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THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



shape of wool and mutton. There are 

 10,000,000 sheep in Buenos Ayres that 

 are boiled for nothing but the tallow and 

 this wool. The total amount of wool 

 grown in the United States is 250,000,- 

 000 lbs.; the wool fat is 45,000,000 lbs. 

 and the potash salts are 300,000,000 lbs. 

 from the same material. France utilizes 

 some of this material in the making of 

 potashes by burning it, and in the use of 

 carbon disulphide by extracting the 

 wool fat. In the United States they use 

 gasolin for the latter purpose, and the 

 potasli soap is left behind in the fleece, 

 and when washed out with water, con- 

 tains 6 to 19 per cent, of carbonate of 

 potash. France and Belgium brought 

 this industry to a very high pitch, and 

 made 2,000,000 lbs. of carbonate of 

 potash from wool every year. 



Since the production of sugar from the 

 beet root was put in force, a large quan- 

 tity of molasses is produced ; that they 

 cannot even use on buckwheat cakes 

 because it tastes badly : the first thing 

 they do with it is to utilize the sugar 

 in it ; they do this in the process of 

 fermenting it, and they get a liquid con- 

 taining from 4 to 5 per cent, of alcohol. 

 The residues in the stills are called 

 Vinasse, and they practically consist of 

 what is left in the beet-root molasses : 

 these are mixed with chalk and then 

 evaporated ; lime sulphate crystallizes 

 out and is separated ; the rest of the 

 liquor is evaporated and incinerated for 

 potash salts. 



In Europe there are some 500,000,000 

 lbs. of molasses made from the beet root 

 every year that have 5^ per cent, of 

 potash in them. After it is taken out 

 and incinerated, it gives a commercial 

 substance that is called Salin, and which 

 contains from 42 to 52 per cent, of potash 

 carbonate, and is very valuable. 



So much for utilizing kelp, the potash 

 from wool and the potash from the beet 



root, all these things were used for mak- 

 ing soap and glass. When Leblanc 

 discovered or rather worked out the pro- 

 cess of making soda, he took a common 

 material like salt, made salt cake with 

 oil of vitriol, mixed the salt cake with 

 coal and limestone in a furnace, and he 

 produced what is termed black ash, and 

 then from that product by leaching and 

 evaporation he gets this material which 

 is soda- ash. The black-ash contains 

 from 37 to 41 per cent.; that is about the 

 average ratio of carbonate of soda ; it 

 contained a great deal more soda than 

 sea-weed or any natural product ; some 

 of the natural alkali contains more than 

 this, but not much of it is found. To 

 give you an idea of the enormous 

 amounts of these materials used in the 

 United States, I will simply say that the 

 total amount in 1890 was 997,000,000 

 lbs.; in 1890 only half of these were 

 imported, and today the United States 

 is making some show and producing 

 364,000,000 lbs. 



This process of making soda by the 

 Leblanc method went on for a great 

 many years until somebod}' conceived 

 the idea of making it cheaper than by 

 the method of Leblanc, I refer to the 

 ammonia process invented by Sol way. 

 Now, I may say that there is required 

 for the ammonia process very little more 

 capital or rather a little less capital than 

 there is for the Leblanc process. The 

 amount of capital to produce 1 ton ol 

 soda by the ammonia process is $37; by 

 the Leblanc process it is $40. The sul- 

 phate of ammonia which is the basis of 

 operations in the Solway process is about 

 4 to 8 per cent, loss on the Soda Ash 

 produced, and with care that can be re- 

 duced to 2^ per cent. 



When Leblanc made soda from salt, 

 one of the greatest troubles of the manu- 

 facturer got to be the expense of taking 

 care of the so-called soda waste. If any 



