67 
- Soap of WooL 
to my former work, instructing them how to prepare, as 
a substitute for soft soap, (which is at present made use 
and we must, in order to make them serve our purpose, mix with them a greater 
proportion of quick-lime. 
3. Those ashes also are preferable which are produced from hard wood : those 
which are left after the burning of floated wood cannot be made use of with 
equal -uccess. 
4. Fat oils, of a thick consistence, are most proper for the purpose here spo» 
ken of: fine thin oils are by no means fit for it. 
5. If stinking oil be made use of, it is apt to give a bad smell to the linen ; this 
may be removed by passing the linen carefully through a strong pure ley ; butj, 
in general, this smell goes off as the linen becomes dry. 
6. When the mixture of oil with the ley is of a yellow colour, it must be di- 
luted with water. 
7 When the oil rises in the ley, and swims upon the surface of it, in the form 
of small drops, it shows that the oil is not fit for the purpose, not being thick 
enough ; or else, that <be ley is too strong, or not sufficiently caustic. 
8. To prevent the quick-lime from losing its power, and that we may always 
have some to use when we want it, it may be broken into small pieces, and kept 
4n bottles well dried, and well corked. 
Second Method „ 
Floated wood, which is made use of in many parts of France, produces ashes 
which contain very little alkaline salt, and which are consequently very im- 
proper for making leys ; in that case, barilla, or potash, may be used instead of 
them . 
Take barilla, and break it into pieces about the size of a walnut ; put these 
into a vessel of any kind, and pour upon them twenty times their weight wa- 
ter : the water is to be left upon the barilla, till it appears, by putting a little 
upon the tongue, to be slightly salt. 
Some oil is then to be put into an earthen vessel, and forty times as much of 
the barilla ley is to be poured upon it : the mixture, which soon becomes milky, 
is to be well shaken, or stirred; and, after being diluted with more ■; . ss clean 
water, according to its strength, . .id the purpose for which it is intended, is to 
be made \ ■<> like a solution < •; soap in water. 
Instead of barilla, potash may be employed, but it requires a small quantity of 
pounded quick-lime to be mixed with it. 
Observations. 
h Alicant or Carthagena barilla may be used without any mixture of Iime^ 
but the bad barilla of our country requires to have mixed with it a greater of 
less proportion of lime, according to its degree of strength and = . • ity. 
2. When barilla, of whatever kind it be, is in a state oi efflorescence, it cannot 
foe employed without a mixture oi lime. 
