40 REPORT-—1868. 
On the Manufacture of Sulphur from Alkali Waste in Great Britain. 
By Dr. Lupwic Monn. 
The author called attention to a new industry—the recovery of sulphur from 
alkali waste, which had made very rapid progress during the past few years. The 
importance of the subject had been very ably pointed out in 1861 by Mr. Gossage, 
in a paper “On a History of Soda Manufacture.” Mr. Gossage stated that two- 
fifths of the total cost for raw materials used for the production of a ton of soda- 
ash was incurred for pyrites from which to procure a supply of sulphur; and it 
was well known that nine-tenths of this sulphur was retained in the material 
called alkali waste, which was thrown away by the manufacturer. A problem 
was thus presented for solution, which, if it could he effected, would cause a large 
reduction in the cost of soda. The author stated that the problem had been very 
near a satisfactory solution, and called attention to a process with which his name 
was connected. He took out a patent in 1863 for the process, and its merits had 
been very fully recognized in this country. The process was carried out in the 
following way :—The first product of Leblanc’s famous process for the manufac- 
ture of soda, called rough soda or black ash, was now almost universally lixiviated 
with water in an apparatus which was first used for this purpose in Great Britain, 
and was composed of a number of iron tanks connected in a very simple manner 
by pipes and taps, &e., so as to allow the water to enter a tank filled with black 
ash already nearly spent, and thence to flow through others filled with black ash 
vicher and richer in alkali, until it met fresh black ash in the last tank, thus 
becoming an almost concentrated solution of alkali before leaving the apparatus. 
The alkali waste, or insoluble residue cf the black ash, remained thus in these 
tanks deprived of alkali, and as it had been immersed in the liquor throughout 
.the whole time of lixiviation, it was consequently obtained in a very porous corn- 
dition. The tanks were always provided with a false bottom. The whole process 
of oxidation and lixiviation of the waste, though it was repeated three times, was 
finished in from sixty to seventy-two hours. When the waste left the tanks, all 
the recorerable sulphur had been taken out of it, and could no more give rise to 
the dreadful exhalations of sulphuretted hydrogen, or to the formation of those 
well-known yellow drainage liquors which had hitherto caused the waste to be so 
ereat a nuisance, the one poisoning the air and the other the water in the neigh- 
bourhood of the vast heaps of waste surrounding many works. Almost all tke 
sulphur left in the waste cxisted in the form of sulphite and sulphate of calcium, 
which were both innocuous ; and together with the carbonate and hydrated oxide 
of calcium, as well as with a little soda, alumina, and soluble silica, which were all 
to be found in the waste, made this waste a very valuable manure for many soils 
and crops. By other processes which the author explained, he obtained sulphur 
of a dark colour, the waste from which was turned to advantage and made com- 
paratively harmless. By the author’s processes fully one-half of the sulphur con- 
tained in the waste was recovered. The cost was small. <A plant for the recovery 
of 10 tons of sulphur per week would be about £800; and the sulphur could be 
made at £1 per ton. The recovered sulphur being very pure, was not used to 
replace pyrites in the manufacture of soda; but for purposes where Sicilian sulphur 
or brimstone had hitherto been employed, this Sicilian sulphur having a much 
higher value than the sulphur in pyrites, and averaging upwards of £6 per ton. 
And so large were the quantities of brimstone used, that the British alkali trade, 
in spite of its enormous extent, could snly produce a small portion of the sulphur 
yearly exported from Sicily, which country had hitherto had the monopoly of the 
supply of this article. 
On Chloride of Methylene obtained from Chloroform by means of Nascent 
Hydrogen. By W. H. Prrxin, LBS. 
From the history of monocarbon derivative, as it stands at present, it would 
appear that there exist several bodies isomeric with each other; thus we haye the 
description of two bromides of methyl, the one liquid and the other gaseous ; two 
chlorides of methylene, the one boiling at 30°5 C., and the other at 40°C., &e. Yet 
it is considered by some chemists that this isomerism is improbable, and that 
these substances, if reexamined, would be found to he identical. 
