96 Manufacture of Potash. 



washed with four times its bulk of water, the ash, though 

 still containing some potash, may be emptied out of the cask, 

 and thrown away, and a second charge introduced. If the 

 first lixiviation should prove weak, it may be used instead of 

 water for the first washing of the second quantity of ash ; 

 but, generally speaking, it will be as well to evaporate the 

 product of the two first washings of the first quantity of 

 ash, and to use the third and fourth washings instead of 

 water for the first and second washings of the second charge 

 of ashes. The process will then go on regularly ; the two 

 last washings of each charge being used as the two first of 

 the succeeding charge, and the two first washings of each 

 being removed to the boilers for the purpose of being 

 evaporated. 



The arrangements for evaporation are simple enough. A 

 couple of iron pots, or a greater number in proportion to 

 the quantity of ashes to be reduced, will be all the apparatus 

 required. The solution before described will be pumped or 

 ladled into these pots ; and a fire being kept up, the water 

 will gradually pass away in steam. It would be as well to 

 keep filling the boiler with fresh solution as fast as the water 

 was evaporated, so that the contents would become more and 

 more concentrated ; and at last, when the boiler was nearly 

 full of matter of the consistence of honey, no more of the 

 solution should be added ; but the fire might be forced, until 

 the whole of the water being drawn off", the potash itself 

 would enter into fusion, which it would do at a low red heat. 

 During this latter part of the process care must be taken to 

 keep stirring the potash with an iron rod ; and when the 

 whole has entered into fusion, the fire may be withdrawn 

 from under the boiler, and the mass allowed to cool ; the 

 stirring being still continued in order to granulate the 

 potash, and to secure the escape of all carbonaceous matter, 

 which might injure the marketable quality of the potash by 



