ON THE MANUFACTURE OF COMPOSITE CANDLES AT CLICHY. 483 



character of its manufacturing mark. Let us see what series of operations 

 resulted from this. The first is the melting of tallow. No industrial 

 manipulation is more infectious or more nauseous — none more repulsive 

 for the neighbours. The factories where it is carried on are built as far 

 as possible from the centre of habitation. The authority for establishing 

 them is a sort of privilege. The use of the tallow candle, which 

 scarcely extended to the south, where oil was abundant and very cheap, 

 was extended, and became perfected in the north of Europe — in parti- 

 cular, in France. The butchers themselves melted their fat and made 

 candles of it. Towards 1016, a corporation of chandlers was established 

 by Philip I., re-arranged towards 1470, and kept its privileges to the end 

 of the last century. Moreover, without being as much shackled and as 

 well regulated as formerly, it is, however, practised under a very active 

 superintendence of the police prefecture and of the supervision of the 

 butchers of Paris. The tallow arrives at the manufactory en branche, 

 that is to say, as it comes from the offal-houses and butcheries. The 

 sooner it is brought the better, especially in summer ; in fact, the fat- 

 matter is enveloped in fibrous cells, eminently liable to putrefaction, 

 which decomposes rapidly at their contact. In order to disengage these 

 fat-matters from the membranes which envelop them, two means are 

 employed : the most ancient consists in melting the tallow in copper 

 pans, then to extract, by strong pressure, all the liquid part, and having 

 for remainder des cretons (the residue of tallow) in little loaves. The 

 procedure employed at Clichy consists in reducing the fusion of the 

 tallow into a liquid with an addition of sulphuric acid, which destroys 

 completely all the membranes, and brings with it a certain quantity of 

 glycerine, when they pour the mixture into large vats, capable of con- 

 taining four or five thousand kilogrammes ; they barrel up the tallow, 

 after having previously added a little water and sulphuric acid ; they 

 then introduce a current of vapour at 1 33° by means of a serpentine pipe, 

 perforated with little holes ; ebullition commences, the cells open, and 

 the membranes are destroyed. At the end of four hours, it is poured into 

 crystallising copper vessels and left to cool ; they then rack and leave it 

 to settle in forms of wood named jalots. The tallow then takes the form 

 of cone-shaped loaves. By this process they withdraw about 88 to 100 

 per cent, of useful matter, already white, purified from all organic bodies 

 not belonging to it, leaving a little glycerine, which it is necessary to 

 get rid of altogether. This object is attained by saponification, that is 

 to say, by the combination of the fat acids of the tallow with a basis. 

 The tallow coming out of the melting-house in a state of stearine, the 

 margarate and oleate of glycerine are collected in gigantic vats, capable 

 of containing 10,000 kilogrammes of matter, and are put in fusion by 

 means of an injection of vapour, admitted by a serpentine pipe at the 

 bottom of the vat. They add lime, dissolved in water, which soon seizes 

 on the acids, forms stearate, margarate, and oleate of lime. All the 

 glycerine is racked and poured into the Seine, for they have not yet 



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