159 
Paper . 
Mease*s edition of the Encyclopedia, a very useful work, but con- 
taining much that may be thrown out, and wanting much that 
might be usefully added. I wish the Doctor would re-edit that 
j book. 
In the year 1790, a Frenchman came to Manchester to propose* 
a new discovery in bleaching. A meeting was called, but the in- 
formation he thought fit to give, was not of consequence enough to 
entitle him to attention. Mr. Thomas Henry, (the father of Dr. 
W. Henry, the chemist) myself, and Mr. C. Taylor, (afterwards 
secretary to the Adelphi Society of Arts) agreed that this was 
meant to be Berthollet’s application of Scheele^s discovery of the 
dephlogisticated marine acid (oxymuriatic acid.) We set to work, 
and made a quantity of the acid, and bleached with it several spe- 
cimens of calico ; imperfectly, because they required the cleans- 
ing of alkaline lixivia. During our experiments, it occurred to 
me, that as manganese was dirty, frequently impure, and frequent- 
ly given out carbonic acid when treated with oil of vitriol, and that 
the residuum was not convertible to any known use, we had better 
employ minium or red lead, which I knew to contain 12 or 14 per- 
cent of pure air. 
" It succeeded perfectly ; and the vitriolated lead which formed 
the residuum, might be reduced to lead again. In hastily and 
carefully combining the vapour of this very pungent and unplea- 
sant acid, by a strong bottle, well corked, it occurred to a friend of 
mine, Mr. Baker, a manufacturer of oil of vitriol, that the acid in' 
question might be at once made without distillation in a vessel suf- 
ficiently strong. He tried it at home in a strong decanter, and suc- 
ceeded. I embarked with him in reducing this discovery to prac- 
tice, and until I came to this country, used it with perfect success 
on from 800 to 1200 pieces of calico weekly. The process was 
never published in England ; I gave it to Dr. Mease, and nobody 
has noticed it. I give it again, that it may be more extensively 
known. 
The plate accompanying the paper communicated by Mr. Cist, 
contains also a view of one of the machines used by Mr. Baker 
and myself, to make the oxymuriatic acid in, 
The method of making this acid for bleaching, commonly used in 
Manchester and elsewhere, is by adding to 3 parts, by weight of 
manganese, 8 parts of common salt and 6 parts of oil of vitriol, and 
12 of water.. ..These are distilled together, and the products received 
in barrels of water, arranged in the manner of Woi fe’s appara- 
