BLUBBER. 
of conducting (with the aid of a charcoal sup- 
port, and, occasionally, a little borax) in a mo- 
ment’s time, and with the loss of the smallest 
imaginable quantity of the substance. To the 
analytical chemist its use is indispensable for 
enabling him to discover the principal ingredi- 
ents in a substance, previous to his subsequent 
operations for ascertaining their relative propor- 
tion. For an account of the blowpipe in which 
oxygen and hydrogen gases are employed, see 
Compounp-BiowPIPe. 
BLUBBER. The portion of the fatty sub- 
stance of the whale which remains after the oil 
has been separated by the process of boiling. It 
is obtained in large quantities at the several 
ports which have connexion with the whale 
fisheries; and when judiciously used, is an ex- 
cellent manure. It operates by giving out large 
supplies of carbon and hydrogen, to combine 
with the oxygen of the atmosphere, and afford 
aliment to plants; and it exerts a prolonged in- 
fluence, or is what farmers call a durable man- 
ure, in consequence of its resisting the action of 
water, and but slowly yielding to that of air. 
But, if applied in its crude state, it will destroy 
vegetation; and even if too largely applied as an 
ingredient in a compost, it will produce a disas- 
trous effect. A good method of using it, is to 
mix each ton of it with about twenty tons of 
very fine mould, frequently to turn over the com- 
post during a period of three or four months, and 
to spread it on the surface of land in autumn, 
and plough it in. It ought not, however, to be 
indiscriminately applied to any kinds of soils or 
at any periods of a rotation, but as nearly as 
possible adapted to such a position as the pre- 
paration of lea ground for oats. 
The late Lord Somervile, who was one of the 
first agriculturists to bring it into notice as a 
manure, and who applied it to both the arable 
and the pasture lands of his farm of Fairmile in 
Surrey, mixed it with sandy earth and allowed 
it to dissolve in the heap; and he found its action 
to continue during two or three years, and to 
produce prime crops. A farmer, speaking of his 
own use of it during twelve years, says, “ My 
first essay was with it in its crude state, when it 
destroyed instead of assisting vegetation. I have 
since made the blubber into a compost, in the 
proportion of nine loads of earth to one load of 
blubber. My plan is, first, to make a layer of 
earth two feet thick, the length and breadth in 
proportion to the quantity of blubber to be made 
into compost. This layer of earth is covered 
with blubber, about one foot in thickness, on 
which another layer is laid, and so on alter- 
nately, until the blubber is composted, covering 
the whole three feet with earth, close beat down 
at the top and sides, the same as is done to se- 
cure potatoes from the frost. In this state, it 
will ferment, and the whole of the earth becomes 
impregnated with the foul air of the blubber. 
When this fermentation abates, which it will do 
BLUEBALL. . 459 
in about two months, I then turn the heap over 
from top to bottom. The bottom layer of earth, 
in consequence, becomes the top or cover, and 
will require some addition to secure the escape 
of the air by the second fermentation. When 
this abates, the compost is again turned over ; 
and, after a third fermentation, becomes fit for 
use. The mixing or applying lime therewith, I 
have found detrimental. I never use this com- 
post until it is nine or twelve months old. In 
this state, I have applied to both grass and tillage 
land about 10 or 15 loads of the compost per 
acre, each load weighing two tons; and have 
cut from the grass land three tons of hay per 
acre, and aftergrass in proportion. I have also 
used it to tillage crops of wheat, beans, and po- 
tatoes, on a field of 20 acres that has not been 
fallowed for ten years until this present summer, 
but manured annually in the above proportion, 
and from which I have reaped five quarters of 
wheat per acre, five quarters of beans, and from 
1,300 to 1,500 pecks of potatoes, with those crops 
in succession. 
the only difficulty from constant cropping is in 
keeping the land clean from short twitch grass, 
of which, if left in the land, the blubber encour- 
ages the growth.” ; 
BLUE (Prusstayn). 
a pure dark-blue colour, a dull fracture, inodor- 
ous and insipid, insoluble in water, spirits of | 
wine or ether; it is soluble only by the action of | 
The discovery of this colour | 
corrosive alkalies. 
was accidentally made, in 1704, by Diesbach, a 
manufacturer of colours, who, with the intention 
of precipitating the colouring matter from coch- 
ineal, with which alum and vitriol of iron were 
dissolved, procured some alkali from the labora- 
tory of Dippel. This alkali, which Dippel had 
been heating with some animal matter, produced 
a beautiful blue precipitate. Dippel, discover- 
ing that the alkali had acquired this power of | 
forming a blue precipitate of iron on account of 
its mixture with animal oil, soon learned to pre- 
pare it in a more simple way, since all animal 
substances, and even all vegetables, which con- | 
tain much azote, will give the same result. It 
is, however, necessary, that all the materials 
should. be perfectly pure, since the purification | 
would be too expensive. The addition of alum 
gives to this blue more body and a brighter col- | 
our. This blue substance is a prussiate of iron 
(52 parts red oxyde of iron, and 48 of prussic 
acid). The alumine added amounts to from 20 
to 80 per cent.; but the greater the quantity, the 
poorer is the quality of the blue. 
BLUEBALL. A variety of awned wheat for- 
merly much cultivated in Somersetshire. The 
name blueball seems to allude to a darkish col- 
our on the edge of the husks of chaff; or it may 
refer to the fall of the awns from a portion of the 
ripened ears, some of the ears having awns, and 
others being naked. The variety is also called 
cone-wheat. See the article Wuxat. 
The land is a strong clay; and | 
A colouring matter, of | 
