216 JAMES SHANKS 



black-ash balls, and they retained more of 

 their porosity ; it also prevented the exposure 

 of the ash to the air for any length of time ; 

 but the plant took up too much room, was 

 costly, and entailed too much labour in 

 working ; still in some places on the Con- 

 tinent it has only been abandoned during the 

 latter years. 



The third arrangement or " Shank's Vats " 

 is the one now universally adopted in Great 

 Britain. Wagner, who was professor of 

 technology at Wiirtzburg, and whose work, 

 " Chemical Technology," which is translated 

 and edited in this country by William 

 Crookes, F. R. S., states : " Mr. James 

 Shanks, of St. Helens, Lancashire, was the 

 first to found a rational and economical plan 

 of lixiviation, or what is termed methodical 

 filtration, based upon the fact that a solution 

 becomes more dense the more saline matter 

 it has in solution, and that a column of weak 

 lye of a certain height equilibrates a shorter 

 column of stronger lye ; " but Lunge, in his 

 treatise on the manufacture of alkali, 

 states : " It was usual to call it Shanks' 

 lixiviating process, after A. W. Hofmann, in 

 his report by the Juries of Exhibits in the 

 International Exhibition, 1862 page 22 of 



