8 
MANURES. 
properties. Touch, your tongue with a bit of quick* 
lime: it has a hot, burning, bitter taste. These are 
called alkaline properties. Besides these, they have 
the power of combining with and taking the sours out 
of all sour liquids or acids; that is, the acid and the 
alkali neutralize each other. This word alkali is of 
Arabic origin; its very name shows one of the pro¬ 
perties of alkalies. Kali is the Arabic word for bitter, 
and al is like our word super: we say fine and super¬ 
fine ; so kali is bitter; alkali, superlatively bitter, or 
truly, alkali means, the “dregs of bitterness.” 
I wish, reader, for your own sake, as well as my 
own, that you should fix in your mind what I have 
said about alkali and alkaline properties. Alkali is a 
general term. It includes all those substances which 
have an action like the ley of wood ashes, which you 
use for soap making. If this ley is boiled down dry, 
you know it forms potash. How lime, fresh slacked, 
has the alkaline properties of potash, but weaker, and 
so has the calcined magnesia of the shops, but in less 
degree than lime. Here we have two substances, 
earthy in their look, having alkaline properties. They 
are called, therefore, alkaline earths. But what we 
understand chiefly by the term alkalies, means pot¬ 
ash, soda, and ammonia. Potash is the alkali of land 
plants; soda is the alkali of sea plants; and ammonia 
is the alkali of animal substances. Potash and soda 
are fixed ; that is, not easily raised in vapor by fire. 
Ammonia always exists as vapor unless fixed by 
something else. Hence we have a distinction among 
alkalies which is easily remembered. This distinction 
is founded on the source from which they are pro¬ 
cured, and upon their nature when heated. Potash 
is vegetable alkali, derived from land plants ; soda is 
marine alkali, derived from sea plants; ammonia is 
animal alkali, derived from animal substances. Pot* 
ash and soda are fixed alkalies; ammonia is a volatile 
alkali. Potash makes soft soap, with grease, and soda 
