412 
Pharmacy  and  Chemistry. 
(Am.  Jour.  Phariu. 
I  .September.  1904. 
Lime  burning  is  not  done  in  kilns  or  shafts  but  upon  platforms. 
These  platforms  are  perforated  metal  sheets;  separating  this  from 
the  firepot  is  a  brick  wall.  The  fuel — straw  and  wood — is  placed  in 
a  lower  pit,  the  hot  air  is  led  up  through  the  perforated  platform ; 
a  pure  grade  of  lime  results. 
The  Chinese  were  the  first  to  make  porcelain.  They  made  the 
so-called  "  china  ware  "  a  thousand  years  before  the  Germans  suc- 
ceeded in  stumbling  upon  the  process.  This  is  an  enormous  indus- 
try. In  the  Imperial  Chinaware  Works,  at  Kiu  Kiang,  there  are 
over  3,000  kilns  and  a  small  army  of  workmen.  It  is  at  this  place 
that  the  celebrated  kaolin,  also  called  mingsha,  or  china  clay,  is 
found.  Beautiful  snow  white  bricks  of  this  kaolin  are  shown,  as  are 
also  some  thirty  fine  pigments  used  in  the  coloring  of  ware.  A 
small  model  of  the  manufacturing  plant  is  shown,  and  here  is  also 
seen  the  potter's  wheel — the  only  machine  that  has  not  been  im- 
proved upon  for  the  last  4,000  years.  The  mixture  used  is  kaolin 
and  feldspar,  the  latter  serving  as  a  flux.  Some  very  fine  samples 
of  finished  ware  are  shown. 
Salt  is  extracted  from  salt  earth,  or  mud,  obtained  at  the  mud 
flats  along  the  sea  coast.  This  is  heaped  upon  tubs,  the  bottom  of 
which  has  filtering  material,  as  bits  of  bamboo,  and  also  a  draw-off. 
Water  thrown  on  this  heap  gradually  trickles  through,  leaches  out 
the  salt  and  runs  into  a  sunken  tub.  From  this  the  brine  is  bailed 
out,  placed  in  a  large  evaporating  tub,  fired  from  beneath,  and 
evaporated  down.  The  Chinese  make  salt  of  snowy  whiteness.  It 
is  usually  brought  into  trade  rather  coarse ;  also  salt  that  is  used  for 
animals,  of  a  white  fracture,  but  rather  black  surface. 
In  dyeing  they  use  hot  dye  baths,  express  the  excess  of  liquor  by 
rollers,  hang  the  finished  product  on  elevated  bamboo  poles  in  the 
yards. 
Sesame  oil,  linseed  oil — used  as  we  do  salad  oil — walnut,  teaberry, 
rapeseed,  groundnut  oil,  wood  oil  and  vegetable  tallow  are  expressed. 
The  most  distinctive  is  the  manufacture  of  the  vegetable  tallow.  A 
vegetable  tallow  is  made  from  the  seeds  of  a  castor-bean  plant ;  but 
the  finest  is  expressed  from  a  kind  of  white,  tallowy,  stringy  fungus 
that  grows  on  certain  trees.  This  fungus  coats  the  limbs  to  about 
an  inch  in  thickness.  It  is  removed,  first  run  through  the  edge 
runner  mill,  then  ground  finely  in  the  burr  stone,  following  which 
the  comminuted  mass  is  warmed  over  the  fire ;  it  is  then  packed  in 
