170 CHEMICAL MANURES. 



Landis, the company's chemist. The process, which is kept secret, 

 is, as far as can be ascertained, analocjoiis to that of Eeadman as- 

 regards the mineral and the furnace. The wavelUte, the phosphate 

 of ahiminium, and the phosphate of calcium, are roasted, mixed with 

 silica and wood charcoal, and reduced in an electric Imnace which 

 is one of the subjects of the invention. In January, 1907, a patent 

 was taken out to protect certain improvements on the furnace, with: 

 the view^ of preventing the escape of gas or vapours or their absorp- 

 tion by the lining of the furnace. This is realized by the use of a. 

 second exterior lining made of non-absorbent bricks, and by the use 

 of hydraulic joints for closing all the apertures of the furnace. The 

 furnace is fitted with an interior lining of bricks of retort charcoal 

 acting as electrode ; there are also several vertical electrodes of the 

 same material, which can be regulated either to establish a current 

 through the charge or to form an electric arc. The slag is run off 

 every three or four hours ; the phosphorus vapours are condensed 

 under water. It is very probable that it would be necessary to re- 

 sort to a supplementary treatment to eliminate the alumina con- 

 tained in the charge, and that the treatment is analogous to that 

 used in the Parker process ; that is the point which is kept secret.. 

 The phosphorus made by the greater number of the industrial pro- 

 cesses is a crude white phosphorus having the appearance of yellow 

 wax, and containing sand, charcoal, clay, and other impurities. 

 These impurities are removed in different w^ays, either by filtering- 

 the fused phosphorus under water on wood charcoal or through a 

 cloth, or by pressing by means of steam the fused mass through 

 porous porcelain, or by redistilling it in iron retorts. The best 

 method of purification, how^ever, is again to treat the crude fused 

 phosphorus, either by a mixture of bichromate of potash and 

 sulphuric acid, or by hypobromite of sodium. Some of the im- 

 purities dissolve, the others collect on a scum which floats to the 

 surface of the fused phosphorus.^ Owing to its highly poisonous- 

 nature, and the danger in manipulating white phosphorus, attempts 

 have been made to produce it in another form. Eed phosphorus, 



1 There is no occasion whatever to dissolve these materials in the acid pre- 

 vious to mixing. If the acid be heated to about 150° F. and the shoddy, leather 

 cnttines, greaves, scutch, etc., sent up the cups like the bone meal itself, the 

 acid completely dissolves the whole in one operat on. But that is in the case 

 of mixings where there is no pretence of making dissolved bones, and an odd 

 piece of core would tell no tale as it would in what purported to be a bone 

 manure. The translator has sent as much as 4 cwts. of leather to the ton of. 

 finished mixing up the cups, and not a particle of it was to be seen in the aggre- 

 gate 50 to 60 ton mixings when the doors of the " den " were opened three or- 

 four hours later. 



As already mentioned, such materials as leather and shoddy are invariably 

 used in Great Britain with mineral phosphates. They would absolutely spoil 

 the colour of pure dissolved bones and at once point to sophistication. — Tr. 



