Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
Jan.,  1877.  / 
Varieties. 
37 
ing  the  Castile  soap  olive  or  cocoa-nut  oil  is  supposed  to  be  the  material  used,  and 
this  gives  it  its  healing  properties.  Of  late  years,  however,  other  and  cheaper  oils 
are  said  to  have  been  substituted,  such  as  linseed  and  cotton  seed  oil,  but  the  fact  of 
the  latter  being  used  can  be  detected,  it  is  claimed  by  experts,  from  the  darker 
color  of  the  soap.  Within  the  past  five  years,  in  order  to  meet  the  competition  of 
buyers,  it  has  become  the  custom  to  adulterate  both  Marseilles  and  Leghorn  mot- 
tled soap  with  terra  alba  or  chalk  Some  samples  which  we  have  seen  tested  show 
thirty-five  per  cent,  of  this  substance  added  to  increase  the  weight  and  cheapen  the- 
article.  There  is,  of  course,  some  of  the  genuine  article  imported,  but  a  buyer 
had  better  depend  on  the  reputation  of  his  wholesale  dealers,  and  even  then  they 
may  possibly  be  imposed  upon.  These  soaps  come  in  boxes  of  forty-five  to  forty- 
seven  pounds,  and  a  tare  of  eight  pounds  is  allowed.  The  loss  in  weight  on  Cas- 
tile soap  is  very  large,  according  to  the  length  of  time  it  is  carried,  the  loss  in  four 
or  five  months  being  as  much  in  some  cases  as  twenty  per  cent.  When  sold  it  is 
re-weighed,  and  by  some  dealers  the  actual  tare  at  the  time  of  sale  is  allowed,  and 
by  some  the  original  tare,  but  the  price  is  advanced  accordingly,  the  price  having  to 
be  made  so  much  higher  to  meet  the  loss  in  weight.  This  mottled  soap  is  also- 
largely  made  here.  Boxes  are  shipped  here  from  Marseilles  in  the  form  of  shooks 
and  put  together  here.  These  boxes,  when  put  in  the  market,  often  bear  all  the 
marks  of  imported  soap.  The  soft  and  wet  appearance  of  the  soap  is  no  guide  as 
to  whether  it  is  foreign  or  domestic,  as  the  former  often  reaches  here  in  that  state, 
and  soap  containing  a  large  proportion  of  water  to  increase  the  weight,  but  it  should 
be  made  in  bars,  and  not  look  as  if  cut  with  a  wire. — Jour.  App.  Sci.,  [Lond.], 
Dec.  1,  1876,  from  American  Grocer. 
The  Manufacture  of  Milk  Sugar  in  Switzerland.— By  A.  Sauter  — In  a  com- 
jfnunication  to  the  "  Schweizerische  Wochenschrift  fur  Pharmacie,"  for  the  20th  of 
(October,  the  author  gives  an  account  of  a  visit  to  Marbach,  in  the  canton  of  Lu- 
jzerne,  Switzerland,  where  half  a  dozen  refiners  are  said  to  make  a  handsome  income 
/from  the  manufacture  of  milk  sugar,) 
/  The  raw  material  used  for  the  recrystallization  comes  from  the  neighboring  Alps, 
in  the  cantons  of  Luzerne,  Bern,  Schwyz,  etc.  5  a  considerable  quantity  is  supplied 
also  by  Gruyeres.  It  is  the  so-called  "  Schottensand/''  or  "  Zuckersand,"  the 
French  "  Dechet  de  lait,"  obtained  by  simple  evaporation  of  the  whey  after  cheese- 
making.  Notwithstanding  a  continual  rise  in  the  price,  consequent  upon  the  de- 
mand and  the  increased  cost  of  labor  and  fuel,  the  manufacture  continually  expands., 
and  now  amounts  to  1,800  to  2,000  cwts.  yearly,  corresponding  to  a  gross  value  of 
x  about  300,000  francs — certainly  a  handsome  sum  for  a  small  mountain  village,  with 
\but  few  inhabitants. 
The  manufacture  is  only  carried  on  in  the  higher  mountains,  because  there  the 
material  can  no  longer  be  used  profitably  for  the  fattening  of  swine,  which  are  found 
chiefly  in  the  valleys,  and  the  wood  required  for  the  evaporating  process  is  cheaper 
\in  the  highlands. 
si  The  crude  material  is  sent  to  the  manufacturer  or  refiner  in  sacks  containing  one 
''  "to  two  hundredweights  It  is  washed  in  copper  vessels,  and  dissolved  to  saturation 
at  the  boiling  temperature  over  a  fire,  and  the  yellow  brown  liquor,  after  straining, 
is  allowed  to  stand  in  copper-lined  tubs  or  long  troughs  to  crystallize.  The  sugar 
crystals  form  in  clusters  on  immersed  chips  of  wood,  and  these  are  the  most  pure, 
and  therefore  of  rather  greater  commercial  value  than  the  milk  sugar  in  plates^ 
which  is  deposited  on  the  sides  of  the  vessels. 
In  ten  to  fourteen  days  the  process  of  crystallization  has  ended,  and  the  milk 
sugar  has  finished  growing  (ausgeavac/isen).  The  crystals  are  then  washed  with  cold 
water,  afterwards  dried  in  a  cauldron  over  a  fire,  and  packed  in  casks  holding  four 
to  five  hundredweights. 
As  the  "  Schottensand  "  can  only  be  obtained  in  the  summer,  the  recrystalliza- 
tion is  not  carried  on  in  the  winter,  hence  a  popular  saying  that  the  milk  sugar  does- 
not  "grow"  in  the  winter.    The  entire  manipulation  is  carried  on  in  a  very  primi- 
