358 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



utilize the borate of lime, in the form of ulexite, for the conversion 

 into borax of the carbonate of soda held in the water of Hachinhama. 



The ulexite was brought by car-loads from the deserts east of the 

 Sierra Nevada to San Francisco, and thence to Clear Lake, and a great 

 increase in the borax yield of Hachinhama was the result. The proc- 

 ess adopted was to saturate, with the ulexite, the boiling lye from 

 the lixiviating tanks, before it had acquired sufficient strength to crys- 

 tallize on cooling. A double decomposition was thus accomplished, 

 resulting in a thick, milky-looking mixture which was an intensified 

 solution of borax, rendered turbid by the insoluble carbonate of lime, 

 this latter speedily settling and leaving the clear borax-liquor for con- 

 centration and crystallization. 



Practically, however, this solution was never pure, for here came 

 in again the same fact which had been demonstrated in the first work- 

 ings at Hachinhama, that the bulk of the liquid in which the action 

 took place had much to do with the chemical union accomplished. In 

 laboratory experiments the work was perfect, and a boiling-heat of 

 only a few minutes formed the full theoretical amount of borax 

 demanded ; yet, when dealing with large quantities, this proved im- 

 practicable. Although violent boiling was long continued, even for 

 hours, analysis of the lye showed that a certain proportion of the car- 

 bonate of soda still remained untouched by the boracic acid, and that, 

 too, when the ulexite employed was in excess of the amount which 

 careful analysis showed was sufficient to saturate the carbonate of 

 soda present. And this excess was a necessity, and the daily working 

 came to recognize it and to act accordingly, for, when the even theo- 

 retical quantity only was used, a much larger proportion of the soda 

 remained untouched. 



The operations at Hachinhama continued vigorously till 1874, by 

 which time the enormous supply of borax brought into the market 

 from Nevada had reduced the price to so low a point that further pro- 

 duction became impossible. Hachinhama supplied all the American 

 borax made from the cessation of work at Borax Lake in 1868 till 

 1873, and the two localities afforded between 1864 and 1874 all that 

 was ever made in California. The yield of Hachinhama, during the 

 last two years of its running, was something over 5,000 cases of 112 

 pounds each. 



The immense stock crowding upon the market, which has reduced 

 the price of borax to very nearly one fourth of its former rate, is com- 

 monly called " California borax," but that is a misnomer, originating 

 in the fact that it has necessarily been shipped from San Francisco ; it 

 is exclusively a product of Nevada. It is, in its look, so unlike the 

 ordinary English borax, or that made at Hachinhama, that the con- 

 trast is very striking. Still it is practically the same, and has the 

 same working value. 



A glance at the map of the State of Nevada shows a large number 



