ALEMBIC, a Still; which see.

ALEMBROTH, salt of. The salt of wisdom, of the alchemists; a compound of bichloride of mercury and sal ammoniac, from which the old white precipitate of mercury is made.

ALGAROTH, powder of. A compound of oxide and chloride of antimony, being a precipitate obtained by pouring water into the acidulous chloride of that metal.

ALIZARINE. See Madder.

ALKALI. A class of chemical bodies, distinguished chiefly by their solubility in water, and their power of neutralising acids, so as to form saline compounds. The alkalis of manufacturing importance are, ammonia, potash, soda, and quinia. These alkalis change the purple colour of red cabbage and radishes to a green, the reddened tincture of litmus to a purple, and the colour of turmeric and many other yellow dyes to a brown. Even when combined with carbonic acid, the first three alkalis exercise this discolouring power, which the alkaline earths, lime and barytes, do not. The same three alkalis have an acrid, and somewhat urinous taste; the first two are energetic solvents of animal matter; and the three combine with oils, so as to form soaps. They unite with water in every proportion, and also with alcohol; and the first three combine with water after being carbonated.

ALKALIMETER. An instrument for measuring the alkaline force or purity of any of the alkalis of commerce. It is founded on the principle, that the quantity of real alkali present in any sample, is proportional to the quantity of acid which a given weight of it can neutralize. See the individual alkalis, Potash, and Soda.

ALKANA, is the name of the root and leaves of Lausania inermis, which have been long employed in the East, to dye the nails, teeth, hair, garments, &c. The leaves, ground and mixed with a little limewater, serve for dyeing the tails of horses in Persia and Turkey.

ALKANET, the root of. (Anchusa tinctoria.) A species of bugloss, cultivated chiefly in the neighbourhood of Montpellier. It affords a fine red colour to alcohol and oils; but a dirty red to water. Its principal use is for colouring ointments, cheeses, and pommades. The spirituous tincture gives to white marble a beautiful deep stain.

ALLIGATION. An arithmetical formula, useful, on many occasions, for ascertaining the proportion of constituents in a mixture, when they have undergone no change of volume by chemical action. When alcoholic liquors are mixed with water, there is a condensation of bulk, which renders that arithmetical rule inapplicable. The same thing holds, in some measure, in the union of metals by fusion. See Alloy.

ALLOY. (Alliage, Fr.; Legirung, Germ.) This term formerly signified a compound of gold and silver, with some metal of inferior value, but it now means any compound of any two or more metals whatever. Thus, bronze is an alloy of copper and tin; brass, an alloy of copper and zinc; and type metal, an alloy of lead and antimony. All the alloys possess metallic lustre, even when cut or broken to pieces; they are opaque; are excellent conductors of heat and electricity; are frequently susceptible of crystallising; are more or less ductile, malleable, elastic, and sonorous. An alloy which consists of metals differently fusible is usually malleable in the cold, and brittle when hot, as is exemplified with brass and gong metal.

Many alloys consist of definite or equivalent proportions of the simple component metals, though some alloys seem to form in any proportion, like combinations of salt or sugar with water. It is probable that peculiar properties belong to the equivalent or atomic ratio, as is exemplified in the superior quality of brass made in that proportion.

One metal does not alloy indifferently with every other metal, but it is governed in this respect by peculiar affinities; thus, silver will hardly unite with iron, but it combines readily with gold, copper, and lead. In comparing the alloys with their constituent metals, the following differences may be noted; in general, the ductility of the alloy is less than that of the separate metals, and sometimes in a very remarkable degree; on the contrary, the alloy is usually harder than the mean hardness of its constituents. The mercurial alloys or amalgams are, perhaps, exceptions to this rule.

The specific gravity is rarely the mean between that of each of its constituents, but is sometimes greater and sometimes less, indicating, in the former case, an approximation, and in the latter, a recedure, of the particles from each other in the act of their union. The following tables of binary alloys exhibit this circumstance in experimental detail:—

It would be hardly possible to infer the melting point of an alloy from that of each of its constituent metals; but, in general, the fusibility is increased by mutual affinity in their state of combination. Of this, a remarkable instance is afforded in the fusible metal consisting of 8 parts of bismuth, 5 of lead, and 3 of tin, which melts at the heat of boiling water or 212° Fahr., though the melting point deduced from the mean of its components should be 514°. This alloy may be rendered still more fusible by adding a very little mercury to it, when it forms an excellent material for certain anatomical injections, and for filling the hollows of carious teeth. Nor do the colours of alloys depend, in any considerable degree, upon those of the separate metals; thus, the colour of copper, instead of being rendered paler by a large addition of zinc, is thereby converted into the rich-looking pinchbeck metal.

By means of alloys, we multiply, as it were, the numbers of useful metals, and sometimes give usefulness to such as are separately of little value. Since these compounds can be formed only by fusion, and since many metals are apt to oxidise readily at their melting temperature, proper precautions must be taken in making alloys to prevent this occurrence, which is incompatible with their formation. Thus, in combining tin and lead, rosin or grease is usually put on the surface of the melting metals, the carbon produced by the decomposition of which protects them, in most cases, sufficiently from oxidisement. When we wish to combine tin with iron, as in the tinning of cast-iron tea kettles, we rub sal ammoniac upon the surfaces of the hot metals in contact with each other, and thus exclude the atmospheric oxygen by means of its fumes. When there is a notable difference in the specific gravities of the metals which we wish to combine, we often find great difficulties in obtaining homogeneous alloys; for each metal may tend to assume the level due to its density, as is remarkably exemplified in alloys of gold and silver made without adequate stirring of the melting metals. If the mass be large, and slow of cooling after it is cast in an upright cylindrical form, the metals sometimes separate, to a certain degree, in the order of their densities. Thus, in casting large bells and cannons with copper alloys, the bottom of the casting is apt to contain too much copper and the top too much tin, unless very dexterous manipulation in mixing the fused materials have been employed immediately before the instant of pouring out the melted mass. When such inequalities are observed, the objects are broken and re-melted, after which they form a much more homogeneous alloy. This artifice of a double melting is often had recourse to, and especially in casting the alloys for the specula of telescopes.

When we wish to alloy three or more metals, we often experience difficulties, either because one of the metals is more oxidable, or denser, or more fusible, than the others, or because there is no direct affinity between two of the metals. In the latter predicament, we shall succeed better by combining the three metals, first in pairs, for example, and then melting the two pairs together. Thus, it is difficult to unite iron with bronze directly; but if, instead of iron, we use tin plate, we shall immediately succeed, and the bronze, in this manner, acquires valuable qualities from the iron. Thus, also, to render brass better adapted for certain purposes, a small quantity of lead ought to be added to it, but this cannot be done directly with advantage: it is better to melt the lead first along with the zinc, and then to add this alloy to the melting copper, or the copper to that alloy, and fuse them together.

We have said that the difference of fusibility was often an obstacle to metallic combination; but this circumstance may also be turned to advantage in decomposing certain alloys by the process called eliquation. By this means silver may be separated from copper, if a considerable quantity of lead be first alloyed with the said copper; this alloy is next exposed to a heat just sufficient to melt the lead, which then sweats out, so to speak, from the pores of the copper, and carries along with it the greater part of the silver, for which it has a strong affinity. The lead and the silver are afterwards separated from each other, in virtue of their very different oxidability, by the action of heat and air.

One of the alloys most useful to the arts is brass; it is more ductile and less easily oxidised than even its copper constituent, notwithstanding the opposite nature of the zinc. This alloy may exist in many different proportions, under which it has different names, as tombac, similor, pinchbeck, &c. Copper and tin form, also, a compound of remarkable utility, known under the names of hard brass, for the bushes, steps, and bearings of the axles, arbours, and spindles in machinery; and of bronze, bell-metal, &c. Gold and silver, in their pure state, are too soft and flexible to form either vessels or coins of sufficient strength and durability; but when alloyed with a little copper, they acquire the requisite hardness and stiffness for these and other purposes.

When we have occasion to unite several pieces of the same or of different metals, we employ the process called soldering, which consists in fixing together the surfaces by means of an interposed alloy, which must be necessarily more fusible than the metal or metals to be joined. That alloy must also consist of metals which possess a strong affinity for the substances to be soldered together. Hence each metal would seem to require a particular kind of solder, which is, to a certain extent, true. Thus, the solder for gold trinkets and plate is an alloy of gold and silver, or gold and copper; that of silver trinkets, is an alloy of silver and copper; that of copper is either fine tin, for pieces that must not be exposed to the fire, or a brassy alloy called hard solder, of which the zinc forms a considerable proportion. The solder of lead and tinplate is an alloy of lead and tin, and that of tin is the same alloy with a little bismuth. Tinning, gilding, and silvering may also be reckoned a species of alloys, since the tin, gold, and silver are superficially united in these cases to other metals.

Metallic alloys possess usually more tenacity than could be inferred from their constituents; thus, an alloy of twelve parts of lead with one of zinc has a tenacity double that of zinc. Metallic alloys are much more easily oxidised than the separate metals, a phenomenon which may be ascribed to the increase of affinity for oxygen which results from the tendency of the one of the oxides to combine with the other. An alloy of tin and lead heated to redness takes fire, and continues to burn for some time like a piece of bad turf.

Every alloy is, in reference to the arts and manufactures, a new metal, on account of its chemical and physical properties. A vast field here remains to be explored. Not above sixty alloys have been studied by the chemists out of many hundred which may be made; and of these very few have yet been practically employed. Very slight modifications often constitute very valuable improvements upon metallic bodies. Thus, the brass most esteemed by turners at the lathe contains from two to three per cent. of lead; but such brass does not work well under the hammer; and, reciprocally, the brass which is best under the hammer is too tough for turning.

That metallic alloys tend to be formed in definite proportions of their constituents is clear from the circumstance that the native gold of the auriferous sands is an alloy with silver, in the ratios of 1 atom of silver united to 4, 5, 6, 12 atoms of gold, but never with a fractional part of an atom. Also, in making an amalgam of 1 part of silver with 12 or 15 of mercury, and afterwards squeezing the mixture through chamois leather, the amalgam separates into 2 parts: one, containing a small proportion of silver and much mercury, passes through the skin; and the other, formed of 1 of silver and 8 of mercury, is a compound in definite proportions, which crystallises readily, and remains in the knot of the bag. An analogous separation takes place in the tinning of mirrors; for on loading them with the weights, a liquid amalgam of tin is squeezed out, while another amalgam remains in a solid form composed of tin and mercury in uniform atomic proportions. But, as alloys are generally soluble, so to speak, in each other, this definiteness of combination is masked and disappears in most cases.

M. Chaudet has made some experiments on the means of detecting the metals of alloys by the cupelling furnace, and they promise useful applications. The testing depends upon the appearances exhibited by the metals and their alloys when heated on a cupel. Pure tin, when heated this way, fuses, becomes of a greyish black colour, fumes a little, exhibits incandescent points on its surface, and leaves an oxide, which, when withdrawn from the fire, is at first lemon-yellow, but when cold, white. Antimony melts, preserves its brilliancy, fumes, and leaves the vessel coloured lemon-yellow when hot, but colourless when cold, except a few spots of a rose tint. Zinc burns brilliantly, forming a cone of oxide; and the oxide, much increased in volume, is, when hot, greenish, but when cold, perfectly white. Bismuth fumes, becomes covered with a coat of melted oxide, part of which sublimes, and the rest enters the pores of the cupel; when cold, the cupel is of a fine yellow colour, with spots of a greenish hue. Lead resembles bismuth very much; the cold cupel is of a lemon-yellow colour. Copper melts, and becomes covered with a coat of black oxide; sometimes spots of a rose tint remain on the cupel.

Alloys.—Tin 75, antimony 25, melt, become covered with a coat of black oxide, have very few incandescent points; when cold, the oxide is nearly black, in consequence of the action of the antimony: a ¹/₄₀₀ part of antimony may be ascertained in this way in the alloy. An alloy of antimony, containing tin, leaves oxide of tin in the cupel: a ¹/₁₀₀ part of tin may be detected in this way. An alloy of tin and zinc gives an oxide which, whilst hot, is of a green tint, and resembles philosophic wool in appearance. An alloy containing 99 tin, 1 zinc, did not present the incandescent points of pure tin, and gave an oxide of greenish tint when cold. Tin 95, bismuth 5 parts, gave an oxide of a grey colour. Tin and lead give an oxide of a rusty brown colour. An alloy of lead and tin, containing only 1 per cent. of the latter metal, when heated, does not expose a clean surface, like lead, but is covered at times with oxide of tin. Tin 75, and copper 25, did not melt, gave a black oxide: if the heat be much elevated, the under part of the oxide is white, and is oxide of tin; the upper is black, and comes from the copper. The cupel becomes of a rose colour. If the tin be impure from iron, the oxide produced by it is marked with spots of a rust colour.

The degree of affinity between metals may be in some measure estimated by the greater or less facility with which, when of different degrees of fusibility or volatility, they unite, or with which they can, after union, be separated by heat. The greater or less tendency to separate into differently proportioned alloys, by long-continued fusion, may also give some information upon this subject. Mr. Hatchett remarked, in his elaborate researches on metallic alloys, that gold made standard with the usual precautions, by silver, copper, lead, antimony, &c., and then cast, after long fusion, into vertical bars, was by no means an uniform compound; but that the top of the bar, corresponding to the metal at the bottom of the crucible, contained the larger proportion of gold. Hence, for a more thorough combination, two red-hot crucibles should be employed, and the liquefied metals should be alternately poured from the one into the other. To prevent unnecessary oxidisement from the air, the crucibles should contain, besides the metal, a mixture of common salt and pounded charcoal. The metallic alloy should also be occasionally stirred up with a rod of pottery ware.

The most direct evidence of a chemical change having been effected in alloys is, when the compound melts at a lower temperature than the mean of its ingredients. Iron, which is nearly infusible, acquires almost the fusibility of gold when alloyed with this precious metal. The analogy is here strong with the increase of solubility which salts acquire by mixture, as is exemplified in the difficulty of crystallising residuums of saline solutions, or mother waters, as they are called.

In common cases the specific gravity affords a good criterion whereby to judge of the proportion of two metals in an alloy. But a very fallacious rule has been given in some respectable works for computing the specific gravity that should result from the alloying of given quantities of two metals of known densities, supposing no chemical condensation or expansion of volume to take place. Thus, it has been taught, that if gold and copper be united in equal weights, the computed specific gravity is merely the arithmetical mean between the numbers denoting the two specific gravities. Whereas, the specific gravity of any alloy must be computed by dividing the sum of the two weights by the sum of the two volumes, compared, for conveniency sake, to water reckoned unity. Or, in another form, the rule may be stated thus:—Multiply the sum of the weights into the products of the two specific-gravity numbers for a numerator; and multiply each specific gravity-number into the weight of the other body, and add the two products together for a denominator. The quotient obtained by dividing the said numerator by the denominator, is the truly computed mean specific gravity of the alloy. On comparing with that density, the density found by experiment, we shall see whether expansion or condensation of volume has attended the metallic combination. Gold having a specific gravity of 19·36, and copper of 8·87, when they are alloyed in equal weights, give, by the fallacious rule of the arithmetical mean of the densities 19·36 + 8·872 = 14·11; whereas the rightly computed mean density is only 12·16. It is evident that, on comparing the first result with experiment, we should be led to infer that there had been a prodigious condensation of volume, though expansion has actually taken place. Let W, w be the two weights; P, p the two specific gravities, then M, the mean specific gravity, is given by the formula—

(W + w)PpPw + pW ? 2? = - (P - p)²P + p =

twice the error of the arithmetical mean; which is therefore always in excess.

ALMOND. (Amande, Fr.; Mandel, Germ.) There are two kinds of almond which do not differ in chemical composition, only that the bitter, by some mysterious reaction of its constituents, generates in the act of distillation a quantity of a volatile oil, which contains hydrocyanic acid. Vogel obtained from bitter almonds 8·5 per cent. of husks. After pounding the kernels, and heating them to coagulate the albumen, he procured, by expression, 28 parts of an unctuous oil, which did not contain the smallest particle of hydrocyanic acid. The whole of the oil could not be extracted in this way. The expressed mass, treated with boiling water, afforded sugar and gum, and, in consequence of the heat, some of that acid. The sugar constitutes 6·5 per cent. and the gum 3. The vegetable albumen extracted, by means of caustic potash, amounted to 30 parts: the vegetable fibre to only 5. The poisonous aromatic oil, according to Robiquet and Boutron-Charlard, does not exist ready-formed in the bitter almond, but seems to be produced under the influence of ebullition with water. These chemists have shown that bitter almonds deprived of their unctuous oil by the press, when treated first by alcohol, and then by water, afford to neither of these liquids any volatile oil. But alcohol dissolves out a peculiar white crystalline body, without smell, of a sweetish taste at first, and afterwards bitter, to which they gave the name of amygdaline. This substance does not seem convertible into volatile oil.

Sweet almonds by the analysis of Boullay, consist of 54 parts of the bland almond oil, 6 of uncrystallisable sugar, 3 of gum, 24 of vegetable albumen, 24 of woody fibre, 5 of husks, 3·5 of water, 0·5 of acetic acid, including loss. We thus see that sweet almonds contain nearly twice as much oil as bitter almonds do.

ALMOND OIL. A bland fixed oil, obtained usually from bitter almonds by the action of a hydraulic press, either in the cold, or aided by hot iron plates. See Oil.

ALOE. A series of trials has been made within a few years at Paris to ascertain the comparative strength of cables made of hemp and of the aloe from Algiers; and they are said to have all turned to the advantage of the aloe. Of cables of equal size, that made of aloe raised a weight of 2,000 kilogrammes (2 tons nearly); that made of hemp, a weight of only 400 kilogrammes. At the exposition of objects of national industry, two years ago, in Brussels, I saw aloe cordage placarded, as being far preferable to hempen. See Rope.

ALUDEL. A pear-shaped vessel open at either end, of which a series are joined for distilling mercury in Spain. See Mercury.

ALUM. (Alun, Fr.; Alaum, Germ.) A saline body, consisting of the earth of clay, called alumina by the chemists, combined with sulphuric acid and potash, or sulphuric acid and ammonia, into a triple compound. It occurs in the crystallised form of octahedrons, has an acerb subacid taste, and reddens the blue colour of litmus or red cabbage.

Alum works existed many centuries ago at Roccha, formerly called Edessa, in Syria, whence the ancient name of Roch alum given to this salt. It was afterwards made at Foya Nova, near Smyrna, and in the neighbourhood of Constantinople. The Genoese, and other trading people of Italy, imported alum from these places into western Europe, for the use of the dyers of red cloth. About the middle of the fifteenth century, alum began to be manufactured at La Tolfa, Viterbo, and Volaterra, in Italy; after which time the importation of oriental alum was prohibited by the pope, as detrimental to the interests of his dominions. The manufacture of this salt was extended to Germany at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and to England at a somewhat later period, by Sir Thomas Chaloner, in the reign of Elizabeth. In its pure state, it does not seem to have been known to the ancients; for Pliny, in speaking of something like plumose alum, says, that it struck a black colour with pomegranate juice, which shows that the green vitriol was not separated from it. The stypteria of Dioscorides, and the alumen of Pliny, comprehended, apparently, a variety of saline substances, of which sulphate of iron, as well as alumina, was probably a constituent part. Pliny, indeed, says, that a substance called in Greek ???a, or watery, probably from its very soluble nature, which was milk-white, was used for dyeing wool of bright colours. This may have been the mountain butter of the German mineralogists, which is a native sulphate of alumina, of a soft texture, waxy lustre, and unctuous to the touch.

The only alum manufactories now worked in Great Britain, are those of Whitby, in England, and of Hurlett and Campsie, near Glasgow, in Scotland; and these derive the acid and earthy constituents of the salt from a mineral called alum slate. This mineral has a bluish or greenish-black colour, emits sulphurous fumes when heated, and acquires thereby an aluminous taste. The alum manufactured in Great Britain contains potash as its alkaline constituent; that made in France contains, commonly, ammonia, either alone, or with variable quantities of potash. Alum may in general be examined by water of ammonia, which separates from its watery solutions its earthy basis, in the form of a light flocculent precipitate. If the solution be dilute, this precipitate will float long as an opalescent cloud.

If we dissolve alum in 20 parts of water, and drop this solution slowly into water or caustic ammonia till this be nearly, but not entirely, saturated, a bulky white precipitate will fall down, which, when properly washed with water, is pure aluminous earth or clay, and dried forms 10·82 per cent. of the weight of the alum. If this earth, while still moist, be dissolved in dilute sulphuric acid, it will constitute, when as neutral as possible, the sulphate of alumina, which requires only two parts of cold water for its solution. If we now decompose this solution, by pouring into it water of ammonia, there appears an insoluble white powder, which is subsulphate of alumina, or basic alum; and contains three times as much earth as exists in the neutral sulphate. If, however, we pour into the solution of the neutral sulphate of alumina a solution of sulphate of potash, a white powder will fall if the solutions be concentrated, which is true alum; but if the solutions be dilute, by evaporating their mixture, and cooling it, crystals of alum will be obtained.

When newly precipitated alumina is boiled in a solution of alum, a portion of the earth enters into combination with the salt, constituting an insoluble compound, which falls in the form of a white powder. The same combination takes place, if we decompose a boiling hot solution of alum with a solution of potash, till the mixture appears nearly neutral by litmus paper. This insoluble or basic alum exists native in the alum-stone of Tolfa, near Civita Vecchia, and it consists in 100 parts of 19·72 parts of sulphate of potash, 61·99 basic sulphate of alumina, and 18·29 water. When this mineral is treated with a due quantity of sulphuric acid, it dissolves, and is converted into the crystallisable alum of commerce.

These experimental facts develope the principles of the manufacture of alum, which is prosecuted under various modifications, for its important uses in the arts. Alum seldom occurs ready-formed in nature; occasionally, as an efflorescence on stones, and in certain mineral waters in the East Indies. The alum of European commerce is fabricated artificially, either from the alum schists or stones, or from clay. The mode of manufacture differs according to the nature of these earthy compounds. Some of them, such as the alum stone, contain all the elements of the salt, but mixed with other matters, from which it must be freed. The schists contain only the elements of two of the constituents, namely, clay and sulphur, which are convertible into sulphate of alumina, and this may be then made into alum by adding the alkaline ingredient. To this class belong the alum slates, and other analogous schists, containing brown coal.

1. Manufacture of Alum from the Alum Stone.—The alum-stone is a rare mineral, being found in moderate quantity at Tolfa, and in larger in Hungary, at Bereghszasz, and Muszag, where it forms entire beds in a hard substance, partly characterised by numerous cavities, containing drusy crystallisations of alum-stone or basic alum. The larger lumps contain more or fewer flints disseminated through them, and are, according to their quality, either picked out to make alum, or are thrown away. The sorted pieces are roasted or calcined, by which operation apparently the hydrate of alumina, associated with the sulphate of alumina, loses its water, and, as burnt clay, loses its affinity for alum. It becomes, therefore, free; and during the subsequent exposure to the weather the stone gets disintegrated, and the alum becomes soluble in water.

The calcination is performed in common lime-kilns in the ordinary way. In the regulation of the fire it is requisite, here, as with gypsum, to prevent any fusion or running together of the stones, or even any disengagement of sulphuric or sulphurous acids, which would cause a corresponding defalcation in the product of alum. For this reason the contact of the ignited stones with carbonaceous matter ought to be avoided.

The calcined alum-stones, piled in heaps from 2 to 3 feet high, are to be exposed to the weather, and meanwhile they must be continually kept moist by sprinkling them with water. As the water combines with the alum the stones crumble down, and fall, eventually, into a pasty mass, which must be lixiviated with warm water, and allowed to settle in a large cistern. The clear supernatant liquor, being drawn off, must be evaporated, and then crystallised. A second crystallisation finishes the process, and furnishes a marketable alum. Thus the Roman alum is made, which is covered with a fine red film of peroxide of iron.

2. Alum Manufacture from Alum Schist.—The greater portion of the alum found in British commerce is made from alum-slate and analogous minerals. This slate contains more or less iron pyrites, mixed with coaly or bituminous matter, which is occasionally so abundant as to render them somewhat combustible. In the strata of brown coal and bituminous wood, where the upper layers lie immediately under clay beds, they consist of the coaly substance rendered impure with clay and pyrites. This triple mixture constitutes the essence of all good alum schists, and it operates spontaneously towards the production of sulphate of alumina. The coal serves to make the texture open, and to allow the air and moisture to penetrate freely, and to change the sulphur and iron present into acid and oxide. When these schists are exposed to a high temperature in contact with air, the pyrites loses one half of its sulphur, in the form of sublimed sulphur or sulphurous acid, and becomes a black sulphuret of iron, which speedily attracts oxygen, and changes to sulphate of iron, or green vitriol. The brown coal schists contain, commonly, some green vitriol crystals spontaneously formed in them. The sulphate of iron transfers its acid to the clay, progressively, as the iron, by the action of the air with a little elevation of temperature, becomes peroxidised; whereby sulphate of alumina is produced. A portion of the green vitriol remains, however, undecomposed, and so much the more as there may happen to be less of other salifiable bases present in the clay slate. Should a little magnesia or lime be present, the vitriol gets more completely decomposed, and a portion of Epsom salt and gypsum is produced.

The manufacture of alum from alum schists may be distributed under the six following heads:—1. The preparation of the alum slate. 2. The lixiviation of the slate. 3. The evaporation of the lixivium. 4. The addition of the saline ingredients, or the precipitation of the alum. 5. The washing of the aluminous salts; and 6. The crystallisation.

1. Preparation of the Alum Slate.—Some alum slates are of such a nature that, being piled in heaps in the open air, and moistened from time to time, they get spontaneously hot, and by degrees fall into a pulverulent mass, ready to be lixiviated. The greater part, however, require the process of ustulation, from which they derive many advantages. The cohesion of the dense slates is thereby so much impaired that their decomposition becomes more rapid; the decomposition of the pyrites is quickened by the expulsion of a portion of the sulphur; and the ready-formed green vitriol is partly decomposed by the heat, with a transference of its sulphuric acid to the clay, and the production of sulphate of alumina.

Such alum-slates as contain too little bitumen or coal for the roasting process must be interstratified with layers of small coal or brushwood over an extensive surface. At Whitby the alum rock, broken into small pieces, is laid upon a horizontal bed of fuel, composed of brushwood; but at Hurlett small coal is chiefly used for the lower bed. When about four feet of the rock is piled on, fire is set to the bottom in various parts; and whenever the mass is fairly kindled, more rock is placed over the top. At Whitby this piling process is continued till the calcining heap is raised to the height of 90 or 100 feet. The horizontal area is also augmented at the same time till it forms a great bed nearly 200 feet square, having therefore about 100,000 yards of solid measurement. The rapidity of the combustion is tempered by plastering up the crevices with small schist moistened. When such an immense mass is inflamed, the heat is sure to rise too high, and an immense waste of sulphur and sulphuric acid must ensue. This evil has been noticed at the Whitby works. At Hurlett the height to which the heap is piled is only a few feet, while the horizontal area is expanded; which is a much more judicious arrangement. At Whitby 130 tons of calcined schist produce on an average 1 ton of alum. In this humid climate it would be advisable to pile up on the top of the horizontal strata of brushwood or coal, and schist, a pyramidal mass of schist, which having its surface plastered smooth, with only a few air-holes, will protect the mass from the rains, and at the same time prevent the combustion from becoming too vehement. Should heavy rains supervene, a gutter must be scooped out round the pile for receiving the aluminous lixivium, and conducting it into the reservoir.

It may be observed, that certain alum schists contain abundance of combustible matter, to keep up a suitable calcining heat after the fire is once kindled; and therefore nothing is needed but the first layer of brushwood, which, in this case, may be laid over the first bed of the bituminous schist.

A continual, but very slow, heat, with a smothered fire, is most beneficial for the ustulation of alum slate. When the fire is too brisk, the sulphuret of iron may run with the earthy matters into a species of slag, or the sulphur will be dissipated in vapour, by both of which accidents the product of alum will be impaired. Those bituminous alum schists which have been used as fuel under steam boilers have suffered such a violent combustion that their ashes yield almost no alum. Even the best regulated calcining piles are apt to burn too briskly in high winds, and should have their draught-holes carefully stopped under such circumstances. It may be laid down as a general rule, that the slower the combustion the richer the roasted ore will be in sulphate of alumina. When the calcination is complete, the heap diminishes to one half its original bulk; it is covered with a light reddish ash, and is open and porous in the interior, so that the air can circulate freely throughout the mass. To favour this access of air, the masses should not be too lofty; and in dry weather a little water should be occasionally sprinkled on them, which, by dissolving away some of the saline matter, will make the interior more open to the atmosphere.

When the calcined mineral becomes thoroughly cold, we may proceed to the lixiviation. But as, from the first construction of the piles or beds till their complete calcination, many weeks, or even months, may elapse, care ought to be taken to provide a sufficient number or extent of them, so as to have an adequate supply of material for carrying on the lixiviating and crystallising processes during the course of the year, or at least during the severity of the winter season, when the calcination may be suspended, and the lixiviation becomes unsatisfactory. The beds are known to be sufficiently decomposed by the efflorescence of the salt which appears upon the stones, from the strong aluminous taste of the ashes, and from the appropriate chemical test of lixiviating an aliquot average portion of the mass, and seeing how much alum it will yield to solution of muriate or sulphate of potash.

2. The Lixiviation.—The lixiviation is best performed in stone-built cisterns; those of wood, however strong at first, are soon decomposed, and need repairs. They ought to be erected in the neighbourhood of the calcining heaps, to save the labour of transport, and so arranged that the solutions from the higher cisterns may spontaneously flow into the lower. In this point of view, a sloping terrace is the best situation for an alum work. In the lowest part of this terrace, and in the neighbourhood of the boiling-house, there ought to be two or more large deep tanks, for holding the crude lixivium, and they should be protected from the rain by a proper shed. Upon a somewhat higher level the cisterns of the clear lixivium may be placed. Into the highest range of cisterns the calcined mineral is to be put, taking care to lay the largest lumps at the bottom, and to cover them with lighter ashes. A sufficient quantity of water is now to be run over it, and allowed to rest for some time. The lixivium may then be drawn off, by a stopcock connected with a pipe at the bottom of the cistern, and run into another cistern at a somewhat lower level. Fresh water must now be poured on the partly exhausted schist, and allowed to remain for a sufficient time. This lixivium, being weak, should be run off into a separate tank. In some cases a third addition of fresh water may be requisite, and the weak lixivium which is drawn off may be reserved for a fresh portion of calcined mineral. In order to save evaporation, it is always requisite to strengthen weak leys by employing them instead of water for fresh portions of calcined schist. Upon the ingenious disposition and form of these lixiviating cisterns much of the economy and success of an alum work depend. The hydrometer should be always used to determine the degree of concentration which the solutions acquire.

The lixiviated stone being thus exhausted of its soluble ingredients, is to be removed from the cisterns, and piled up in a heap in any convenient place, where it may be left either spontaneously to decompose, or, after drying, may be subjected to another calcination.

The density of the solution may be brought, upon an average, up to the sp. gr. of from 1·09 to 1·15. The latter density may always be obtained by pumping up the weaker solutions upon fresh calcined mine. This strong liquor is then drawn off, when the sulphate of lime, the oxide of iron, and the earths are deposited. It is of advantage to leave the liquor exposed for some time, whereby the green vitriol may pass into a persulphate of iron with the deposition of some oxide, while the liberated acid may combine with some of the clay present, so as to increase the quantity of sulphate of alumina. The manufacture of alum is the more imperfect, as the quantity of sulphate of iron left undecomposed is greater, and therefore every expedient ought to be tried to convert the sulphate of iron into sulphate of alumina.

3. The evaporation of the Schist Lixivium.—As the aluminous liquors, however well settled at first, are apt, on the great scale, to deposit earthy matters in the course of their concentration by heat, they are best evaporated by a surface fire, such as that employed at Hurlett and Campsie. A water-tight stone cistern must be built, having a layer of well rammed clay behind the flags or tiles which line its bottom and sides. This cistern may be 4 or 6 feet wide, 2 or 3 feet deep, and 30 or 40 feet long, and it is covered in by an arch of stone or brickwork. At one extremity of this tunnel, or covered canal, a fire-grate is set, and at the other a lofty chimney is erected. The cistern being filled to the brim with the alum ley, a strong fire is kindled in the reverberatory grate, and the flame and hot air are forced to sweep along the surface of the liquor, so as to keep it in constant ebullition, and to carry off the aqueous parts in vapour. The soot which is condensed in the process falls to the bottom, and leaves the body of the liquor clear. As the concentration goes on, more of the rough lixivium is run in from the settling cistern, placed on a somewhat higher level, till the whole gets charged with a clear liquor of a specific gravity sufficiently high for transferring into the proper lead boilers.

At Whitby, the lead pans are 10 feet long, 4 feet 9 inches wide, 2 feet 2 inches deep at the one end, and 2 feet 8 inches deep at the other. This increase of depth and corresponding slope, facilitates the decantation of the concentrated lixivium by means of a syphon, applied at the lower end. The bottom of the pan is supported by a series of parallel iron bars, placed very near each other. In these lead pans the liquor is concentrated, at a brisk boiling heat, by means of the flame of a flue beneath them. Every morning the pans are emptied into a settling cistern of stone or lead. The specific gravity of the liquor should be about 1·4 or 1·5, being a saturated solution of the saline matters present. The proper degree of density must vary, however, with different kinds of lixivia, and according to the different views of the manufacturer. For a liquor which consists of two parts of sulphate of alumina, and one part of sulphate of iron, a specific gravity of 1·25 may be sufficient; but for a solution which contains two parts of sulphate of iron to one of sulphate of alumina, so that the green vitriol must be withdrawn first of all by crystallisation, a specific gravity of 1·4 may be requisite.

The construction of an evaporating furnace well adapted to the concentration of aluminous and other crude lixivia, is described under Soda. The liquor basin may be made of tiles or flags puddled in clay, and secured at the seams with a good hydraulic cement. A mortar made of quicklime mixed with the exhausted schist in powder, and iron turnings, is said to answer well for this purpose. Sometimes over the reverberatory furnace a flat pan is laid, instead of the arched top, into which the crude liquor is put for neutralisation and partial concentration. In Germany, such a pan is made of copper, because iron would waste too fast, and lead would be apt to melt. From this preparation basin the under evaporating trough is gradually supplied with hot liquor. At one side of this lower trough, there is sometimes a door, through which the sediment may be raked out as it accumulates upon the bottom. Such a contrivance is convenient for this mode of evaporation, and it permits, also, any repairs to be readily made; but, indeed, an apparatus of this kind, well mounted at first, will serve for many years.

In the course of the final concentration of the liquors, it is customary to add some of the mother waters of a former process, the quantity of which must be regulated by a proper analysis and knowledge of their contents. If these mother waters contain much free sulphuric acid, from the peroxidation of their sulphate of iron, they may prove useful in dissolving a portion of the alumina of the sediment which is always present in greater or less quantity.

4. The precipitation of the Alum by adding Alkaline Salts.—As a general rule, it is most advantageous to separate, first of all, from the concentrated clear liquors, the alum in the state of powder or small crystals, by addition of the proper alkaline matter, and to leave the mingled foreign salts, such as the sulphate of iron or magnesia, in solution, instead of trying to abstract these salts by a previous crystallisation. In this way we not only simplify and accelerate the manufacture of alum, and leave the mother waters to be worked up at any convenient season, but we also avoid the risk of withdrawing any of the sulphate of alumina with the sulphate of iron or magnesia. On this account, the concentration of the liquor ought not to be pushed so far as that, when it gets cold, it should throw out crystals, but merely to the verge of this point. This density may be determined by suitable experiments.

The clear liquor should now be run off into the precipitation cistern, and have the proper quantity of sulphate or muriate of potash, or impure sulphate or carbonate of ammonia added to it. The sulphate of potash, which is the best precipitant, forms 18·34 parts out of 100 of crystallised alum; and therefore that quantity of it, or its equivalent in muriate of potash, or other potash or ammoniacal salts, must be introduced into the aluminous liquor. Since sulphate of potash takes 10 parts of cold water to dissolve it, but is much more soluble in boiling water, and since the precipitation of alum is more abundant the more concentrated the mingled solutions are, it would be prudent to add the sulphate solution as hot as may be convenient; but, as muriate of potash is fully three times more soluble in cold water, it is to be preferred as a precipitant, when it can be procured at a cheap rate. It has, also, the advantage of decomposing the sulphate of iron present into a muriate, a salt very difficult of crystallisation, and, therefore, less apt to contaminate the crystals of alum. The quantity of alkaline salts requisite to precipitate the alum, in a granular powder, from the lixivium, depends on their richness in potash or ammonia, on the one hand, and on the richness of the liquors in sulphate of alumina on the other; and it must be ascertained, for each large quantity of product, by a preliminary experiment in a precipitation glass. Here, an aliquot measure of the aluminous liquor being taken, the liquid precipitant must be added in successive portions, as long as it causes any cloud, when the quantity added will be indicated by the graduation of the vessel. A very exact approximation is not practicable upon the great scale; but, as the mother waters are afterwards mixed together in one cistern, any excess of the precipitant, at one time, is corrected by excess of aluminous sulphate at another, and the resulting alum meal is collected at the bottom. When the precipitated saline powder is thoroughly settled and cooled, the supernatant mother water must be drawn off by a pump, or rather a syphon or stopcock, into a lower cistern. The more completely this drainage is effected, the more easily and completely will the alum be purified.

This mother liquor has, generally, a specific gravity of 1·4 at a medium temperature of the atmosphere, and consists of a saturated solution of sulphate or muriate of black and red oxide of iron, with sulphate of magnesia, in certain localities, and muriate of soda, when the soaper’s salt has been used as a precipitant, as also a saturated solution of sulphate of alumina. By adding some of it, from time to time, to the fresh lixivia, a portion of that sulphate is converted into alum; but, eventually, the mother water must be evaporated, so as to obtain from it a crop of ferruginous crystals; after which it becomes capable, once more, of giving up its alum to the alkaline precipitants.

When the aluminous lixivia contain a great deal of sulphate of iron, it may be good policy to withdraw a portion of it by crystallisation before precipitating the alum. With this view, the liquors must be evaporated to the density of 1·4, and then run off into crystallising stone cisterns. After the green vitriol has concreted, the liquor should be pumped back into the evaporating pan, and again brought to the density of 1·4. On adding to it, now, the alkaline precipitants, the alum will fall down from this concentrated solution, in a very minute crystalline powder, very easy to wash and purify. But this method requires more vessels and manipulation than the preceding, and should only be had recourse to from necessity; since it compels us to carry on the manufacture of both the valuable alum and the lower priced salts at the same time; moreover, the copperas extracted at first from the schist liquors carries with it, as we have said, a portion of the sulphate of alumina, and acquires thereby a dull aspect; whereas the copperas obtained after the separation of the alum is of a brilliant appearance.

5. The washing, or edulcoration, of the Alum Powder.—This crystalline pulverulent matter has a brownish colour, from the admixture of the ferruginous liquors; but it may be freed from it by washing with very cold water, which dissolves not more than one sixteenth of its weight of alum. After stirring the powder and the water well together, the former must be allowed to settle, and then the washing must be drawn off. A second washing will render the alum nearly pure. The less water is employed, and the more effectually it is drained off, the more complete is the process. The second water may be used in the first washing of another portion of alum powder, in the place of pure water. These washings may be added to the schist lixivia.

6. The crystallisation.—The washed alum is put into a lead pan, with just enough water to dissolve it at a boiling heat; fire is applied, and the solution is promoted by stirring. Whenever it is dissolved in a saturated state, it is run off into the crystallising vessels, which are called roching casks. These casks are about five feet high, three feet wide in the middle, somewhat narrower at the ends; they are made of very strong staves, nicely fitted to each other, and held together by strong iron hoops, which are driven on pro tempore, so that they may be easily knocked off again, in order to take the staves asunder. The concentrated solution, during its slow cooling in these close vessels, forms large regular crystals, which hang down from the top, and project from the sides, while a thick layer or cake lines the whole interior of the cask. At the end of eight or ten days, more or less, according to the weather, the hoops and staves are removed, when a cask of apparently solid alum is disclosed to view. The workman now pierces this mass with a pickaxe at the side near the bottom, and allows the mother water of the interior to run off on the sloping stone floor into a proper cistern, whence it is taken and added to another quantity of washed powder to be crystallised with it. The alum is next broken into lumps, exposed in a proper place to dry, and is then put into the finished bing for the market. There is sometimes a little insoluble basic alum (subsulphate) left at the bottom of the cask. This being mixed with the former mother liquors, gets sulphuric acid from them; or, being mixed with a little sulphuric acid, it is equally converted into alum.

When, instead of potash or its salts, the ammoniacal salts are used, or putrid urine, with the aluminous lixivia, ammoniacal alum is produced, which is perfectly similar to the potash alum in its appearance and properties. At a gentle heat both lose their water of crystallisation, amounting to 45¹/₂ per cent. for the potash alum, and 48 for the ammoniacal. The quantity of acid is the same in both, as, also, very nearly the quantity of alumina, as the following analyses will show:

When heated pretty strongly, the ammoniacal alum loses its sulphuric acid and ammonia, and only the earth remains. This is a very convenient process for procuring pure alumina. Ammoniacal alum is easily distinguished from the other by the smell of ammonia which it exhales when triturated with quicklime. The Roman alum, made from alum stone, possesses most of the properties of the schist-made alums, but it has a few peculiar characters: it crystallises always in opaque cubes, whereas the common alum crystallises in transparent octahedrons. It is probable that Roman alum is a sulphate of alumina and potash, with a slight excess of the earthy ingredient. It is permanent when dissolved in cold water; for after a slow evaporation it is recovered in a cubical form. But when it is dissolved in water heated to 110° Fahr. and upwards, or when its solution is heated above this pitch, subsulphate of alumina falls, and on evaporation octahedral crystals of common alum are obtained. The exact composition of the Roman alum has not been determined, as far as I know. It probably differs from the other also in its water of crystallisation. The Roman alum contains, according to MM. Thenard and Roard, only ¹/₂₂₀₀ of sulphate of iron, while the common commercial alums contain ¹/₁₀₀₀. It may be easily purified by solution, granulation, crystallisation, and washing, as has been already explained.

Alum is made extensively in France from an artificial sulphate of alumina. For this purpose clays are chosen as free as possible from carbonate of lime and oxide of iron. They are calcined in a reverberatory furnace, in order to expel the water, to peroxidise the iron, and to render the alumina more easily acted on by the acid. The expulsion of the water renders the clay porous and capable of absorbing the sulphuric acid by capillary attraction. The peroxidation of the iron renders it less soluble in the sulphuric acid; and the silica of the clay, by reacting on the alumina, impairs its aggregation, and makes it more readily attracted by the acid. The clay should, therefore, be moderately calcined; but not so as to indurate it like pottery ware, for it would then suffer a species of siliceous combination which would make it resist the action of acids. The clay is usually calcined in a reverberatory furnace, the flame of which serves thereafter to heat two evaporating pans and a basin for containing a mixture of the calcined clay and sulphuric acid. As soon as the clay has become friable in the furnace it is taken out, reduced to powder, and passed through a fine sieve. With 100 parts of the pulverised clay, 45 parts of sulphuric acid, of sp. gr. 1·45, are well mixed, in a stone basin, arched over with brickwork. The flame and hot air of a reverberatory furnace are made to play along the mixture, in the same way as described for evaporating the schist liquors. See Soda. The mixture, being stirred from time to time, is, at the end of a few days, to be raked out, and to be set aside in a warm place, for the acid to work on the clay, during six or eight weeks. At the end of this time it must be washed, to extract the sulphate of alumina. With this view, it may be treated like the roasted alum ores above described. If potash alum is to be formed, this sulphate of alumina is evaporated to the specific gravity of 1·38; but if ammonia alum, to the specific gravity of only 1·24; because the sulphate of ammonia, being soluble in twice its weight of water, will cause a precipitation of pulverulent alum from a weaker solution of sulphate of alumina than the less soluble sulphate of potash could do.

The alum stone, from which the Roman alum is made, contains potash. The following analysis of alunite, by M. Cordier, places this fact in a clear light:—

To transform this compound into alum, it is merely necessary to abstract the hydrate of alumina. The ordinary alum stone, however, is rarely so pure as the above analysis would seem to show; for it contains a mixture of other substances; and the above are in different proportions.

Alum is very extensively employed in the arts, most particularly in dyeing, lake making, dressing sheep-skins, pasting paper, in clarifying liquors, &c. Its purity for the dyer may be tested by prussiate of potash, which will give solution of alum a blue tint in a few minutes if it contain even a very minute portion of iron. A bit of nut-gall is also a good test of iron.

AMALGAM. When mercury is alloyed with any metal, the compound is called an amalgam of that metal; as, for example, an amalgam of tin, bismuth, &c.

AMALGAMATION. This is a process used extensively in extracting silver and gold from certain of their ores, founded on the property which mercury has to dissolve these metals as disseminated in the minerals, and thus to separate them from the earthy matters. See Mercury, Metallurgy, and Silver.

AMBER. (Succin, Fr.; Bernstein, Germ.) A mineral solid, of a yellow colour of various shades, which burns quite away with flame, and consists of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, in nearly the same proportions, and the same state of combination, as vegetable resin. Its specific gravity varies, by my trials, from 1·080 to 1·085. It becomes negatively and powerfully electrical by friction. When applied to a lighted candle it takes fire, swells considerably, and exhales a white smoke of a pungent odour; but does not run into drops. Copal, which resembles it in several respects, differs in being softer, and in melting into drops at the flame; and mellite, or honey-stone, which is a mineral of a similar colour, becomes white when laid on a red-hot coal.

The texture of amber is resino-vitreous, its fracture conchoidal, and lustre glassy. It is perfectly homogeneous; sufficiently hard to scratch gypsum, and to take a fine polish. It is, however, scratched by calcareous spar. When amber is distilled in a retort, crystalline needles of succinic acid sublime into the dome, and oil of amber drops from the beak into the receiver. Fossil resins, such as that of Highgate, found in the London clay formation, do not afford succinic acid by heat; nor does copal. Amber is occasionally found of a whitish and brownish colour.

The most interesting fact relative to this vegeto-mineral is its geological position, which is very characteristic and well determined. It is found almost uniformly in separate nodules, disseminated in the sand, clay, or fragments of lignite of the plastic clay, and lignite formation, situated between the calcaire grossier (crag limestone) of the tertiary strata above, and the white chalk below. The size of these nodules varies from a nut to a man’s head; but this magnitude is very rare in true amber. It does not occur either in continuous beds, like the chalk flints, nor in veins; but it lies at one time in the earthy or friable strata, which accompany or include the lignites; at another, entangled in the lignites themselves; and is associated with the minerals which constitute this formation, principally the pyrites, the most abundant of all. The pieces of amber found in the sands, and other formations evidently alluvial, those met with on the sea-coasts of certain countries, and especially Pomerania, come undoubtedly from the above geological formation; for the organic matters found still adhering to the amber leave no doubt as to its primitive place. Amber does not, therefore, belong to any postdiluvian or modern soil, since its native bed is covered by three or four series of strata, often of considerable thickness, and well characterised; proceeding upwards from the plastic clay which includes the amber: these are, the crag limestone, the bone gypsum, with its marls, the marly limestone, the upper marl sandstone, which covers it, and, lastly, the freshwater or lacustrine formation, often so thick, and composed of calcareous and siliceous rocks.

The amber bed is not, however, always covered with all these strata; and it is even rare to see a great mass of one of them above the ground which contains it; because, were it buried under such strata, it would be difficult to meet with such circumstances as would lay it spontaneously open to the day. But by comparing observations made in different places, relatively to the patches of these formations, which cover the amber deposits, we find that no other mineral formations have been ever seen among them except those above detailed, and thus learn that its geological locality is completely determined.

The proper yellow amber, therefore, or the Borussic, from the country where it has been most abundantly found, belongs to the plastic clay formation, intermediate, in England, between the chalk and the London clay. It is sometimes interposed in thin plates between the layers of the lignites, but more towards the bark of the fibrous lignites, which retain the form of the wood, than towards the middle of the trunk of the tree; a position analogous to that of the resinous matters in our existing ligneous vegetables. The fibrous lignites which thus contain amber belong to the dicotyledinous woods. Hence that substance seems to have been formed during the life of the vegetable upon which it is now encrusted. It must be remembered that the grounds containing the amber are often replete with the sulphates of iron, alumina, and lime, or at least with the pyritous elements of these salts. Some specimens of amber have a surface figured with irregular meshes, indicating a sort of shrinkage from consolidation, and consequently a matter that was at one time fluid, viscid, or merely soft. From optical examination, Dr. Brewster has concluded amber to be of vegetable origin.

The different bodies included in the amber, distinguishable from its transparence, demonstrate, indeed, in the most convincing manner, its primitive state of liquidity or softness. These bodies have long exercised the skill of naturalists. They are generally insects, or remains of insects, and sometimes leaves, stalks, or other portions of vegetables. Certain families of insects occur more abundantly than others. Thus the hymenoptera, or insects with four naked membranaceous wings, as the bee and wasp, and the diptera, or insects with two wings, as gnats, flies, gadflies, &c.; then come the spider tribe; some coleoptera (insects with crustaceous shells or elytra, which shut together, and form a longitudinal suture down the back,) or beetles, principally those which live on trees; such as the elaterides, or leapers, and the chrysomelida. The lepidoptera, or insects with four membranaceous wings, and pterigostea covered with mail-like scales, are very rare in amber. We perceive from this enumeration, which results from the labours of Germar, Schweiger, &c., that the insects enveloped in this resinous matter are in general such as sit on the trunks of trees, or live in the fissures of their bark. Hitherto, it has not been found possible to refer them to any living species; but it has been observed in general that they resemble more the insects of hot climates than those of the temperate zones.

The districts where amber occurs in a condition fit for mining operations are not numerous; but those in which it is met with in small scattered bits are very abundant. Its principal exploitation is in Eastern Prussia, on the coasts of the Baltic sea, from Memel to Dantzick, particularly in the neighbourhood of Konigsberg, along the shore which runs north and south from Grossdirschheim to Pillau, and in several other places near Dantzick.

It is collected upon this coast in several ways; 1. In the beds of small streams which run near the villages, and in rounded fragments without bark, or in the sand-banks of rivers, in pieces thrown back by the sea, and rounded by the waves. 2. If the pieces thrown up by the waters are not numerous, the fishers, clothed in a leather dress, wade into the sea up to the neck, seek to discover the amber by looking along its surface, and seize it with bag nets, hung at the end of very long poles. They conclude that a great deal of amber has been detached from the cliffs by the sea, when many pieces of lignite (wood coal) are seen afloat. This mode of collecting amber is not free from danger, and the fishers, therefore, advance in troops, to lend each other aid in case of accident; but their success, even thus, is most precarious. 3. The third method of searching for amber is a real mining operation: it consists in digging pits upon the borders of the sandy downs, sometimes to a depth of more than 130 feet. 4. The last mode is by exploring the precipitous sea cliffs in boats, and detaching masses of loose soil from them with long poles terminating in iron hooks; a very hazardous employment. They search the cliffs with great care at the level, where the amber nodules commonly lie, and loosen the seams with their hooks; in which business the boats are sometimes broken against the precipices, or sunk by an avalanche of rubbish.

Amber occurs in Sicily, disseminated in beds of clay and marl, which lie below the crag limestone. It is accompanied with bitumen; and, though a scanty deposit, it is mined for sale. The pieces are coated with a kind of whitish bark, present a variety of colours, and include many insects. Amber is found in a great many places in the sandy districts of Poland, at a very great distance from the sea, where it is mixed with cones of the pine. In Saxony it is met with in the neighbourhood of Pretsch and Wittemberg, in a bituminous clay mingled with lignite. At the embouchure of the Jenissey, in Siberia, it occurs likewise along with lignite; as also in Greenland.

Fine amber is considerably valued for making ornamental objects, and the coarser kinds for certain uses in chemistry, medicine, and the arts. The oriental nations prize more highly than the people of Europe trinkets made of amber; and hence the chief commerce of the Pomeranian article is with Turkey. The Prussian government is said to draw an annual revenue of 17,000 dollars from amber. A good piece of a pound weight fetches 50 dollars. A mass weighing 13 pounds was picked up not long since in Prussia, for which 5000 dollars were offered, and which would bring, in the opinion of the Armenian merchants, from 30,000 to 40,000 dollars at Constantinople. At one time it was customary to bake the opaque pieces of amber in sand, at a gentle heat, for several hours, in order to make it transparent, or to digest it in hot rapeseed oil, with the same view; but how far these processes were advantageous does not appear.

When amber is to be worked into trinkets, it is first split on a leaden plate at a lathe (see Gems, Cutting of), and then smoothed into shape on a Swedish whetstone. It is polished on the lathe with chalk and water, or vegetable oil, and finished by friction with flannel. In these processes the amber is apt to become highly electrical, very hot, and even to fly into fragments. Hence, the artists work the pieces time about, so as to keep each of them cool, and feebly excited. The men are often seized with nervous tremors in their wrists and arms from the electricity. Pieces of amber may be neatly joined by smearing their edges with linseed oil, and pressing them strongly together, while they are held over a charcoal fire. Solid specimens of amber, reported to have been altogether fused by a particular application of heat, are now shown in the royal cabinet of Dresden.

A strong and durable varnish is made by dissolving amber in drying linseed oil. For this purpose, however, the amber must be previously heated in an iron pot, over a clear red fire, till it soften and be semi-liquefied. The oil, previously heated, is to be now poured in, with much stirring, in the proportion of 10 ounces to the pound of amber; and after the incorporation is complete, and the liquid somewhat cooled, a pound of oil of turpentine must be added. Some persons prescribe 2 ounces of melted shellac, though by this means they are apt to deepen the colour, already rendered too dark by the roasting.

The fine black varnish of the coachmakers is said to be prepared by melting 16 ounces of amber in an iron pot, adding to it half a pint of drying linseed oil, boiling hot, of powdered resin and asphaltum 3 ounces each: when the materials are well united, by stirring over the fire, they are to be removed, and, after cooling for some time, a pint of warm oil of turpentine is to be introduced.

The oil of amber enters into the composition of the old perfume called eau de luce; and is convertible, by the action of a small quantity of strong nitric acid, into a viscid mass like shoemakers’ rosin, which has a strong odour of musk, and, under the name of artificial musk, has been prescribed, in alcoholic solution, as a remedy against hooping cough, and other spasmodic diseases.

Acid of amber (succinic acid) is a delicate reagent, in chemistry, for separating red oxide of iron from compound metallic solutions.

AMBERGRIS. (Ambregric, Fr.; Ambra, Germ.).—A morbid secretion of the liver of the spermaceti whale (physeter macrocephalus), found usually swimming upon the sea. It occurs upon the coasts of Coromandel, Japan, the Moluccas, and Madagascar, and has sometimes been extracted from the rectum of whales in the South Sea fishery. It has a gray-white colour, often with a black streak, or is marbled, yellow and black; has a strong but rather agreeable smell, a fatty taste, is lighter than water, melts at 60° C. (140° F.), dissolves readily in absolute alcohol, in ether, and in both fat and volatile oils. It contains 85% of the fragrant substance called ambreine. This is extracted from ambergris by digestion with alcohol of 0·827, filtering the solution, and leaving it to spontaneous evaporation. It is thus obtained in the form of delicate white tufts: which are convertible into ambreic acid by the action of nitric acid. Ambergris is used in perfumery.

AMIANTHUS. A mineral in silky filaments, called also Asbestus.

AMMONIA. A chemical compound, called also volatile alkali. This substance, in its purest state, is a highly pungent gas, possessed of all the mechanical properties of the air, but very condensable with water. It consists of 3 volumes of hydrogen and 1 of azote condensed into two volumes; and hence its density is 0·591, atmospheric air being 1·000. By strong compression and refrigeration it may be liquefied into a fluid, whose specific gravity is 0·76 compared to water 1·000.

Ammonia gas is composed by weight of 82·53 azote and 17·47 hydrogen in 100 parts. It is obtained by mixing muriate of ammonia, commonly called sal ammoniac, with quicklime, in a retort or still, applying a moderate heat, and receiving the gas either over mercury for chemical experiments, or in water to make liquid ammonia for the purposes of medicine and the arts. Woulfe’s apparatus is commonly employed for this condensation.

Ammonia is generated in a great many operations, and especially in the decomposition of many organic substances, by fire or fermentation. Urine left to itself for a few days is found to contain much carbonate of ammonia, and hence this substance was at one time collected in great quantities for the manufacture of certain salts of ammonia, and is still used for its alkaline properties in making alum, scouring wool, &c. When woollen rags, horns, bones, and other animal substances are decomposed in close vessels by fire, they evolve a large quantity of ammonia, which distils over in the form of a carbonate. The main source of ammonia now in this country, for commercial purposes, is the coal gas works. A large quantity of watery fluid is condensed in their tar pits, which contains, chiefly ammonia combined with sulphuretted hydrogen and carbonic acid. When this water is saturated with muriatic acid and evaporated it yields muriate of ammonia, or sal ammoniac, somewhat impure, which is afterwards purified by sublimation. See Carbonate of Ammonia and Sal Ammoniac.

The soot of chimnies where coal is burned contains both sulphate and carbonate of ammonia, and was extensively employed, at one time, to manufacture these salts.

In making water of ammonia on the great scale, a cast iron still should be preferred, and equal weights of quicklime and sal ammoniac should be brought to the consistence of a pap, with water, before the heat is applied. In this case, a refrigeratory worm or globe should be interposed between the adopter tube of the capital of the still and the bottles of Woulfe’s apparatus. The muriate of lime, or chloride of calcium, which is left in the still when the whole ammonia is expelled, is of no value. Water is capable of condensing easily about one third of its weight of ammonia gas, or 460 times its bulk. The following table of the quantity of ammonia in 100 parts by weight of its aqueous combinations, at successive densities, is the result of very careful experiments made by me, and recorded in the Philosophical Magazine for March, 1821.

Table of Water of Ammonia or Volatile Alkali, by Dr. Ure.

AMMONIAC, gum-resin. This is the inspissated juice of an umbelliferous plant (the dorema armeniacum) which grows in Persia. It comes to us either in small white tears clustered together, or in brownish lumps, containing many impurities. It possesses a peculiar smell, somewhat like that of assafoetida, and a bitterish taste. It is employed in medicine. Its only use in the arts is for forming a cement to join broken pieces of china and glass, which may be prepared as follows: Take isinglass 1 ounce, distilled water 6 ounces, boil together down to 3 ounces, and add 1¹/₂ ounce of strong spirit of wine;—boil this mixture for a minute or two; strain it; add, while hot, first, half an ounce of a milky emulsion of gum ammoniac, and then five drams of an alcoholic solution of resin mastic. This resembles a substance sold in the London shops, under the name of diamond cement. The recipe was given me by a respectable dispensing chemist.

AMORPHOUS. Without shape. Said of mineral and other substances which occur in forms not easy to be defined.

ANALYSIS. The art of resolving a compound substance or machine into its constituent parts. Every manufacturer should so study this art, in the proper treatises, and schools of Chemistry or Mechanics, as to enable him properly to understand and regulate his business.

ANCHOR. (Ancre, Fr.; Anker, Germ.) An iron hook of considerable weight and strength, for enabling a ship to lay hold of the ground, and fix itself in a certain situation by means of a rope called the cable. It is an instrument of the greatest importance to the navigator, since upon its taking and keeping hold depends his safety upon many occasions, especially near a lee shore, where he might be otherwise stranded or shipwrecked. Anchors are generally made of wrought iron, except among nations who cannot work this metal well, and who therefore use copper. The mode in which an anchor operates will be understood from inspection of fig. 6., where, from the direction of the strain, it is obvious that the anchor cannot move without ploughing up the ground in which its hook or fluke is sunk. When this, however, unluckily takes place, from the nature of the ground, from the mode of insertion of the anchor, or from the violence of the winds or currents, it is called dragging the anchor. When the hold is good, the cable or the buried arm will sooner break than the ship will drive. Anchors are of different sizes, and have different names, according to the purposes they serve; thus there are, sheet, best bower, small bower, spare, stream, and kedge anchors. Ships of the first class have seven anchors, and smaller vessels, such as brigs and schooners, three.

The manufacture of anchors requires great knowledge of the structure of iron, and skill in the art of working it. I shall give, here, a brief notice of the improved system introduced by Mr. Perring, clerk of the cheque at Plymouth, in which the proportions of the parts are admirably adapted to the strains they are likely to suffer. In fig. 7. A is the shank; B, the arm or fluke; C, the palm; D, the blade; E, the square; F, the nut; G, the ring; H, the crown.

Formerly the shank was made of a number of square iron rods, laid parallel together in a cylindrical form, and bound by iron hoops. When they were welded into one bar, the exterior rods could not fail to be partially burned and wasted by the strong heat. Mr. Perring abated this evil by using bars of the whole breadth of the shank, and placing them right over each other, hooping them and welding them together at two heats into one solid mass. To any one who has seen the working of puddled iron, with a heavy mill hammer, this operation will not appear difficult.

He formed the crown with bars similarly distributed with those of the shank. His mode of uniting the flukes to the crown is probably the most valuable part of his invention. The bars and half the breadth of the anchor are first welded separately, and then placed side by side, where the upper half is worked into one mass, while the lower part is left disunited, but has carrier iron bars, or porters, as these prolongation rods are commonly called, welded to the extremity of each portion. The lower part is now heated and placed in the clamping machine, which is merely an iron plate firmly bolted to a mass of timber, and bearing upon its surface four iron pins. One end of the crown is placed between the first of these pins, and passed under an iron strap; the other end is brought between the other pins, and is bent by the leverage power of the elongated rods or porters.

Thus a part of the arm being formed out of the crown gives much greater security that a true union of fibres is effected, than when the junction was made merely by a short scarf.

The angular opening upon the side opposite B H, fig. 7., is filled with the chock, formed of short iron bars placed upright. When this has been firmly welded, the truss-piece is brought over it. This piece is made of plates similar to the above, except that their edges are here horizontal. The truss-piece is half the breadth of the arm; so that when united to the crown, it constitutes, with the other parts, the total breadth of the arms at those places.

The shank is now shut upon the crown; the square is formed, and the nuts welded to it; the hole is punched out for the ring, and the shank is then fashioned.

The blade is made much in the way above described. In making the palm, an iron rod is first bent into the approximate form, notching it so that it may more readily take the desired shape. To one end a porter rod is fastened, by which the palm is carried and turned round in the fire during the progress of the fabrication. Iron plates are next laid side by side upon the rod, and the joint at the middle is broken by another plate laid over it. When the mass is worked, its under side is filled up by similar plates, and the whole is completely welded; pieces being added to the sides, if necessary, to form the angles of the palm. The blade is then shut on to the palm, after which the part of the arm attached to the blade is united to that which constitutes the crown. The smith-work of the anchor is now finished.

The junction, or shutting on, as the workmen call it, of the several members of an anchor, is effected by an instrument called a monkey, which is merely a mass of iron raised to a certain height, between parallel uprights, as in the pile engine or vertical ram, and let fall upon the metal previously brought to a welding heat.

The monkey and the hercules, both silly, trivial names, are similar instruments, and are usually worked, like a portable pile engine, by the hands of several labourers, pulling separate ropes. Many other modes of manufacturing anchors have been devised, in which mechanical power is more extensively resorted to.

The upper end of the shank F (fig. 7.) is squared to receive and hold the stock steadily, and keep it from turning. To prevent it shifting along, there are two knobs or tenon-like projections. The point of the angle H, between the arms and the shank, is sometimes called the throat. The arm B C generally makes an angle of 56° with the shank A; it is either round or polygonal, and about half the length of the shank.

The stock of the anchor (fig. 6.) is made of oak. It consists of two beams which embrace the square, and are firmly united by iron bolts and hoops, as shown in the figure. The stock is usually somewhat longer than the shank, has in the middle a thickness about one-twelfth of its length, but tapers at its under side to nearly one half this thickness at the extremities. In small anchors the stock is frequently made of iron; but in this case it does not embrace the anchor, but goes through a hole made in the square, which is swelled out on purpose.

The weight of anchors for different vessels is proportioned to the tonnage; a good rule being to make the anchor in hundredweights one-twentieth of the number of tons of the burden. Thus a ship of 1000 tons would require a sheet anchor of 50 cwts. Ships of war are provided with somewhat heavier anchors.

Several new forms and constructions of anchors were proposed under Mr. Piper’s patent of November, 1822, by the adoption of which great advantages as to strength were anticipated over every other form or construction previously made.

The particular object was to preserve such a disposition of the fibres of the metal as should afford the greatest possible strength; in doing which the crossing or bending of the fibres at the junctions of the shank, flukes, and crown, where great strength is required, has been avoided as much as possible, so that the fibres are not disturbed or injured.

In this respect most anchors are defective; for in connecting the shanks to the crown-pieces, the grain of the metal is either crossed, or so much curved, as to strain the fibre, and consequently induce a weakness where the greatest strength is required. And, further, the very considerable thicknesses of metal which are to be brought into immediate contact by means of the hammer in forging anchors upon the old construction, render it highly probable that faulty places may be left within the mass, though they be externally imperceptible. Mr. Piper’s leading principle was, that the fibre of the metal should run nearly straight in all the parts where strength is particularly required.

Fig. 8. shows an anchor with one tumbling fluke, which passes through the forked or branched part of the shank. The lower part of this anchor, answering to the crown, has a spindle through it, upon which the fluke turns, and a pin is there introduced for the purpose of confining the fluke when in a holding position. This shank is formed of a solid piece of wrought iron, the fibres of which run straight, and at the crown holes are pierced, which merely bulge the metal without bending the fibres round so as to strain them. The arm and fluke, also, are formed of one piece punched through without curling or crossing the fibre, and the spindle which holds the arm to the crown is likewise straight. This spindle extends some distance on each side of the anchor, and is intended to answer the purpose of a stock; for when either of the ends of the spindle comes in contact with the ground, the anchor will be thrown over into a holding position; or an iron stock may be introduced near the shackle, instead of these projecting ends. In the descent of the anchor, the fluke will fall over towards that side which is nearest the ground, and will there be ready to take hold when the anchor is drawn forward.

Fig. 9. is another anchor upon the same principle, but slightly varied in form from the last. In this the forked part of the shank is closer than in the former, and there are two arms or flukes connected to the crown-pieces, one of which falls into its holding position as the anchor comes to the ground, and is held at its proper angle by the other fluke stopping against the shank.

Fig. 10. represents another variation in the form of these improved anchors, having two tumbling flukes, which are both intended to take hold of the ground at the same time. The shank is here, as before, made without crossing the grain of the iron, and the eyes for admitting the bolt at the crown and at the shackle are punched out of the solid, not formed by welding or turning the iron round. In this form a guard is introduced at the crown, to answer the purpose of a stock, by turning the flukes over into a holding position. The arms and flukes are made, as before described, of the straight fibre of the iron punched through, and the flukes are fixed to the spindle, which passes through the crown-piece.

Fig. 11. has a shank without any fork, but formed straight throughout; the guard here is an elongated frame of iron, for the same purpose as a stock, and is, with the tumbling flukes, fastened to the spindle, which passes through the crown of the anchor, and causes the flukes to fall into their holding position.

The principles of these new anchors are considered to consist in shanks which are made of straight lengths of metal, and finished so that the fibres of the iron shall not be injured by cross-shuts or uncertain welding; also each arm and palm is made in one solid piece, and finished in straight lines, so that the fibres will not be altered, and the shaft-pin or spindle will also be in one straight line; and this is the improvement claimed. These anchors being made in separate pieces, give a great advantage to the workman to execute each part perfectly; for he will not have such heavy weights to lift when hot, which will render these anchors much stronger, with less weight; and if any accident should happen to them, any part may be taken separate from the others to be repaired, and several of those parts of the anchor which may be likely to break may be carried on board, in case of accident. This anchor is so contrived that one of thirty hundred weight may be taken to pieces and put together again, by one man, in twenty minutes; it may also be dismounted, and stowed in any part of the ship, in as little room as straight bars of iron, and speedily put together again.

The anchor (fig. 12.) patented by Mr. Brunton, in February, 1822, has its stock introduced at the crown part, for the purpose of turning it over into a holding position. The shank is perforated through the solid, in two places, with elliptical apertures, for the purpose of giving it a greater stability, and more effectually resisting the strain to which the anchor may be subjected. The stock is a cylindrical iron rod, held at its extremities by lateral braces, which are bolted to the shank.

Fig. 12. shows the form of the anchor. The shank is seen upright, with one of the flukes projecting in its front; the horizontal iron stock is at bottom; and the oblique braces are bolted to both shank and stock. The ends of the stock, from the shoulder, are formed dove-tailed, and oval in the vertical direction, and are protruded through apertures in the braces, also oval, but in the horizontal direction, and counter sunk. When the ends of the stock have been thus introduced through the holes, the braces are securely bolted to the shank; the ends of the stock are then spread, by hammering into the counter-sunk holes of the braces, and by that means they are made firm.

An anchor of this description is considered by the patentee to possess considerable advantage, particularly in point of stability, over the ordinary construction of anchors, and is economical, inasmuch as a less weight of metal will give, upon this plan, an equal degree of strength.

An ingenious form of anchor was made the subject of a patent, by Lieutenant Rodgers, of the Royal Navy, in 1828, and was afterwards modified by him in a second patent, obtained in August, 1829. The whole of the parts of the anchor are to be bound together by means of iron bands or hoops, in place of bolts or pins.

Fig. 13. is a side view of a complete anchor, formed upon his last improved construction, and fig. 14., a plan of the same; fig. 15., an end view of the crown and flukes, or arms; fig. 16. represents the two principal iron plates, a, a, of which the shank is constructed, but so as to form parts of the stump arms to which the flukes are to be connected.

The crown piece is to be welded to the stump piece, c c, fig. 16., as well as to the end l of the centre piece h h, and the scarfs m m are to be cut to receive the arms or flukes. Previously, however, to uniting the arms or flukes with the stump arms, the crown and throat of the anchor are to be strengthened, by the application of the crown slabs n n, fig. 16., which are to be welded upon each side of the crown, overlapping the end of the pillar h, and the throat or knees of the stump arms and the crown piece. The stump arms are then to be strengthened in a similar manner, by the thin flat pieces p p, which are to be welded upon each side. The palms are united to the flukes in the usual way, and the flukes are also united to the stump arms by means of the long scarfs m m. When the shank of the anchor has been thus formed, and united with the flukes, the anchor smith’s work may be said to be complete.

Another of the improvements in the construction of anchors, claimed under this patent, consists in a new method of affixing the stock upon the shank of the anchor, which is effected in the following manner: in fig. 14. the stock is shown affixed to the anchor; in fig. 17. it is shown detached. It may be made either of one or two pieces of timber, as may be found most convenient. It is, however, to be observed that the stock is to be completed before fitting on to the shank. After the stock is shaped, a hole is to be made through the middle of it, to fit that part of the shank to which it is to be affixed. Two stock plates are then to be let in, one on each side of the stock, and made fast by counter sunk nails and straps, or hoops; other straps or hoops of iron are also to be placed round the stock, as usual.

In place of nuts, formed upon the shank of the anchor, it is proposed to secure the stock by means of a hoop and a key, shown above and below J, in fig. 14. By this contrivance, the stock is prevented from going nearer to the crown of the anchor than it ought to do, and the key prevents it from sliding towards the shackle.

Since fitting the stock to the shank of an anchor, by this method, prevents the use of a ring, as in the ordinary manner, the patentee says that he in all cases substitutes a shackle for the ring, and which is all that is required for a chain cable; but, when a hempen cable is to be used, he connects a ring to the usual shackle, by means of a joining shackle, as in figs. 13. and 14.

Mr. Rodgers proposes, under another patent, dated July, 1833, to alter the size and form of the palms; having found from experience that anchors with small palms will not only hold better than with large ones, but that the arms of the anchor, even without any palms, have been found to take more secure hold of the ground than anchors of the old construction, of similar weight and length. He has, accordingly, fixed upon one-fifth of the length of the arm, as a suitable proportion for the length or depth of the palm. He makes the palms, also, broader than they are long or deep.

ANKER. A liquid measure of Amsterdam, which contains 32 gallons English.

ANNEALING or NEALING. (Le recuit, Fr.; das anlassen, Germ.) A process by which glass is rendered less frangible; and metals, which have become brittle, either in consequence of fusion, or long-continued hammering, are again rendered malleable. When a glass vessel is allowed to cool immediately after being made, it will often sustain the shock of a pistol-bullet, or any other blunt body falling into it from a considerable height; while a small splinter of flint, or an angular fragment of quartz, dropped gently into it, makes it sometimes immediately, sometimes after a few minutes, fly to pieces with great violence. This extreme fragility is prevented by annealing, or placing the vessels in an oven, where they take several hours or even some days to cool. Similar phenomena are exhibited in a higher degree by glass-tears, or Prince Rupert’s drops. They are procured by letting drops of melted glass fall into cold water. Their form resembles that of a pear, rounded at one extremity, and tapering to a very slender tail at the other. If a part of the tail be broken off, the whole drop flies to pieces with a loud explosion; and yet the tail of a drop may be cut away by a glass-cutter’s wheel, or the thick end may be struck smartly with a hammer, without the fear of sustaining any injury. When heated to redness, and permitted to cool gradually in the open air, they lose these peculiarities, and do not differ sensibly from common glass.

The properties of unannealed glass depend on a peculiar structure, extending uniformly through its whole substance; and the bursting of a glass drop by breaking off the tail, or of an unannealed glass vessel, by dropping a piece of flint into it, arises from a crack being thus begun, which afterwards extends its ramifications in different directions throughout the glass.

When metals have been extended to a certain degree under the hammer, they become brittle, and incapable of being further extended without cracking. In this case the workman restores their malleability by annealing, or heating them red-hot. The rationale of this process seems to be, that the hammering and extension of the metal destroy the kind of arrangement which the particles of the metal had previous to the hammering; and that the annealing, by softening the metal, enables it to recover its original structure.

Of late years a mode has been discovered of rendering cast iron malleable, without subjecting it to the action of puddling. The process is somewhat similar to that employed in annealing glass. The metal is kept for several hours at a temperature a little below its fusing point, and then allowed to cool slowly. In this manner vessels are made of cast iron which can sustain considerable violence, without being broken. See Steel, softening of.

ANNOTTO. (Rocou, or roucou, Fr.; orleans, Germ.) A somewhat dry and hard paste, brown without, and red within. It is usually imported in cakes of two or three pounds weight, wrapped up in leaves of large reeds, packed in casks, from America, where it is prepared from the seeds of a certain tree, the bixa orellana, of LinnÆus.

The pods of the tree being gathered, their seeds are taken out and bruised; they are then transferred to a vat, which is called the steeper, where they are mixed with as much water as covers them. Here the substance is left for several weeks, or even months; it is now squeezed through sieves placed above the steeper, that the water containing the colouring matter in suspension may return, into the vat. The residuum is preserved under the leaves of the anana (pine-apple) tree, till it becomes hot by fermentation. It is again subjected to the same operation, and this treatment is continued till no more colour remains.

The substance thus extracted is passed through sieves, in order to separate the remainder of the seeds, and the colour is allowed to subside. The precipitate is boiled in coppers till it be reduced to a consistent paste; it is then suffered to cool, and dried in the shade.

Instead of this long and painful labour, which occasions diseases by the putrefaction induced, and which affords a spoiled product, Leblond proposes simply to wash the seeds of annotto till they be entirely deprived of their colour, which lies wholly on their surface; to precipitate the colour by means of vinegar or lemon juice, and to boil it up in the ordinary manner, or to drain it in bags, as is practised with indigo.

The experiments which Vauquelin made on the seeds of annotto imported by Leblond, confirmed the efficacy of the process which he proposed; and the dyers ascertained that the annotto obtained in this manner was worth at least four times more than that of commerce; that, moreover, it was more easily employed; that it required less solvent; that it gave less trouble in the copper, and furnished a purer colour.

Annotto dissolves better and more readily in alcohol than in water, when it is introduced into the yellow varnishes for communicating an orange tint.

The decoction of annotto in water has a strong peculiar odour, and a disagreeable taste. Its colour is yellowish-red, and it remains a little turbid. An alkaline solution renders its orange-yellow clearer and more agreeable, while a small quantity of a whitish substance is separated from it, which remains suspended in the liquid. If annotto be boiled in water along with an alkali, it dissolves much better than when alone, and the liquid has an orange hue.

The acids form with this liquor an orange-coloured precipitate, soluble in alkalies, which communicate to it a deep orange colour. The supernatant liquor retains only a pale yellow hue.

When annotto is used as a dye, it is always mixed with alkali, which facilitates its solution, and gives it a colour inclining less to red. The annotto is cut in pieces, and boiled for some instants in a copper with its own weight of crude pearl ashes, provided the shade wanted do not require less alkali. The cloths may be thereafter dyed in this bath, either by these ingredients alone, or by adding others to modify the colour; but annotto is seldom used for woollen, because the colours which it gives are too fugitive, and may be obtained by more permanent dyes. Hellot employed it to dye a stuff, prepared with alum and tartar; but the colour acquired had little permanence. It is almost solely used for silks.

For silks intended to become aurora and orange, it is sufficient to scour them at the rate of 20 per cent. of soap. When they have been well cleansed, they are immersed in a bath prepared with water, to which is added a quantity of alkaline solution of annotto, more or less considerable according to the shade that may be wanted. This bath should have a mean temperature, between that of tepid and boiling water.

When the silk has become uniform, one of the hanks is taken out, washed, and wrung, to see if the colour be sufficiently full; if it be not so, more solution of annotto is added, and the silk is turned again round the sticks: the solution keeps without alteration.

When the desired shade is obtained, nothing remains but to wash the silk, and give it two beetlings at the river, in order to free it from the redundant annotto, which would injure the lustre of the colour.

When raw silks are to be dyed, those naturally white are chosen, and dyed in the annotto bath, which should not be more than tepid, or even cold, in order that the alkali may not attack the gum of the silk, and deprive it of the elasticity which it is desirable for it to preserve.

What has been now said regards the silks to which the aurora shades are to be given; but to make an orange hue, which contains more red than the aurora, it is requisite, after dyeing with annotto, to redden the silks with vinegar, alum, or lemon juice. The acid, by saturating the alkali employed for dissolving the annotto, destroys the shade of yellow that the alkali had given, and restores it to its natural colour, which inclines a good deal to red.

For the deep shades, the practice at Paris, as Macquer informs us, is to pass the silks through alum; and if the colour be not red enough, they are passed through a faint bath of brazil wood. At Lyons, the dyers who use carthamus, sometimes employ old baths of this ingredient for dipping the deep oranges.

When the orange hues have been reddened by alum, they must be washed at the river; but it is not necessary to beetle them, unless the colour turns out too red.

Shades may be obtained also by a single operation, which retain a reddish tint, employing for the annotto bath a less proportion of alkali than has been pointed out.

Guhliche recommends to avoid heat in the preparation of annotto. He directs it to be placed in a glass vessel, or in a glazed earthen one; to cover it with a solution of pure alkali; to leave the mixture at rest for 24 hours; to decant the liquor, filter it, and add water repeatedly to the residuum, leaving the mixture each time at rest for two or three days, till the water is no longer coloured; to mix all these liquors, and preserve the whole for use in a well-stopped vessel.

He macerates the silk for 12 hours in a solution of alum, at the rate of an eighth of this salt for one part of silk, or in a water rendered acidulous by the aceto-citric acid above described; and he wrings it well on its coming out of this bath.

Silk thus prepared is put into the annotto bath quite cold. It is kept in agitation there till it has taken the shade sought for; or the liquor may be maintained at a heat far below ebullition. On being taken out of the bath, the silk is to be washed and dried in the shade.

For lighter hues, a liquor less charged with colour is taken; and a little of the acid liquid which has served for the mordant may be added, or the dyed silk may be passed through the acidulous water.

We have seen the following preparation employed for cotton velvet:—one part of quicklime, one of potash, two of soda.

Of these a ley is formed, in which one part of annotto is dissolved; and the mixture is boiled for an hour and a half. This bath affords the liveliest and most brilliant auroras. The buff (chamois) fugitive dye is also obtained with this solution. For this purpose only a little is wanted; but we must never forget, that the colours arising from annotto are all fugitive.

Dr. John found in the pulp surrounding the unfermented fresh seeds, which are about the size of little peas, 28 parts of colouring resinous matter, 26·5 of vegetable gluten, 20 of ligneous fibre, 20 of colouring extractive matter, 4 formed of matters analogous to vegetable gluten and extractive, and a trace of spicy and acid matters.

The Gloucestershire cheese is coloured with annotto, in the proportion of one cwt. to an ounce of the dye.

When used in calico-printing, it is usually mixed with potash or ammonia and starch.

It is an appropriate substance for tingeing varnishes, oils, spirits, &c.

The import duty upon annotto is 1s. per cwt. for flag, and 4s. for other sorts. In 1834, 252,981 lbs. were imported; and in 1835, 163,421 lbs. The revenue from this drug in these two years, was 180l. and 98l. respectively.

ANTHRACITE, from a???a?, coal, is a species of coal found in the transition rock formation, and is often called stone coal. It has a grayish black, or iron black colour, an imperfectly metallic lustre, conchoidal fracture, and a specific gravity of from 1·4 to 1·6, being, therefore, much denser than the coal of the proper coal measures. It consists wholly of carbon, with a small and variable proportion of iron, silica, and alumina. It is difficult to kindle in separate masses, and burns when in heaps or grates without smell or smoke, leaving sometimes an earthy residuum. It has been little explored or worked in the old world; but is extensively used in the United States of America, and has become of late years a most valuable mineral to that country, where it is burned in peculiar grates, adapted to its difficult combustion. In Pennsylvania the anthracite coal formation has been traced through a tract many miles in width, and extending across the two entire counties of Luzerne and Schuylkill. At Maunch Chunk, upon the Lehigh, 800 men were employed so far back as 1825, in digging this coal. In that year 750,000 bushels were dispatched for Philadelphia. It is worked there with little cost or labour, being situated on hills from 300 to 600 feet above the level of the neighbouring rivers and canals, and existing in nearly horizontal beds, of from 15 to 40 feet in thickness, covered by only a few feet of gravelly loam. At Portsmouth, in Rhode Island, an extensive stratum of this coal has been worked, with some interruptions, for 20 years; and more recently a mine of anthracite has been opened at Worcester, in Massachusetts, at the head of the Blackstone canal. It has been of late employed in South Wales, for smelting iron, and in a cupola blast furnace, by Mr. Crane.

ANTIGUGGLER. A small syphon of metal, which is inserted into the mouths of casks, or large bottles, called carboys, to admit air over the liquor contained in them, and thus to facilitate their being emptied without agitation or a guggling noise.

ANTIMONY. (Antimoine, Fr.; Spiessglanz, or Spiessglass, Ger.) The only ore of this metal found in sufficient abundance to be smelted, is the sulphuret, formerly called crude antimony. It occurs generally in masses, consisting of needles closely aggregated, of a metallic lustre, a lead-gray colour, inclining to steel-gray, which is unchanged in the streak. The needles are extremely brittle, and melt even in the flame of a candle, with the exhalation of a sulphureous smell. The powder of this sulphuret is very black, and was employed by women in ancient times to stain their eyebrows and eyelids. This ore consists in 100 parts of 72·86 metal, and 27·14 sulphur. Specific gravity from 4·13 to 4·6.

The veins of sulphuret of antimony occur associated with gangues of quartz, sulphate of barytes, and carbonate of lime; those of AllÉmont occur in the numerous fissures of a mica schist, evidently primitive.

In treating the ore to obtain the metal, the first object is to separate the gangue, which was formerly done by filling crucibles with the mixed materials, placing them on the hearth of an oven, and exposing them to a moderate heat. As the sulphuret easily melts, it ran out through a hole in the bottom of the crucible into a pot placed beneath, and out of the reach of the fire. But the great loss from breakage of the crucibles, has caused another method to be adopted. In this the broken ore, being sorted, is laid on the bottom of a concave reverberatory hearth, where it is reduced.

Figs. 18. 19. represent a wind or flame furnace, for the reduction of antimony. The hearth is formed of sand and clay solidly beat together, and slopes from all sides towards the middle, where it is connected with the orifice a, which is closed with dense coal-ashes; b is the air channel up through the bridge; c, the door for introducing the prepared ore, and running off the slags; d, the bridge; e, the grate; f, the fire or fuel-door; g, the chimney. With 2 or 3 cwt. of ore, the smelting process is completed in from 8 to 10 hours. The metal thus obtained is not pure enough, but must be fused under coal dust, in portions of 20 or 30 pounds, in crucibles, placed upon a reverberatory hearth.

To obtain antimony free from iron, it should be fused with some antimonic oxide in a crucible, whereby the iron is oxidized and separated. The presence of arsenic in antimony is detected by the garlic smell, emitted by such an alloy when heated at the blow-pipe; or, better, by igniting it with nitre in a crucible; in which case, insoluble antimonite and antimoniate of potash will be formed along with soluble arseniate. Water digested upon the mixture, filtered, and then tested with nitrate of silver, will afford the brown-red precipitate characteristic of arsenic acid.

According to Berthier, the following materials afford, in smelting, an excellent product of antimony: 100 parts of sulphuret; 60 of hammerschlag (protoxide of iron from the shingling or rolling mills); 45 to 50 of carbonate of soda; and 10 of charcoal powder. From 65 to 70 parts of metallic antimony or regulus should be obtained. Glauber salts may be used instead of soda. For another mode of smelting antimony, at Malbosc, in the department of ArdÈche, in France, see Liquation.

In the works where antimonial ores are smelted, by means of tartar (argol), the alkaline scoriÆ, which cover the metallic ingots, are not rejected as useless, for they hold a certain quantity of antimonial oxide in combination; a property of the potash flux, which is propitious to the purity of the metal. These scoriÆ, consisting of sulphuret of potassium and antimonite of potash, being treated with water, undergo a reciprocal decomposition; the elements of the water act on those of the sulphuret, and the resulting alkaline hydro-sulphuret re-acts on the antimonial solution, so as to form a species of kermes mineral, which precipitates. This is dried, and sold at a low price as a veterinary medicine, under the name of kermes, by the dry way.

Metallic antimony, as obtained by the preceding process, is the antimony of commerce, but is not absolutely pure; containing frequently minute portions of iron, lead, and even arsenic; the detection and separation of which belong to the sciences of chemistry and pharmacy. Antimony is a brittle metal, of a silvery white colour, with a tinge of blue, a lamellar texture, and crystalline fracture. When heated at the blowpipe, it melts with great readiness, and diffuses white vapours, possessing somewhat of a garlic smell. If thrown in this melted state on a sheet of flat paper, the globule sparkles, and bursts into a multitude of small spheroids, which retain their incandescence for a long time, and run about on the paper, leaving traces of the white oxide produced during the combustion. When this oxide is fused with borax, or other vitrifying matter, it imparts a yellow colour to it. Metallic antimony, treated with hot nitric acid and in a concentrated state, is converted into a powder, called antimonious acid, which is altogether insoluble in the ordinary acid menstrua; a property by which the chemist can separate that metal from lead, iron, copper, bismuth, and silver. According to Bergman, the specific gravity of antimony is 6·86; but Haidinger makes the Swedish native metal only 6·646. The alchemists had conceived the most brilliant hopes of this metal; the facility with which it is alloyed with gold, since its fumes alone render this most ductile metal immediately brittle, led them to assign to it a royal lineage, and to distinguish it by the title of regulus, or the little king.

Its chief employment now is in medicine, and in making the alloys called type metal, stereotype metal, music plates, and Britannia-metal; the first consisting of 6 of lead and 2 of antimony; the second of 6 of lead and 1 of antimony; the third of lead, tin, and antimony; and the fourth also of lead, tin, and antimony, with occasionally a little copper and bismuth.—For Glass of antimony, see Pastes.

ANTISEPTICS. Substances which counteract the spontaneous decomposition of animal and vegetable substances. These are chiefly culinary salt, nitre, spices, and sugar, which operate partly by inducing a change in the animal or vegetable fibres, and partly by rendering the aqueous constituent unsusceptible of decomposition. See Provisions, curing of.

ANVIL. A mass of iron, having a smooth and nearly flat top surface of steel; upon which blacksmiths, and various other artificers, forge metals with the hammer. The common anvil is usually made of seven pieces: 1, the core, or body; 2, 3, 4, 5, the four corner pieces which serve to enlarge its base; 6, the projecting end, which has a square hole for the reception of the tail or shank of a chisel on which iron bars may be cut through; and 7, the beak, or horizontal cone round which rods or slips of metal may be turned into a circular form, as in making rings. These 6 pieces are welded separately to the first, or core, and then hammered into an uniform body. In manufacturing large anvils two hearths are needed, in order to bring each of the two pieces to be welded, to a proper heat by itself; and several men are employed in working them together briskly in the welding state, by heavy swing hammers. The steel facing is applied by welding in the same manner. The anvil is then hardened by heating it to a cherry red, and plunging it into cold water; a running stream being preferable to a pool or cistern. The facing should not be too thick a plate, for, when such, it is apt to crack in the hardening. The face of the anvil is now smoothed upon a grindstone, and finally polished with emery and crocus, for all delicate purposes of art.

The blacksmith, in general, sets his anvil loosely upon a wooden block, and in preference on the root of an oak. But the cutlers and file-makers fasten their anvils to a large block of stone; which is an advantage, for the more firmly and solidly this tool is connected to the earth, the more efficacious will be the blows of the hammer on any object placed upon it.

AQUAFORTIS. Nitric acid, somewhat dilute, was so named by the alchemists on account of its strong solvent and corrosive operation upon many mineral, vegetable, and animal substances. See Nitric Acid.

AQUA REGIA. The name given by the alchemists to that mixture of nitric and muriatic acids which was best fitted to dissolve gold, styled by them the king of the metals. It is now called nitro-muriatic acid.

AQUA VITÆ. The name very absurdly given to alcohol, when used as an intoxicating beverage. It has been the aqua mortis to myriads of the human race; and will, probably, ere long destroy all the native tribes of North America and Australia.

ARCHIL. A violet red paste used in dyeing, of which the substance called cudbear in Scotland (from Cuthbert, its first preparer in that form), is a modification. Two kinds of archil are distinguished in commerce, the archil plant of the Canaries, and that of Auvergne. The first is most esteemed: it is prepared from the lichen rocellus, which grows on rocks adjoining the sea in the Canary and Cape de Verde Islands, in Sardinia, Minorca, &c., as well as on the rocks of Sweden. The second species is prepared from the lichen parellus, which grows on the basaltic rocks of Auvergne.

There are several other species of lichen which might be employed in producing an analogous dye, were they prepared, like the preceding, into the substance called archil. Hellot gives the following method for discovering if they possess this property. A little of the plant is to be put into a glass vessel; it is to be moistened with ammonia and lime-water in equal parts; a little muriate of ammonia (sal ammoniac) is added; and the small vessel is corked. If the plant be of a nature to afford a red dye, after three or four days, the small portion of liquid, which will run off on inclining the vessel, now opened, will be tinged of a crimson red, and the plant itself will have assumed this colour. If the liquor or the plant does not take this colour, nothing need be hoped for; and it is useless to attempt its preparation on the great scale. Lewis says, however, that he has tested in this way a great many mosses, and that most of them afforded him a yellow or reddish brown colour; but that he obtained from only a small number a liquor of a deep red, which communicated to cloth merely a yellowish-red colour.

Prepared archil gives out its colour very readily to water, ammonia, and alcohol. Its solution in alcohol is used for filling spirit-of-wine thermometers; and when these thermometers are well freed from air, the liquor loses its colour in some years, as AbbÉ Nollet observed. The contact of air restores the colour, which is destroyed anew, in vacuo, in process of time. The watery infusion loses its colour, by the privation of air, in a few days; a singular phenomenon, which merits new researches.

The infusion of archil is of a crimson bordering on violet. As it contains ammonia, which has already modified its natural colour, the fixed alkalies can produce little change on it, only deepening the colour a little, and making it more violet. Alum forms in it a precipitate of a brown red; and the supernatant liquid retains a yellowish-red colour. The solution of tin affords a reddish precipitate, which falls down slowly; the supernatant liquid retains a feeble red colour. The other metallic salts produce precipitates which offer nothing remarkable.

The watery solution of archil applied to cold marble, penetrates it, communicating a beautiful violet colour, or a blue bordering on purple, which resists the air much longer than the archil colours applied to other substances. Dufay says, that he has seen marble tinged with this colour preserve it without alteration at the end of two years.

To dye with archil, the quantity of this substance deemed necessary, according to the quantity of wool or stuff to be dyed, and according to the shade to which they are to be brought, is to be diffused in a bath of water as soon as it begins to grow warm. The bath is then heated till it be ready to boil, and the wool or stuff is passed through it without any other preparation, except keeping that longest in, which is to have the deepest shade. A fine gridelin, bordering upon violet, is thereby obtained; but this colour has no permanence. Hence archil is rarely employed with any other view than to modify, heighten, and give lustre to the other colours. Hellot says, that having employed archil on wool boiled with tartar and alum, the colour resisted the air no more than what had received no preparation. But he obtained from herb archil (l’orseille d’herbe) a much more durable colour, by putting in the bath some solution of tin. The archil thereby loses its natural colour, and assumes one approaching more or less to scarlet, according to the quantity of solution of tin employed. This process must be executed in nearly the same manner as that of scarlet, except that the dyeing may be performed in a single bath.

Archil is frequently had recourse to for varying the different shades and giving them lustre; hence it is used for violets, lilacs, mallows, and rosemary flowers. To obtain a deeper tone, as for the deep soupes au vin, sometimes a little alkali or milk of lime is mixed with it. The suites of this browning may also afford agates, rosemary flowers, and other delicate colours, which cannot be obtained so beautiful by other processes. Alum cannot be substituted for this purpose; it not only does not give this lustre, but it degrades the deep colours.

The herb-archil is preferable to the archil of Auvergne, from the greater bloom which it communicates to the colours, and from the larger quantity of colouring matter. It has, besides, the advantage of bearing ebullition. The latter, moreover, does not answer with alum, which destroys the colour; but the herb archil has the inconvenience of dyeing in an irregular manner, unless attention be given to pass the cloth through hot water as soon as it comes out of the dye.

Archil alone is not used for dyeing silk, unless for lilacs; but silk is frequently passed through a bath of archil, either before dyeing it in other baths or after it has been dyed, in order to modify different colours, or to give them lustre. Examples of this will be given in treating of the compound colours. It is sufficient here to point out how white silks are passed through the archil bath. The same process is performed with a bath more or less charged with this colour, for silks already dyed.

Archil, in a quantity proportioned to the colour desired, is to be boiled in a copper. The clear liquid is to be run off quite hot from the archil bath, leaving the sediment at the bottom, into a tub of proper size, in which the silks, newly scoured with soap, are to be turned round on the skein-sticks with much exactness, till they have attained the wished-for shade. After this they must receive one beetling at the river.

Archil is in general a very useful ingredient in dyeing; but as it is rich in colour, and communicates an alluring bloom, dyers are often tempted to abuse it, and to exceed the proportions that can add to the beauty without at the same time injuring in a dangerous manner the permanence of the colours. Nevertheless, the colour obtained when solution of tin is employed, is less fugitive than without this addition: it is red, approaching to scarlet. Tin appears to be the only ingredient which can increase its durability. The solution of tin may be employed, not only in the dyeing bath, but for the preparation of the silk. In this case, by mixing the archil with other colouring substances, dyes may be obtained which have lustre with sufficient durability.

We have spoken of the colour of the archil as if it were natural to it; but it is, really, due to an alkaline combination. The acids make it pass to red, either by saturating the alkali, or by substituting themselves for the alkali.

The lichen which produces archil is subjected to another preparation, to make turnsole (litmus). This article is made in Holland. The lichen comes from the Canary Islands, and also from Sweden. It is reduced to a fine powder by means of a mill, and a certain proportion of potash is mixed with it. The mixture is watered with urine, and allowed to suffer a species of fermentation. When this has arrived at a certain degree, carbonate of lime in powder is added, to give consistence and weight to the paste, which is afterwards reduced into small parallelopipeds that are carefully dried.

The latest researches on the lichens, as objects of manufacture, are those of Westring of Stockholm. He examined 150 species, among which he found several which might be rendered useful. He recommends that the colouring matter should be extracted in the places where they grow, which would save a vast expense in curing, package, carriage, and waste. He styles the colouring substance itself cutbear, persio, or turnsole; and distributes the lichens as follows:—1st. Those which left to themselves, exposed to moderate heat and moisture, may be fixed without a mordant upon wool or silk; such are the L. cinereus, Æmatonta, ventosus, corallinus, westringii, saxatilis, conspassus, barbatus, plicatus, vulpinus, &c.

2. Those which develop a colouring matter fixable likewise without mordant, but which require boiling and a complicated preparation; such are the lichens subcarneus, dillenii, farinaceus, jubatus, furfuraceus, pulmonareus, cornigatus, cocciferus, digitatus, ancialis, aduncus, &c. Saltpetre or sea-salt are requisite to improve the lustre and fastness of the dye given by this group to silk.

3. Those which require a peculiar process to develop their colour; such as those which become purple through the agency of stale urine or ammonia. Westring employed the following mode of testing:—He put three or four drachms of the dried and powdered lichen into a flask; moistened it with three or four measures of cold spring water; put the stuff to be dyed into the mixture, and left the flask in a cool place. Sometimes he added a little salt, saltpetre, quicklime, or sulphate of copper. If no colour appeared, he then moistened the lichen with water containing one twentieth of sal ammoniac, and one tenth of quicklime, and set the mixture aside in a cool place from eight to fourteen days. There appeared in most cases a reddish or violet coloured tint. Thus the lichen cinereus dyed silk a deep carmelite, and wool a light carmelite; the l. physodes gave a yellowish-gray; the pustulatus, a rose red; sanguinarius, gray; tartareus, found on the rocks of Norway, Scotland, and England, dyes a crimson-red. In Jutland, cutbear is made from it, by grinding the dry lichen, sifting it, then setting it to ferment in a close vessel with ammonia. The lichen must be of the third year’s growth to yield an abundant dye; and that which grows near the sea is the best. It loses half its weight by drying. A single person may gather from twenty to thirty pounds a day in situations where it abounds. No less than 2,239,685 pounds were manufactured at Christiansand, Flekkefiort, and Fakrsund, in Norway, in the course of the six years prior to 1812. Since more solid dyes of the same shade have been invented, the archil has gone much into disuse. Federigo, of Florence, who revived its use at the beginning of the fourteenth century, made such an immense fortune by its preparation, that his family became one of the grandees of that city, under the name of Oricellarii, or Rucellarii. For more than a century Italy possessed the exclusive art of making archil, obtaining the lichens from the islands of the Mediterranean. According to an official report of 1831, Teneriffe furnished annually 500 quintals (cwts.) of lichen; the Canary Isles, 400; Fuerta Santura, 300; Lancerot, 300; Gomera, 300; isle of Ferro, 800. This business belonged to the crown, and brought it a revenue of 1500 piastres. The farmers paid from 15 to 20 reals for the right to gather each quintal. At that time the quintal fetched in the London market 4l. sterling.

Archil is perhaps too much used in some cloth factories of England, to the discredit of our dyes. It is said, that by its aid one third of the indigo may be saved in the blue vat; but the colour is so much the more perishable. The fine soft tint induced upon much of the black cloth by means of archil is also deceptive. One half-pound of cutbear will dye one pound of woollen cloth. A crimson red is obtained by adding to the decoction of archil a little salt of tin (muriate), and passing the cloth through the bath, after it has been prepared by a mordant of tin and tartar. It must be afterwards passed through hot water.

ARDENT SPIRIT. Alcohol of moderate strength.

AREOMETER OF BAUMÉ. This scale is much used by the French authors.

Specific Gravity Numbers corresponding with BaumÉ’s Areometric Degrees.

ARGILLACEOUS EARTH. The earth of clay, called in chemistry alumina, because it is obtained in greatest purity from alum.

ARMS. Weapons of war. See Fire-Arms for an account of this manufacture.

ARRACK. A kind of intoxicating beverage made in India, by distilling the fermented juice of the cocoa-nut, the palmyra tree, and rice in the husk.

ARROW ROOT. The root of the maranta arundinacea, a plant which grows in the West Indies, furnishes, by pounding in mortars and elutriation through sieves, a peculiar species of starch, commonly but improperly called arrow root. It is reckoned more nourishing than the starch of wheat or potatoes, and is generally also freer from peculiar taste or flavour. The fresh root consists, according to Benzon, of 0·07 of volatile oil; 26 of starch (23 of which are obtained in the form of powder, while the other 3 must be extracted from the parenchyma in a paste by boiling water); 1·58 of vegetable albumen; 0·6 of a gummy extract; 0·25 of chloride of calcium; 6 of insoluble fibrine; and 65·6 of water.

The import duty upon arrow root from our own colonies, is 1s. per cwt.; from foreign parts, 2d. per lib. In 1835, 987,966 lbs. were imported, of which only 6267 were exported; leaving 895,406 for home consumption. The total revenue derived that year from arrow root, was 518l. See Starch.

ARSENIC. This metal occurs native, in the state of oxide, and also combined with sulphur under the improper name of yellow and red arsenic, or orpiment and realgar. Arsenic is associated with a great many metallic ores; but it is chiefly extracted from those of cobalt, by roasting, in which case the white oxide of arsenic, or, more correctly, the arsenious acid is obtained. This acid is introduced occasionally in small quantities into the materials of flint glass, either before their fusion, or in the melting pot. It serves to peroxidize the iron oxide in the sand, and thereby to purify the body of the glass; but an excess of it makes the glass milky.

Scheele’s green is a combination of this arsenious acid with oxide of copper, or an arsenite of copper, and is described under this metal.

Arseniate of potash is prepared, in the small way, by exposing to a moderate heat in a crucible, a mixture of equal parts of white arsenic and nitre in powder. After fusion, the crucible is to be cooled; the contents being dissolved in hot water, and the solution filtered, will afford regular crystals on cooling. According to M. Berzelius, they are composed of arsenic acid, 63·87; potash, 26·16; and water, 9·97. It is an acidulous salt, and is hence usually called the binarseniate, to denote that its composition is 2 atoms of arsenic acid, and 1 of potash. This article is prepared upon the great scale, in Saxony, by melting nitre and arsenious acid together in a cylinder of cast-iron. A neutral arseniate also is readily formed, by saturating the excess of acid in the above salt with potash; it does not crystallize. The acid arseniate is occasionally used in calico printing, for preventing certain points of the cotton cloth from taking on the mordant; with which view it is mixed up with gum water and pipe clay into a paste, which is applied to such places with a block.

The extraction of arsenic from the cobalt ores, is performed at Altenberg and Reichenstein, in Silesia, with an apparatus, excellently contrived to protect the health of the smelters from the vapours of this most noxious metallic sublimate.

Figs. 20. to 23. represent the arsenical furnaces at Altenberg. Fig. 20. is a vertical section of the poison tower; fig. 21., a longitudinal section of the subliming furnace A, with the adjoining vault B, and the poison tower in part at n; fig. 22., the transverse section of the furnace A, of fig. 21.; fig. 23., ground plan of the furnace A, where the left half shows the part above, and the right the part below the muffle or oblong retort; B' is the upper view, B'' the ground plan of the vault B, of fig. 21.; m, n, the base of the poison tower. In the several figures the same letters denote the same objects: a is the muffle; b is its mouth for turning over the arsenical schlich, or ground ore; c c c, fire draughts or flues; d, an aperture for charging the muffle with fresh schlich; e, the smoke chimney; f, two channels or flues for the ascent of the arsenious fumes, which proceed to other two flues g, and then terminate both in h, which conducts the fumes into the vault B. They issue by the door i, into the conduit k, thence by l into the spaces m, n, o, p, q, r, of the tower. The incondensable gases escape by the chimney, s. The cover t, is removed after completion of the process, in order to push down the precipitate into the lower compartments.

The arsenious schlichs, to the amount of 9 or 10 cwt. for one operation (1 roast-post, or roasting round), are spread 2 or 3 inches thick upon the bottom of the muffle, heated with a brisk fire to redness, then with a gentler heat, in order to oxidize completely, before subliming, the arsenical ore. With this view the air must have free entrance, and the front aperture of the muffle must be left quite open. After 11 or 12 hours, the calcined materials are raked out by the mouth of the muffle, and fresh ones are introduced by the openings indicated above, which are closed during the sublimation.

The arsenious acid found in these passages, is not marketable till it be re-sublimed in large iron pots, surmounted with a series of sheet iron drums or cast-iron cylinders, upon the sides of which the arsenic is condensed in its compact glassy form. The top cylinder is furnished with a pipe, which terminates in a condensing chamber.

Figs. 24, 25. represent the arsenic refining furnaces at Reichenstein. Fig. 24. shows at A, a vertical section of the furnace, the kettle, and the surmounting drums or cylinders; over B it is seen in elevation; fig. 25. is a ground plan of the four fireplaces. a is the grate; b, the ash pit; c, the openings for firing; d, the fire-place; e, iron pots or kettles which are charged with the arsenious powder; f, the fire flues proceeding to the common chimney g; h, iron cylinders; i, caps; k, pipes leading to the poison vent l; m, openings in the pipes for introducing the probing wires.

The conduct of the process is as follows:—The pot is filled nearly to its brim with 3¹/₂ cwt. of the arsenic meal, the cylinders are fitted on by means of their handles, and luted together with a mixture of loam, blood, and hair; then is applied first a gentle, and after half an hour, a strong fire, whereby the arsenic is raised partly in the form of a white dust, and partly in crystals; which, by the continuance of the heat, fuse together into a homogeneous mass. If the fire be too feeble, only a sublimate is obtained; but, if too violent, much of the arsenic is volatilized into the pipes. The workmen judge by the heat of the cylinders whether the operation be going on well or not. After 12 hours the furnace is allowed to cool, provided the probe wires show that the sublimation is over. The cylinders are then lifted off, and the arsenious glass is detached from their inner surface. According to the quality of the poison-flour, it yields from ³/₄ to ⁷/₈ of its weight of the glass or enamel. Should any dark particles of metallic arsenic be intermixed with the glass, a fresh sublimation must be had recourse to.

The following is the product in cwts. of arsenious acid, at Altenberg and Reichenstein, in Silesia, in the years

ARTESIAN WELLS. Under this name is designated a cylindrical perforation, bored vertically down through one or more of the geological strata of the earth, till it passes into a porous gravel bed containing water, placed under such incumbent pressure as to make it mount up through the perforation, either to the surface or to a height convenient for the operation of a pump. In the first case, these wells are called spouting or overflowing. This property is not directly proportional to the depth, as might at first sight be supposed, but to the subjacent pressure upon the water. We do not know exactly the period at which the borer or sound was applied to the investigation of subterranean fountains, but we believe the first overflowing wells were made in the ancient French province of Artois, whence the name of Artesian. These wells, of such importance to agriculture and manufactures, and which cost nothing to keep them in condition, have been in use, undoubtedly, for several centuries in the northern departments of France, and the north of Italy; but it is not more than 50 or 60 years since they became known in England and Germany. There are now a great many such wells in London and its neighbourhood, perforated through the immensely thick bed of the London clay, and even through some portions of the subjacent chalk. The boring of such wells has given much insight into the geological structure of many districts.

The formation of artesian wells depends on two things, essentially distinct from each other: 1. On an acquaintance with the physical constitution, or nature, of the mineral structure of each particular country; and, 2. On the skilful direction of the processes by which we can reach the water level, and of those by which we can promote its ascent in the tube. We shall first treat of the best method of making the well, and then offer some general remarks on the other subjects.

The operations employed for penetrating the soil are entirely similar to those daily practised by the miner, in boring to find metallic veins; but the well excavator must resort to peculiar expedients to prevent the purer water, which comes from deep strata, mingling with the cruder waters of the alluvial beds near the surface of the ground, as also to prevent the small perforation getting eventually filled with rubbish.

The cause of overflowing wells has been ascribed to a variety of circumstances. But, as it is now generally admitted that the numerous springs which issue from the ground proceed from the infiltration of the waters progressively condensed in rain, dew, snow, &c. upon the surface of our globe, the theory of these interior streamlets becomes by no means intricate; being analogous to that of syphons and water jets, as expounded in the treatises of physics. The waters are diffused, after condensation, upon the surface of the soil, and percolate downwards, through the various pores and fissures of the geological strata, to be again united subterraneously in veins, rills, streamlets, or expanded films, of greater or less magnitude, or regularity. The beds traversed by numerous disjunctions will give occasion to numerous interior currents in all directions, which cannot be recovered, and brought to the day; but when the ground is composed of strata of sand, or gravel very permeable to water, separated by other strata nearly impervious to it, reservoirs are formed to our hand, from which an abundant supply of water may be spontaneously raised. In this case, as soon as the upper stratum is perforated, the waters may rise, in consequence of the hydrostatic pressure upon the lower strata, and even overflow the surface in a constant stream, provided the level from which they proceed be proportionally higher.

The sheets of water occur principally at the separation of two contiguous formations; and, if the succession of the geological strata be considered, this distribution of the water will be seen to be its necessary consequence. In fact, the lower beds are frequently composed of compact sandstone or limestone, and the upper beds of clay. In level countries, the formations being almost always in horizontal-beds, the waters which feed the artesian wells must come from districts somewhat remote, where the strata are more elevated, as towards the secondary and transition rocks. The copious streams condensed upon the sides of these colder lands may be therefore regarded as the proper reservoirs of our wells.

Fig. 26. represents the manner in which the condensed water of the heavens distributes itself under the surface of our globe. Here we have a geological section, showing the succession of the several formations, and the sheets or laminÆ of water that exist at their boundaries, as well as in their sandy beds. The figure shows also very plainly that the height to which the water reascends in the bore of a well depends upon the height of the reservoir which supplies the sheet of water to which the well is perforated. Thus the well A, having gone down to the aqueous expanse A A, whose waters of supply are derived from the percolation M, will afford rising waters, which will come to the surface; whilst in the well B, supplied by the sheet P, the waters will spout above the surface, and in the well C they will remain short of it. The same figure shows that these wells often traverse sheets of water, which rise to different heights. Thus, in the well C there are five columns of ascending waters, which rise to heights proportional to the points whence they take their origin. Several of these will be spouting or overflowing, but some will remain beneath the surface.

The situation of the intended well being determined upon, a circular hole is generally dug in the ground, about 6 or 8 feet deep, and 5 or 6 feet wide. In the centre of this hole the boring is carried on by two workmen below, assisted by a labourer above, as shown in fig. 27.

The handle (fig. 28.) having a female screw in the bottom of its iron shank, with a wooden bar or rail passing through the socket of the shank, and a ring at top, is the general agent to which all the boring implements are to be attached. A chisel (fig. 29.) is first employed, and connected to this handle by its screw at top. If the ground is tolerably soft, the weight of the two workmen bearing upon the cross bar, and occasionally forcing it round, will soon cause the chisel to penetrate; but if the ground is hard or strong, the workmen strike the chisel down with repeated blows, so as to peck their way, often changing their situation by walking round, which breaks the stones, or other hard substances, that may happen to obstruct its progress.

The labour is very considerably reduced, by means of an elastic wooden pole, placed horizontally over the well, from which a chain is brought down, and attached to the ring of the handle. This pole is usually made fast at one end, as a fulcrum, by being set into a heap of heavy loose stones; at the other end the labourer above gives it a slight up and down vibrating motion, corresponding to the beating motion of the workmen below, by which means the elasticity of the pole in rising lifts the handle and pecker, and thereby very considerably diminishes the labour of the workmen. See fig. 27.

When the hole has been thus opened by a chisel, as far as its strength would permit, the chisel is withdrawn, and a sort of cylindrical auger (fig. 30.) attached to the handle (fig. 28.), for the purpose of drawing up the dirt or broken stones which have been disturbed by the chisel. A section of this auger is shown in fig. 31., by which the internal valve will be seen. The auger being introduced into the hole, and turned round by the workman, the dirt or broken stones will pass through the aperture at bottom (shown at fig. 32.), and fill the cylinder, which is then drawn up, and discharged at the top of the auger, the valve preventing its escape at bottom.

In order to penetrate deeper into the ground, an iron rod, as a, fig. 33., is now to be attached to the chisel, fig. 29., by screwing on to its upper end, and the rod is also fastened to the handle, fig. 28., by screwing into its socket. The chisel having thus become lengthened, by the addition of the rod, it is again introduced into the hole; and the operation of pecking or forcing it down, is carried on by the workmen as before. When the ground has been thus perforated, as far as the chisel and its rod will reach, they must be withdrawn, in order again to introduce the auger, fig. 30., to collect and bring up the rubbish; which is done by attaching it to the iron rod, in place of the chisel. Thus as the hole becomes deepened, other lengths of iron rods are added, by connecting them together, as a b are in fig. 34. The necessity of frequently withdrawing the rods from the holes, in order to collect the mud, stones, or rubbish, and the great friction produced by the rubbing of the tools against its sides, as well as the lengths of rods augmenting in the progress of the operation, sometimes to the extent of several hundred feet, render it extremely inconvenient, if not impossible, to raise them by hand. A tripedal standard is, therefore, generally constructed by three scaffolding poles tied together, over the hole, as shown fig. 27., from the centre of which a wheel and axle, or a pair of pully blocks is suspended, for the purpose of hauling up the rods, and from which hangs the fork, fig. 35. This fork is to be brought down under the shoulder, near the top of each rod, and made fast to it by passing a pin through two little holes in the claws. The rods are thus drawn up, about seven feet at a time, which is the usual distance between each joint, and at every haul a fork, fig. 36., is laid horizontally over the hole, with the shoulders of the lower rod resting between its claws, by which means the rods are prevented from sinking down into the hole again, while the upper length is unscrewed and removed. In attaching and detaching these lengths of rod, a wrench, fig. 37., is employed, by which they are turned round, and the screws forced up to their firm bearing.

The boring is sometimes performed for the first sixty or a hundred feet, by a chisel of 2¹/₂ inches wide, and cleared out by a gouge of 2¹/₄ diameter, and then the hole is widened by a tool, such as is shown at fig. 38. This is merely a chisel, as fig. 29., four inches wide, but with a guide, a, put on at its lower part, for the purpose of keeping it in a perpendicular direction; the lower part is not intended to peck, but to pass down the hole previously made, while the sides of the chisel operate in enlarging the hole to four inches. The process, however, is generally performed at one operation, by a chisel of four inches wide, as fig. 29., and a gouge of three inches and three quarters, as fig. 30.

It is obvious, that placing and displacing the lengths of rod, which is done every time that the auger is required to be introduced or withdrawn, must, of itself, be extremely troublesome, independent of the labour of boring, but yet the operation proceeds, when no unpropitious circumstances attend it, with a facility almost incredible. Sometimes, however, rocks intercept the way, which require great labour to penetrate; but this is always effected by pecking, which slowly pulverises the stone. The most unpleasant circumstance attendant upon this business is the occasional breaking of a rod into the hole, which sometimes creates a delay of many days, and an incalculable labour in drawing up the lower portion.

When the water is obtained in such quantities and of such quality as may be required, the hole is dressed or finished by passing down it a diamond chisel, funnel mouthed, with a triangular bit in its centre; this makes the sides smooth previous to putting in the pipe. This chisel is attached to rods, and to the handle, as before described; and, in its descent, the workmen continually walk round, by which the hole is made smooth and cylindrical. In the progress of the boring, frequent veins of water are passed through; but, as these are small streams, and perhaps impregnated with mineral substances, the operation is carried on until an aperture is made into a main spring, which will flow up to the surface of the earth. This must, of course, depend upon the level of its source, which, if in a neighbouring hill, will frequently cause the water to rise up, and produce a continued fountain. But if the altitude of the distant spring happens to be below the level of the surface of the ground where the boring is effected, it sometimes happens that a well of considerable capacity is obliged to be dug down to that level, in order to form a reservoir, into which the water may flow, and whence it must be raised by a pump; while, in the former instance, a perpetual fountain may be obtained. Hence, it will always be a matter of doubt, in level countries, whether water can be procured, which would flow near to or over the surface; if this cannot be effected, the process of boring will be of little or no advantage, except as an experiment to ascertain the fact.

In order to keep the strata pure, and uncontaminated with mineral springs, the hole is cased, for a considerable depth, with a metallic pipe, about a quarter of an inch smaller than the bore. This is generally made of tin (though sometimes of copper or lead) in convenient lengths; and, as each length is let down, it is held by a shoulder resting in a fork, while another length is soldered to it; by which means a continuous pipe is carried through the bore, as far as may be found necessary, to exclude land springs, and to prevent loose earth or sand from falling in, and choking the aperture.

Mr. John Good, of Tottenham, who had been extensively employed in boring the earth for water, obtained a patent, in Aug. 1823, for certain improved implements contrived by him to facilitate his useful labours; a description of which cannot fail to be interesting.

The figures annexed exhibit these ingenious tools; fig. 39. is an auger, to be connected by the screw-head to the length of rods by which the boring is carried on. This auger is for boring in soft clay or sand; it is cylindrical, and has a slit or opening from end to end, and a bit, or cutting-piece at bottom. When the earth is loose or wet, an auger of the same form is to be employed, but the slit or opening reduced in width, or even without a slit or opening. A similar auger is used for cutting through chalk; but the point or bit at bottom should then project lower, and, for that purpose, some of these cylindrical augers are made with moveable bits, to be attached by screws, which is extremely desirable in grinding them to cutting edges. Fig. 40. is a hollow conical auger, for boring loose sandy soils; it has a spiral cutting edge coiled round it, which, as it turns, causes the loose soil to ascend up the inclined plane, and deposit itself in the hollow within. Fig. 41. is a hollow cylinder or tube, shown in section, with a foot-valve, and a bucket to be raised by a rod and cord attached at the top; this is a pumping tool, for the purpose of getting up water and sand that would not rise by the auger. When this cylinder is lowered to the bottom of the bore, the bucket is lifted up by the rod and cord, and descends again by its own gravity, having a valve in the bucket, opening upwards, like other lift pumps; which, at every stroke, raises a quantity of water and sand in the cylinder equal to the stroke; the ascent and descent of the bucket being limited by a guide-piece at the top of the cylinder, and two small knobs upon the rod, which stop against the cross-guide. Fig. 42. is a tool for getting up broken rods. It consists of a small cylindrical piece at bottom, which the broken rod slips through when it is lowered, and a small catch with a knife-edge, acted upon by a back-spring. In rising, the tool takes hold of the broken rod, and thereby enables the workmen at top to draw it up. Another tool for the same purpose, is shown at fig. 43., which is like a pair of tongs; it is intended to be slidden down the bore, and for the broken rod to pass between the two catches, which, pressed by back-springs, will, when drawn up, take fast hold of the broken rod.

Fig. 44. is a tool for widening the hole, to be connected, like all the others, to the end of the length of rods passed down the bore; this tool has two cutting-pieces extending on the sides at bottom, by which, as the tool is turned round in the bore, the earth is peeled away. Fig. 45. is a chisel, or punch, with a projecting piece to be used for penetrating through stone; this chisel is, by rising and falling, made to peck the stone, and pulverize it; the small middle part breaking it away first, and afterwards the broad part coming into action. Fig. 46. is another chisel, or punching tool, twisted on its cutting edge, which breaks away a greater portion of the stone as it beats against it.

The manner of forcing down lengths of cast-iron pipe, after the bore is formed, is shown at fig. 47.; the pipe is seen below in the socket, at the end of which a block is inserted; and from this block a rod extends upwards, upon which a weight at top slides. To this weight cords are shown to be attached, reaching to the top of the bore; where the workmen alternately raise the weight and let it fall, which, by striking upon the block in its middle, beats down the pipe by a succession of strokes; and when one length of pipe has, by these means, been forced down, another length is introduced into the socket of the former. Another tool for the same purpose is shown at fig. 48., which is formed like an acorn; the raised part of the acorn strikes against the edge of the pipe, and by that means, it is forced down the bore. When it happens that an auger breaks in the hole, a tool similar to that shown at fig. 49. is introduced; on one side of this tool a curved piece is attached, for the purpose of a guide, to conduct it past the cylindrical auger; and at the end of the other side is a hook, which, taking hold of the bottom edge of the auger, enables it to be drawn up.

Wrought iron, copper, tin, and lead pipes, are occasionally used for lining the bore; and as these are subject to bends and bruises, it is necessary to introduce tools for the purpose of straightening their sides. One of these tools is shown at fig. 50., which is a bow, and is to be passed down the inside of the pipe, in order to press out any dents. Another tool, for the same purpose, is shown at fig. 51., which is a double bow, and may be turned round in the pipe for the purpose of straightening it all the way down; at fig. 52., is a pair of clams, for turning the pipe round in the hole while driving.

When loose stones lie at the bottom of the hole, which are too large to be brought up by the cylindrical auger, and cannot be conveniently broken, then it is proposed to introduce a triangular claw, as fig. 53., the internal notches of which take hold of the stone, and as the tool rises, bring it up. For raising broken rods, a tool like fig. 54. is sometimes employed, which has an angular claw that slips under the shoulder of the rod, and holds it fast while drawing up.

In raising pipes, it is necessary to introduce a tool into the inside of the pipe, by which it will be held fast. Fig. 55. is a pine-apple tool for this purpose; its surface is cut like a rasp, which passes easily down into the pipe, but catches as it is drawn up; and by that means brings the pipe with it. Fig. 56. is a spear for the same purpose, which easily enters the pipe by springing; at the ends of its prongs there are forks which stick into the metal as it is drawn up, and thereby raise it.

These are the new implements, for which the patent was granted. In the process of boring, there does not appear to be any thing new proposed; but that these several tools are to be employed for boring, packing, and otherwise penetrating, raising the earth, and extracting broken or injured tools. There are also suggestions for employing long buckets, with valves opening upward in their bottoms, for the purpose of drawing water from these wells when the water will not flow over the surface; also lift pumps, with a succession of buckets for the same purpose. But as these suggestions possess little if any novelty, it cannot be intended to claim them as parts of the patent.

ASPHALTUM. Native bitumen, so called from the lake Asphaltites.