298 
On the Process of BLEACHING with 
the oxygenated muriatic Acid; and a De- 
scription of anew Apparatus for Bleaching 
Cloths with that Acid dissolved in Water, with- 
out the Addition of Alkali. By THEOPHILUS 
Lewis Rupp. 
READ FEB, 9, 1798. 
‘Lae arts, which supply the luxuries, convenien- 
cies, and necessaries of life, have derived but little 
advantage from philosophers. A view of the history 
of arts will evince the justice of this observation. 
In mechanics, for instance, we find that the most 
important inventions and improvements have been 
made, not through the reasonings of ‘philoso- 
phers, but through the ingenuity of artists, and 
not unfrequently by common workmen. The che- 
mist, in particular, if we except the pharmacecu- 
tical laboratory, has but little claim on the arts: on 
the contrary, he is indebted to them for the greatest 
discoveries and a prodigious number of facts, which 
form the basis of his science. In the discovery 
of the art of making bread, of,the vinous and 
acetous fermentations, of tanning, of working 
ores and metals, of making glass and soap, 
of the action and ‘application of manures, and in 
numberless other discoveries of the highest import- 
ance, though they are all chemical processes, the 
chemist has no share, But no branch of the useful 
