16 WILLIAM GOSSAGE 



sulphur and the simplification of the Leblanc 

 process will shortly be made public. This 

 process is due to Mr. Gossage, whose father 

 was the pioneer of all such attempts. This 

 gentleman has recently taken out a patent for 

 producing sodium carbonate from salt-cake 

 without the intervention of limestone in the 

 furnace. He claims to have surmounted the 

 difficulties hitherto experienced in converting 

 the salt-cake into sodium sulphide, utilises 

 the ordinary black-ash revolving furnace for 

 the operation, and uses lime-kiln gases, as the 

 others do, for evolving sulphuretted hydrogen 

 from the sodium sulphide, with simultaneous 

 production of sodium carbonate. The inventor 

 regards his inventions on a large scale in the 

 works as perfectly satisfactory, and it is hoped 

 ere long he will favour us with a detailed 

 account of his process. If it is found to 

 answer all his expectations, it must be re- 

 garded as a distinct advance on what Chance 

 has done. For, while recovering the sulphur 

 of the pyrites by the same means and a 

 similar method of working to that employed 

 by Chance, it does so with a simultaneous 

 production of sodium carbonate, eliminates 

 the limestone altogether from the operation, 

 and, while retaining the use of the expensive 



