutes among almost all ranks. In many parts of England it is the custom for private families to
bake their own bread. This is particularly the case in