AMERICAN POTASH. 277 



Ashes. Potass. 



100 parts Feathered rush . . .4-33593 0-50811 



Stalks of Turkey wheat . 8-88 1-75 



Wormwood 9-744 7-3 



Fumitory 21*9 7-9 



Trifolium pratense . . . 0-078 



Vetches 2-75 



Beans with their stalks . 2'0 



Vauquelin found that one pound of the ashes of 

 horse-chesnuts yielded nearly six and a half ounces 

 of potash, and six ounces were obtained from the 

 husk. The same chemist discovered that the greatest 

 proportion of pure alkali is contained in the fruit of 

 the Spanish lilac, or Syringa vulgaris, the ashes of 

 which yield one half of pure alkali. M. Jacobson, 

 the editor of the German Technological Dictionary, 

 asserts that dried or withered leaves of the beech- 

 tree afford the vegetable alkali in great abundance, 

 insomuch that ten pounds weight of the ashes ob- 

 tained from these leaves contain as much potash as 

 thirty pounds of common wood ashes. 



The ashes of different vegetable substances vary 

 extremely in the proportion of other salts which they 

 contain, but there is rarely any plant to be found the 

 ashes of which do not yield an alkali. The tamarisk- 

 tree, it is said, is a remarkable exception ; its ashes 

 yielding no alkali by lixiviation, but affording sulphate 

 of soda in great abundance. 



In some parts of Germany potash is obtained from 

 the same parcels of wood of which charcoal is made. 

 A number of tubes, made of plate iron or of copper, 

 are so disposed in the pile of wood that the products 

 which would otherwise be wasted in the combustion 

 are collected in these tubes and pass on to reservoirs 

 connected with them. The fluid thus obtained is the 

 oil, acid, alkali, and aqueous and other juices of the 

 plant. The oil being separated the remainder is 



2 B 



