He has demonstrated that ordinary air is no better than a sort of stirabout of excessively minute solid particles; that these particles are almost wholly destructible by heat; and that they are strained off, and the air rendered optically pure, by its being passed through cotton-wool.

In Enniskillen two boys under twelve years of age were convicted of stealing one pint of Indian-meal cooked into "stirabout," and Chief Justice Blackburn vindicated the outraged law by transporting them for seven years.

Success, that strange stirabout of Providence, accident, and courage, were ours.

Milk and stirabout and potatoes once grew rosy-cheeked children.

This, in Ireland, is termed "stirabout;" in Italy it is called "polenta;" and in British Honduras it is known as "corn lob.