JOSIAS CHRISTOPHER GAMBLE 1? 



manufacturer who introduced into the 

 United Kingdom what was known as the 

 French plan of working vitriol chambers, 

 that was with a constant draught through 

 them. When his plant was being altered to 

 this plan, his anxiety to retain the secret of 

 the arrangement, induced him with his own 

 hands and during the night to do the necessary 

 plumbing work himself. The articles he 

 manufactured were Sulphuric Acid, Bleaching 

 Powder, Alum, and Glauber's Salts, the last 

 of which he continued to make up from the 

 chlorine residues. The Alum he made from 

 pipe-clay, which he imported from Poole, and 

 potash, obtained from what was known as 

 sulphur ashes. These sulphur ashes were 

 the residues left in the brimstone burners or 

 ovens, into which brimstone, mixed with 

 nitrate of potash, used to be cast ; this work 

 was done by small boys, who with iron 

 spoons kept regularly throwing in the charge. 

 The process for the manufacture of 

 Glauber's Salts from the residues of the 

 chlorine stills, though little mentioned in 

 chemical books, was carried out on an exten- 

 sive scale nearly down to the year 1840, 

 about which date Messrs. Thos. Bell & Son, 

 of Newcastle-on-Tyne, prepared sulphate of 



