' = 
88 Properties of Wood Ashes. 
ness fora considerable time. -In this case there could be no doubt 
of the presence of carbon ; yet after cooling, the mixture weigh- 
ed just four hundred and eighty grains, and. consequently had 
suffered no ponderable loss. -9. I now placed the crucible as it 
came from the furnace in the eighth experiment in a smith’s 
forge, and heated it to incandescence for several minutes, At 
this heat the ashes lost nine grains, leaving at least four grains 
of the adventitious carbon unconsumed. . 10. Four hundred and 
eighty grains of sifted ashes, hot from the stove, were put into 
the crucible, and exposed.to the highest heat of a smith’s forge 
for twenty minutes. On cooling, they weighed only four hun- 
dred and thirty one grains, having sustained a loss of forty nine 
grains! -'T’he ashes in the. middle of the surface were gray, but 
all other parts throughout were bluish brown, or blackish and 
wn. The mass was porous, considerably contracted, and 
cracked. through the centre nearly to the bottom of the erucible; 
it crumbled under considerable pressure, but retained its form in 
water, yielding up its soluble parts without falling to. pieces. 
Throughout the slag were scattered grains of a beautiful cerulean 
hue, insoluble in nitric or sulphuric acid, and exhibiting . under 
the microscope a botryoidal surface. 'These grains were evidently 
the product of the intense heat of the forge; and if we can sup- 
pose a sufficient quantity of alumine present inthe ashes, what 
forbids them being Hauyne of domestic manufacture ? 
During this last crucibulation, care wastaken, as before, to prez 
vent the escape of ashes; the crucible was kept erect and well 
covered with a steel plate, and. every precaution used to avoid 
error. Add to this vigilance, the fact that the ashes did not.oc- 
culpy more than one third the depth of the crucible, and we can 
hardly conceive that reverberating currents of air from the bel- 
lows, could dissipate any of the ashes. But.to determine whether 
the loss was attributable. to such an accident, or to the loose state 
of the ashes, I tried experiment 11. Seven hundred and twenty 
nine grains of hot, sifted ashes, were pressed into the crucible, 
and carefully hinted in the forge. for fifteen. minutes, The loss 
was seventy grains, or 9.6+ percent. ‘I'he ashes were scorified, 
