CHAPTER XXVI. 



ELECTRICAL PRODUCTS BLEACHING-POWDER. 



Another industry that has assumed large 

 proportions at Niagara Falls, owing to the vast 

 quantity of electricity produced there, is the 

 manufacture of a commercial product called 

 bleaching-powder, or chloride of lime. Every 

 one knows that chloride of sodium is simply 

 common salt, so extensively used wherever 

 people and animals exist. Simple and harmless 

 as it is, while it exists as a compound of the 

 original elements, when separated into those 

 elements they are each very unpleasant and 

 even dangerous substances to handle. Salt is 

 one of the most common substances in nature. 

 It is found in many parts of the world in solid 

 beds, and is one of the prominent constituents 

 of sea-water. 



Salt is a compound of chlorine and a metal 

 called sodium. Sodium in its pure state has a 

 strong affinity for oxygen, so much so that 

 when a lump of it is thrown into water it takes 

 fire and burns violently with a yellow flame. 

 Chlorine, the substance with which it unites 

 to form common salt, is a greenish-colored gas, 

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