260 Researches on the Commercial Potash 



water spout to be an electrical body, and that it might be broken or 

 dispersed, by presenting to it the point of a bright sword ; and even 

 some modern writers have asserted that they have been brolcen by 

 this means. 



I know but little of the laws of electricity, but from its palpable 

 force when attracted from one object to another, I should be very 

 unwilling to hold the sword if I believed in the theory. 



You will please excuse the length to which I have drawn out this 

 letter. When I began, it was my intention only to give you a de- 

 scription of the water spouts as I saw them, and to this I beg leave 

 to call your attention, rather than to my own opinions which are 

 merely the result of observation. A scientific knowledge of the sub- 

 ject might perhaps bring me to very different conclusions. 



Art. XIII. — Researches on the Commercial Potash of the State of 

 New YorJc ; by Lewis C, Beck, M.D., Professor of Chemistry 

 in the University of the City of New York, &ic. 



TO PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. 



Potash is one of those articles, the manufacture of which, it has 

 been deemed advisable to regulate by inspection laws, the avowed 

 object of which is to protect the consumer against the negligence or 

 frauds of the manufacturer. In this State, the propriety of legislative 

 action on this subject is, perhaps, more apparent than elsewhere, in 

 consequence of the value of the manufacture, which may be estima- 

 ted at more than a million of dollars annually. But from the nature 

 of the article in question, it became difficult to devise an unexcep- 

 tionable mode of inspection, without the employment of some chem- 

 ical processes which although sufficiently simple, have not been hith- 

 erto adopted. Hence potash of an inferior quality, has sometimes 

 passed throu^-h the ordinary inspection, and found its way into our 

 own markets and into those of foreign countries. This fact which 

 was in a good degree attributable to the erroneous notions which pre- 

 vailed in some parts of the State, concerning the principles of the 

 manufacture, upon being communicated to Gov. Throop, induced 

 him to present the subject to the consideration of the legislature. 

 The result was a formal investigation, during the sessions of 1832 and 

 1833, by the committee on trade and manufactures of that body ; 



