KALI. The Arabs gave this name to an annual plant which grows near the sea-shore; now known under the name of salsola soda, and from whose ashes they extracted a substance, which they called alkali, for making soap. The term kali is used by German chemists to denote caustic potash; and kalium, its metallic basis; instead of our potassa and potassium, of preposterous pedigree, being derived from the words pot ashes, that is ashes prepared in a pot.

KAOLIN, (Terre À porcelaine, Fr.; Porzellanerde, Germ.), is the name given by the Chinese to the fine white clay with which they fabricate the biscuit of their porcelains. See Clay. Berthier’s analyses of two porcelain earths are as follows:—

KARABÉ, a name of amber, of Arabic origin, in use upon the Continent.

KELP; (Varec, Fr.; Wareck, Germ.), is the crude alkaline matter produced by incinerating various species of fuci, or sea-weed. They are cut with sickles from the rocks in the summer season, dried and then burned, with much stirring of the pasty ash. I have analyzed many specimens of kelp, and found the quantity of soluble matter in 100 parts of the best to be from 53 to 62, while the insoluble was from 47 to 38. The soluble consisted of—

The insoluble matter consisted of—

The first of these specimens was from Heisker, the second from Rona, both in the isle of Skye, upon the property of Lord Macdonald. From these, and many other analyses which I have made, it appears that kelp is a substance of very variable composition, and hence it was very apt to produce anomalous results, when employed as the chief alkaline flux of crown glass, which it was for a very long period. The fucus vesiculosus and fucus nodosus are reckoned to afford the best kelp by incineration; but all the species yield a better product when they are of two or three years growth, than when cut younger. The varec, made on the shores of Normandy, contains almost no carbonate of soda, but much sulphate of soda and potash, some hyposulphate of potash, chloride of sodium, iodide of potassium, and chloride of potassium; the average composition of the soluble salts being, according to M. Gay Lussac, 56 of chloride of sodium, 25 of chloride of potassium, and a little sulphate of potash. The very low price at which soda ash, the dry crude carbonate from the decomposition of sea salt, is now sold, has nearly superseded the use of kelp, and rendered its manufacture utterly unprofitable—a great misfortune to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

KERMES. There are two substances so called, of totally different natures. Kermes mineral is merely a factitious sulphuret of antimony in a state of impalpable comminution, prepared in the moist way. Its minute examination belongs to pharmaceutical chemistry. It may be obtained perfectly pure, by diluting the proto-chloride of antimony with solution of tartaric acid, and precipitating the metal with sulphuretted hydrogen; or by exposing the finely levigated native sulphuret to a boiling solution of carbonate of potash for some time, and filtering the liquor while boiling hot. The kermes falls down in a brown-red powder, as the liquor cools.

Kermes-grains, alkermes, are the dried bodies of the female insects of the species coccus ilicis, which lives upon the leaves of the quercus ilex (prickly oak). The word kermes is Arabic, signifies little worm. In the middle ages, this dye stuff was therefore called vermiculus in Latin, and vermillion in French. It is curious to consider how the name vermillion has been since transferred to red sulphuret of mercury.

Kermes has been known in the East since the days of Moses; it has been employed from time immemorial in India to dye silk; and was used also by the ancient Greek and Roman dyers. Pliny speaks of it under the name of coccigranum, and says that there grew upon the oak in Africa, Sicily, &c. a small excrescence like a bud, called cusculium; that the Spaniards paid with these grains, half of their tribute to the Romans; that those produced in Sicily were the worst; that they served to dye purple; and that those from the neighbourhood of Emerita in Lusitania (Portugal) were the best.

In Germany, during the ninth, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the rural serfs were bound to deliver annually to the convents, a certain quantity of kermes, the coccus polonicus, among the other products of husbandry. It was collected from the trees upon Saint John’s day, between eleven o’clock and noon, with religious ceremonies, and was therefore called Johannisblut, (Saint John’s blood), as also German cochineal. At the above period, a great deal of the German kermes was consumed in Venice, for dyeing the scarlet to which that city gives its name. After the discovery of America, cochineal having been introduced, began to supersede kermes for all brilliant red dyes.

The principal varieties of kermes are the coccus quercus, the coccus polonicus, the coccus fragariÆ, and the coccus uva ursi.

The coccus quercus insect lives in the south of Europe upon the kermes oak. The female has no wings, is of the size of a small pea, of a brownish-red colour, and is covered with a whitish dust. From the middle of May to the middle of June the eggs are collected, and exposed to the vapour of vinegar, to prevent their incubation. A portion of eggs is left upon the tree for the maintenance of the brood. In the department of the Bouches-du-Rhone, one half of the kermes crop is dried. It amounts annually to about 60 quintals or cwts., and is warehoused at Avignon.

The kermes of Poland, or coccus polonicus, is found upon the roots of the scleranthus perennis and the scleranthus annuus, in sandy soils of that country and the Ukraine. This species has the same properties as the preceding; one pound of it, according to Wolfe, being capable of dyeing 10 pounds of wool; but Hermstaedt could not obtain a fine colour, although he employed 5 times as much of it as of cochineal. The Turks, Armenians, and Cossacks, dye with kermes, their morocco leather, cloth, silk, as well as the manes and tails of their horses.

The kermes called coccus fragariÆ, is found principally in Siberia, upon the root of the common strawberry.

The coccus uva ursi is twice the size of the Polish kermes, and dyes with alum a fine red. It occurs in Russia.

Kermes is found not only upon the lycopodium complanatum in the Ukraine, but upon a great many other plants.

Good kermes is plump, of a deep red colour, of an agreeable smell, and a rough and pungent taste. Its colouring matter is soluble in water and alcohol; it becomes yellowish or brownish with acids, and violet or crimson with alkalis. Sulphate of iron blackens it. With alum it dyes a blood-red; with copperas an agate gray; with copperas and tartar, a lively gray; with sulphate of copper and tartar, an olive green; with tartar and salt of tin, a lively cinnamon yellow; with more alum and tartar, a lilac; with sulphate of zinc and tartar, a violet. Scarlet and crimson dyed with kermes, were called grain colours; and they are reckoned to be more durable than those of cochineal, as is proved by the brilliancy of the old Brussels tapestry.

Hellot says that previous to dyeing in the kermes bath, he threw a handful of wool into it, in order to extract a blackish matter, which would have tarnished the colour. The red caps for the Levant are dyed at Orleans with equal parts of kermes and madder; and occasionally with the addition of some Brazil wood.

Cochineal and lac-dye have now nearly superseded the use of kermes as a tinctorial substance, in England.

KILLAS, is the name by which clay-slate is known among the Cornish miners.

KILN; (Four, Fr.; Ofen, Germ.) is the name given to various forms of furnaces and stoves, by which an attempered heat may be applied to bodies; thus there are brick-kilns, hop-kilns, lime-kilns, malt-kilns, pottery-kilns. Hop and malt kilns, being designed merely to expel the moisture of the vegetable matter, may be constructed in the same way. See Brick, Limestone, Malt, Pottery, for a description of their respective kilns.

KINIC ACID; a peculiar acid extracted by Vauquelin from cinchona.

KINO, is an extractive matter obtained from the nauclea gambir, a shrub which grows at Bancoul and Sumatra, but principally in Prince of Wales’ Island. It is of a reddish-brown colour, has a bitter styptic taste, and consists chiefly of tannin. It is used only as an astringent in medicine. Kino is often called a gum, but most improperly.

KIRSCHWASSER, is an alcoholic liquor obtained by fermenting and distilling bruised cherries, called kirschen in German. The cherry usually employed in Switzerland and Germany is a kind of morello, which on maturation becomes black, and has a kernel very large in proportion to its pulp. When ripe, the fruit being made to fall by switching the trees, is gathered by children, thrown promiscuously, unripe, ripe, and rotten into tubs, and crushed either by hand, or with a wooden beater. The mashed materials are set to ferment, and whenever this process is complete, the whole is transferred to an old still covered with verdigris, and the spirit is run off in the rudest manner possible, by placing the pot over the common fire-place.

The fermented mash is usually mouldy before it is put into the alembic, the capital of which is luted on with a mixture of mud and dung. The liquor has accordingly, for the most part, a rank smell, and is most dangerous to health, not only from its own crude essential oil, but from the prussic acid, derived from the distillation of the cherry-stones.

There is a superior kind of kirschwasser made in the Black Forest, prepared with fewer kernels, from choice fruit, properly pressed, fermented, and distilled.

KNOPPERN, are excrescences produced by the puncture of an insect upon the flower-cups of several species of oak. They are compressed or flat, irregularly pointed, generally prickly and hard; brown when ripe. They abound in Styria, Croatia, Sclavonia, and Natolia; those from the latter country being the best. They contain a great deal of tannin, are much employed in Austria for tanning, and in Germany for dyeing fawn, gray, and black. Wool, with a mordant of sulphate of zinc, takes a grayish nankeen colour. See Galls.

KOUMISS, is the name of a liquor which the Calmucs make by fermenting mare’s milk, and from which they distil a favourite intoxicating spirit, called rack or racky. Cow’s milk is said to produce only one third as much spirit, from its containing probably less saccharine matter.

The milk is kept in bottles made of hides, till it becomes sour, is shaken till it casts up its cream, and is then set aside in earthen vessels in a warm place to ferment, no yeast being required, though sometimes a little old koumiss is added. 21 pounds of milk put into the still afford 14 ounces of low wines, from which 6 ounces of pretty strong alcohol, of an unpleasant flavour, are obtained by rectification.