404 ON THE UTILIZATION OF WASTE, 



wool was obtained, and used. If, on the other hand, you wished to 

 save the cotton of this mixed fabric, you dipped the material into an 

 alkali and dissolved the wool. The alkali did not dissolve the cotton, 

 but the wool, being dissolved, was separated from the cotton, and the 

 cotton was saved. Now, Mr. F. 0. Ward has shown in the Exhibition 

 a pretty process for economising both fibres, or at least for getting a 

 chemical product from both fibres, and it is very simple. Here are the 

 rags as they are presented — the rags containing both of the substances 

 — cotton and wool. They are subjected to a current of steam at three 

 or four atmospheres — that is to say, hotter than ordinary ; and when 

 this heated steam passes through the rags it converts the wool into a 

 sort of bituminous or resinous matter which becomes brittle. There is 

 a portion of it which has been acted on by the steam. 1 agitate it, and 

 the wool separates as a powder, and the cotton is as firm and as strong 

 as it was before. All the wool has gone away from it, because it has 

 been converted into this resinous substance. When this wool becomes 

 dry it can be separated by a kind of combined beating and sieving pro- 

 cess ; and now there remains the cotton. The cotton in this state is 

 sold as ordinary cotton rags to the bleacher who bleaches it, and it is 

 converted into paper. There is some paper made from the cotton rags 

 bleached in this way. This substance which I have shaken off here, and 

 which has come upon this paper, is the wool and is still valuable. It 

 ontains 12 per cent, of nitrogen, and therefore is in a condition which 

 makes it a good manure, and it is sold as such under the name of " ulmate 

 of ammonia." I ought to tell you that the woollen rags are never too waste 

 to be converted into manure. All the early broccoli which comes up from 

 Cornwall is forced on by being manured with these woollen rags. 



Prussiate of Potash. — Attempts have been made to improve the 

 manufacture largely, but without any great success. Still, it is such an 

 interesting application of the waste substances which contain nitrogen, 

 that it would not do to pass it over in a lecture upon waste materials. 

 In the making of prussiate of potash, almost all the things which are 

 too waste and too refuse to be employed for the higher purposes of 

 waste substances, such as I have shown you there, as cloths and paper- 

 hangings, are employed for making this salt. For instance, the horns of 

 cattle, the hoofs of cattle, clippings of leather, the cast-off woollen 

 garments of the Irish peasantry, and all sorts of things which are re- 

 fuse, are mixed up with pearlash, or carbonate of potash, which, you 

 know, comes from the ashes which remain after the combustion of 

 wood, and with old scraps of iron. Old iron hoops from beer barrels, 

 broken hoops, iron nails, old iron horse shoes, or any old scrap iron 

 which can be obtained, is mixed up with this refuse, pearlash blood, 

 and other substances, and they are all fused together in a pot, and after 

 they are fused together in this way they are dissolved out in water, 

 and then they are transformed from their ugly primary condition to 

 this beautiful salt, which is yellow prussiate of potash. It is a cyanide 



