FLOUR

the edible part of wheat, or any other grain, reduced to powder, and separated from the bran and the other coarser parts by some proce of sifting. The use of hand-mills for grinding the grain dates back to the earliest times, and was still common in some parts of this country even in the nineteenth century (see QUERN), though grinding by means of large mill-stones driven by water-power or otherwise had long been in use. The modern flour-mill is a very claborate structure. Chilled-iron or steel rollers have taken the place of the old mill-stones, and ail the proce es connected with the cleaning, grinding, separating, sifting, ., are aceomplished automatically, so that the grain is not touched by hand from the time it enters the receiving-bin till it finally emerges as the finished flour. Briefly, the proce is as follows: The wheat is received into a bin, and then pa es into a ‘separator,’ where by means of vibrating screens and a current of air the light rubbish is separated and carried away. The grain is further cleaned and polished by means of brushes and a revoiving cylinder, after which it is ready for the proce of separating the ‘berry’ from the husk or bran. This is effected by pa ing the wheat through grooved rollers, the grooves being cut at an angle, which strip off the bran but only lightly crush the flour. This unfinished product is known as ‘semolina’ or ‘middlings.’ The same operation is repeated several times until all the bran is stripped and sifted away, and the ‘ middlings’ are then subjected to several proce es of alternate crushing and sifting, until the flour is finally brought to a pure and finished state. The bran has meanwhile been collected, its chief use being for feeding cattle. The best kind of flour is not that which emerges as the result of the first grinding,’but that ground from the purified semolina, known as ‘patent’ flour. Hence the object of the modern ‘high-grinding’ system is to make as little fiour and as much semolina as po ible from the first grinding proce , whereas under the old ‘low grinding’ system the aim was to produce as much flour as po ible from one grinding. In consequence of this the hard grain nowadays makes the best flour, whereas formerly it was the soft grain that was in chief demand; and this is one of the reasons why we import such vast quantities of wheat from America, British wheat being comparatively soft. Different kinds of flour are made according to the different purposes to which they are to be put, and are produced not only by varying the degree of grinding to which the grain is subjected, but also by using different kinds of wheat, that of each country having its own peculiar characteristics. Various kinds of wheat are often blended by the miller to serve different purposes (see BREAD). There ave big flour-inills at London, Liverpool, Bristol, Leeds, Hull, Glasgow, Hdinburgh, Leith, ., chiefly grinding imported wheat. As Great Britain has now the wheat supplies of the world to draw upon, 486 FLOURENS the imports of foreign wheat are very great, and British millers have no lack of raw material, but a great amount of wheat-meal and fiour is also imported annually. Thus in 1932 we imported grain and flour to the total value of £58,046,000. The chief countries supplying the flour are the United States, Canada, Australia and the Argentine. A certain amount comes from India. In 1932 the exports of grain and flour from the United Kingdom amounted to the value of £3,316,000, sent chiefiy to Norway, the Canaries and the Channel Islands. FLOURENS (fid-rin), Gustave, French Socialist, born at Paris 1838, died 1871. In 1863 he was deputy profe or in the Collége de France, and published his lectures, under the title of His to ire de V Homme and Science de VHomme. Aiter being engaged in democratic movements in Turkey and Italy, he joined the Paris Commune in 1871, and was killed.