xl INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



" which unavoidably gave equivocal results on the first trials of 

 " this alkaline salt. 



" It would be superfluous to enumerate the advantages to our 

 " commerce from the collection of such considerable quantities of 

 " this salt, as may with great facility be made upon this island, 

 " as they must be self-evident to every one who is acquainted with 

 " the great consumption of this article in some of our most useful 

 " manufactures in England ; and with the considerable amount 

 '* which is ''paid to foreign nations for the importation of the 

 " mineral alkali. 



" It makes a finer and harder soap than the vegetable alkali ; 

 " some of our first chemists have preferred it to the other fixed 

 " alkali in the manufacturing of glass ; and it is, I believe, 

 " adopted, as a very useful article in the Materia Medica. At 

 " present, our markets, I understand, are supplied with this useful 

 " salt from Montpelier, where a very impure soda is prepared 

 " from the kali ; and with a purer kind from Alicant, and per- 

 " haps from other situations upon the Mediterranean coasts. 



" I have received the specimens of the plant, salt, &c. which 

 " you have sent me : and I will take an early opportunity, after 

 " my arrival in England, of submitting the salt to further che- 

 " mical tests, the results of which, together with every other 

 " information on the subject, I will with much pleasure com- 

 " municate to the Honourable the Court of Directors, agreeable 

 " to your desires." 



Soon after my arrival, I gave my attention to this valuable 

 but neglected plant : and several experiments were undertaken 

 with a view of ascertaining the best mode of burning, and the 

 expense of manufacturing it into barilla. In the early stages of 

 those experiments, some samples had been forwarded to England : 

 but as they were from old plants injudiciously burnt, the barilla 



