Bleaching by Sulphuret, — Decompofitlon of Acid of Borax. J57 



iBy what I could learn from different bleachers, the common allowance of alkali for fixty 

 gallons of water is fix pounds of barilha, or four pounds of potafh, at the very leaft, and 

 moft bleachers ufe more than this. The price of four pounds of pota(b, at the rate of 65 1. 

 a ton, is about 2s. 4d. ; which is ad. more than double the price of the fulphuret : but as the 

 brimflone mud be ground, an allowance fliould be made for it, and being eafy of pulveriza- 

 tion, a farthing per pound is an ample confideration for the expence attending it. 



The faving of fuel only now remains to be taken into confideration ; and as this cannot 

 be calculated with any degree of accuracy, I (hall content myfelf by particularizing the fa£ts. 

 In the firft place, but fixteen gallons of liquid are to be boiled in preparing fixty gallons of 

 the fulphuret, while the whole fixty gallons muft be boiled when the alkali is ufed ; hence 

 it might appear that two thirds of the fuel are faved in the quantity of liquor, but it is not 

 quite fo much ; fuppofe we eftimate it at one half, which is rather under-rating it ?Let us add 

 to this the time neceffary to boil the different liquors ; the fulphuret requires but about half 

 an hour, and the alkaline lixivium at the veryleafl fevenhours^ to boil the linen in it, which 

 is in the proportion of one to fourteen. 



The faving altogether to the bleacher from this ftatement is obviouffy very confiderable ; 

 and as the Wicklow copper mines are fufHcient to fupply the whole kingdom, or indeed two 

 fuch kingdoms, with abundance of fulphur, let the confumption be ever fo great, the entire 

 of the alkali, or 215,307 1. muft be annually faved to the nation. 



But fuppofe two thirds only of the quantity of alkali generally confuraed in bleaching were 

 difpenfed with by the ufe of the fulpliuret (which is a fuppofition not warranted by any ex- 

 periment), ftill the faving to the nation, and to the individual j muft evidently be great in- 

 deed. 



VI. 



On the Decompofitlon of the Add of Borax, or Sedative Salt. By LAURENCE BE CreLLj 

 M.D. F.R.S. London and Edinburgh, and M.R.LA. Tranflated from the German.* 



X. HE fait called Borax, fo ufeful in various manufactures and arts, and hitherto imported 

 only from Thibet and Perfia, or in fraall quantities from Tranquebarf, has ever excited 

 the attention of natural philofophers. This attention was principally directed to the acid 

 (called the fedative fait) contained in it ; its other component part, the alkaline fait (foda or 

 natron), being better known, and found in many other natural produdions, either al 

 in conjunction with other acids. The acid above mentioned has hitherto been dliwvered 

 only by Hofer in the Lagone of Caftelnuovo ; by Martinovich in the petroleum of Gallicia J, 



I 

 * Phil. Tranf. 1799. t Demachyms in Laborantin Groflen, part II. p. 89^ 



J Crell's Annalena. 179 1. 1. 1, p. 16a. 



* mixed 



