The Kalmucks make their butter in the following manner:  A sufficient quantity of cows’ or sheep’s milk is put into a kettle, and boiled for some time, after which there is added a little sour milk cream (areyn).  It is then withdrawn, and allowed to stand until it sours, which does not require a whole day.  This milk is then beaten with a kind of butterstick, and poured into an earthen pot or other vessel, when the decomposed butter comes to the surface, and is placed in vessels, skins, or dried stomachs, in which it is kept.  If the milk still seems to contain fat, it is again treated in the same manner.  This milk is called toussoun by the Kalmucks, and oeroemae by the Tartars.—­Jameson’s Journal.

    [5] Russel’s Aleppo, p. 54.

* * * * *

SOMERSET.

In Congresbury parish, and the contiguous one of Puxton, were two large pieces of common land, called East and West Dale Moors, (from the Saxon Dob, share or portion) which were occupied till within these few years in the following remarkable manner:—­The land was divided into single acres, each bearing a peculiar mark cut in the turf, such as a horn, an ox, a horse, a cross, an oven, &c.  On the Saturday before Old Midsummer Day, the several proprietors of contiguous estates or their tenants, assembled on these commons, with a number of apples marked with similar figures, which were distributed by a boy to each of the commoners from a bag; at the close of the distribution, each person repaired to allotment with the figure corresponding with the one upon his apple, and took possession of that piece of land for the ensuing year.  Four acres were reserved to pay the expenses of an entertainment at the house of the Overseer of the Dale Moors, when the evening was spent in festivity.

Rutter’s Division of Somerset.

* * * * *

THE GATHERER.

  A snapper up of unconsidered trifles. 
  SHAKESPEARE.

* * * * *

SLEEPING IN CHURCH.

From a Sermon by Swift.

(It may be somewhat derogatory to the genius of so great a writer as SWIFT, to allow this extract to occupy its present place in our arrangement—­usually allotted to minor pieces.  Our “Notes” are, for the most part, from new books, and a similar object is explained in our “Selector.”  We could hardly place “Sleeping in Church” under “Manners and Customs,” and sleep altogether is rather prospective, (in dreaming,) than “Retrospective.”—­Yet reader, here it is—­a still subject—­but fresh, vigorous, and written for all time.)

There is one moral disadvantage to which all preaching is subject; that those who, by the wickedness of their lives, stand in greatest need, have usually the smallest share; for either they are absent upon the account of idleness, or spleen, or hatred to religion, or in order to doze away the intemperance of the week; or, if they do come, they are sure to employ their minds rather any other way, than regarding or attending to the business of the place.