208 JAMES SHANKS 



attended with any measure of success. One 

 of Shanks' friends was a German, Baron von 

 Seckendorff, who lived at Dresden ; he was 

 a man of scientific leanings, and inclined 

 to invention, and he appears to have per- 

 suaded Shanks to take out for him in this 

 country a patent for an improved mode of 

 manufacturing sulphuric acid, His project 

 was to decompose sulphate of lime, natural 

 or artificial, by means of chloride of lead, 

 and to form chloride of lime and sulphate 

 of lead with hydrochloric acid, and obtain 

 chloride of lead and sulphuric acid, which 

 was drawn off and concentrated. We fancy 

 it must be cited as one of the instances 

 of Shanks' good nature, that he allowed 

 himself to stand sponsor for this idea of 

 his friend. In September, 1858, Shanks 

 patented a process of preparing chlorine by 

 the use of chromate of lime. He placed a 

 quantity of chromate of lime in a stone or 

 other still, and to it added hydrochloric 

 acid, until the liquor became of a grass 

 green colour, when about half the chlorine 

 was expelled, heat was applied by steam 

 or otherwise, either externally or internally, 

 as is commonly practised in bleaching- 

 powder stills. From the residue, chromate 



