1HE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



61 



thing that may be interesting. We have 

 to-day in the United States glass works 

 running that were started simultaneously 

 with the introduction of the Leblanc 

 alkali, — the Glass works at Glassboro, 

 New Jersey, which were started in the 

 year 1775. 



Another industry that involved the use 

 of alkali was a substance used by man to 

 keep himself clean. I must say that the 

 earliest efforts of men to keep themselves 

 clean were very curious and involved the 

 use of juices of certain plants, and one 

 very curious method was the use of the 

 so-called Fuller's earth, a kind of ferru- 

 ginous earth which was painted upon the 

 skin, and then beaten off again; you 

 were painted, then you brushed yourself 

 after becoming dry, and that cleaned 

 you. Now this curious method of using 

 something to take the dirt off the skin 

 was used as late as the 12th century by 

 the Romans. At the time of the use of 

 this material Pliny tells us that soap was 

 made by the Gauls with fat beechwood 

 ashes. The first factory was at Pompeii 

 and the kettles and utensils were found 

 well preserved when they were excavated. 

 From 7 to 9 per cent, of alkali is used in 

 making soap and is one of the chief arti- 

 cles of commerce to-day. 



Soap making as an art was practiced 

 in Italy and Spain in the 8th century 

 and it took five hundred years after that 

 to convert other nations to the use of 

 soap. It was not until the 13th century 

 that it was introduced into France at 

 Marseilles on the shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean. The Marseilles Castile soap 

 was made of olive oil and soda and pot- 

 ash during the 13th century; along the 

 shores of the Mediterranean were found 

 certain marine plants that gave ashes 

 rich in alkali, and although France pro- 

 duced a great deal of olive oil they found 

 it impossible to raise sufficient to supply 

 her soap manufacture and they afterwards 



went to Italy, so that Italy and Spain 

 were led to compete with France for the 

 preparation of Castile soap. Spain also 

 continued to develop the growth of sal- 

 sola or the ashes of the saltwort, the par- 

 ticular plant that gave the alkali neces- 

 sary to the soap manufacture. The Gei 

 mans were the first to produce soft soap 

 to get hard soap by salting out. When 

 I tell you that at this stage of affairs the 

 alkali for these manufactures both for 

 soap and glass cost twenty times as much 

 as it does to-day, you can see how hard 

 or how expensive it was to keep clean. 



Incidentally to the preparation of soap 

 and also in the preparation of some kinds 

 of glass, wood ashes were used, and the 

 ashes were leached out and gave what we 

 term potashes and what we know as car- 

 bonate of potash to -da)'. Sea - weed 

 ashes contain varying amounts of potash, 

 some of them only one-half of one per 

 cent, of potash, — others like the Fumi- 

 tory contain about 80 per cent, of car- 

 bonate of potash. In the early history 

 of this country potashes for the manu- 

 facture of soap and glass was a material 

 of export to Europe and was a very im- 

 portant matter, and 16,000 tons of pot- 

 ashes were formerly exported, made from 

 wood ashes. To-day, there might be a 

 great deal more of this material saved if 

 people would take the trouble to collect 

 waste woody matter. As an example 

 take corn cobs. These contain about 1 

 per cent, of carbonate of potash. There 

 are 1,100 million bushels of corn raised 

 in the United States; these give 14 lbs. 

 of cob to the bushel, which is equal to 

 7,700,000 tons of cobs, and would give 

 115,500,000 lbs. or 51,000 tons of car- 

 bonate of potash. All this goes to waste. 



I said a few minutes ago that ashes 

 and seed- weeds were used in the manu- 

 facture of glass, they were also used in 

 the manufacture of soap. Now, before 

 the introduction of barilla or the ashes 



