6 habited in jackets, and their hose loose, with hatchets or swords hanging from their girdles, and many were barefooted and without hats, whilst others had caps of thick leather crossed with iron. The battle lasted about three hours; the slaughter on the part of the French was appalling, and cannot be more forcibly described than in the words of one of the chroniclers who witnessed it. When some of the enemy's van were slain, those behind pressed over their bodies, so that the living fell over the dead, and others again falling on them, they were immediately put to death and in three places near Henry's banner, so large was the pile of corpses, and of those who were thrown upon them, that the English stood on the heaps, which exceeded a man's height, and butchered their adversaries below with their swords and axes.' The French indeed fell almost passive in their lines. The total loss of the French was about 10,000 slain on the field-that of the English appears to have been about 1,200: most of the dead were afterwards buried in enormous trenches. Henry being left master of the field, walked over the plain attended by several noblemen, and returned solemn thanks to God for his success. Whilst the soldiers were employed stripping the dead, he called to him Montjoye, the principal herald of France, and asked him whether the victory belonged to him or the King of France: to which Montjoye replied, to him.' The king then asked the name of the castle which he saw near him, and being told that it was called Agincourt, 'Then,' said he, 'as all battles should bear the name of the nearest fortress to which they occur, this shall for ever be called the Battle of Agincourt.' TARE AND TRET. (1) What is the cost of 4 hhds. of sugar, No. 1 weighing, gross, 11 cwt. 2 qrs. 14 lbs., tare 3 qrs. 18 lbs.; No. 2, 10 cwt. 2 qrs. 4 lbs., tare 3 qrs. 4 lbs.; No. 3, 12 cwt. 1 qr., tare 3 qrs. 14 lbs.; No. 4, 11 cwt. 10 lbs., tare 3 qrs. 10 lbs. ; tret 1 lb. per cwt.; price £20 per ton? (2) Gross weight of 7 hhds. of tallow is 5 tons 4 cwt. 2 qrs. 25 lbs., tare 14 lbs. per cwt.; what is the net weight? (3) Bought 52 hhds. of tobacco; gross weight 11 tons 2 cwt. 3 qrs. 20 lbs.; tare 25 cwt. 3 qrs.; tret and cloff as usual; what was the weight? (4) What must I pay for 7 hhds. of sugar weighing, gross, 47 cwt. 2 qrs. 14 lbs., tret as usual, at 28s. per cwt? (5) What will be the cost of 17 boxes, each 1 cwt. 2 qrs. 15 lbs.; tare 3 lbs. per box; tret and cloff as usual; price 75s. per box. SOAP, SODA, SALT, AND SULPHURIC ACID. (From 'Letters on Chemistry,' by Professor Liebig.) cu'-lin-ar-y, used in or relating to cook ing ra'-tio, proportion ac-me, the highest point or crisis cu-pel', a sort of shallow cup made of quart-a'-tion, mixing in the proportion of one to four gran'-u-la-ted, formed in small pieces or pre-cip'-i-ta-ted, thrown down germ-i-na-tion, the act of putting forth shoots ma-tu-ra'-tion, ripening ar-te'-ri-al, flowing in the arteries, the THE manufacture of soda from common culinary salt may be regarded as the foundation of the extraordinary impulse given to improvement in every department of modern industry; and we may take it as affording an excellent illustration of the dependence of the various branches of human industry and commerce upon each other, and their relation to chemistry. Soda, properly carbonate of soda, or rather its chief constituent, the alkali, has been used in France from time immemorial in the manufacture of soap and glass, two chemical productions which employ and keep in circulation an immense amount of capital. The quantity of soap consumed by a nation would be no inaccurate measure whereby to estimate its wealth and civilisation. Political economists, indeed, will not give it this rank; but whether we regard it as joke or earnest, it is not the less true, that, of two countries, with an equal amount of population, we may declare with positive certainty that the wealthier and more highly civilised is that which consumes the greatest weight of soap. This consumption does not subserve sensual gratification, nor depend upon fashion, but upon the feeling of the beauty, comfort, and welfare attendant upon cleanliness; and a regard to this feeling is coincident with wealth and civilisation. The rich, in the middle ages, who concealed a want of cleanliness in their clothes and persons under a profusion of costly scents and essences, were more luxurious than we are in eating and drinking, in apparel and horses. But how great is the difference between their days and our own, when a want of cleanliness is equivalent to insupportable misery and misfortune! Soap is one of those manufactured products, the money value of which continually disappears from circulation, and requires to be continually renewed. It is one of the few substances which, like tallow and oil, are entirely consumed by use, leaving no product of any worth. Broken glass and bottles are by no means absolutely worthless; for rags we may purchase new cloth, but soap-water has no value whatever in our households. The attempt has been made, in great washing establishments, to collect the soap-water, and to separate from it the fatty acids of the soap by sulphuric acid. When the fatty acids are heated so as to destroy their impurities, they may be used for an inferior kind of soap. But this restores only a small fraction of what is used in our household economy. It would be interesting to know accurately the amount of capital involved in the manufacture of soap; it is certainly as large as that employed in the coffee trade, with this important difference as respects Germany, that it is entirely derived from our own soil. In order to prepare the soda of commerce (which is the carbonate) from common salt, it is first converted into Glauber's salt (sulphate of soda). For this purpose 80 pounds weight of concentrated sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) are required to 100 pounds of common salt. The duty upon salt checked, for a short time, the full advantage of this discovery; but when the British Government repealed the duty, and its price was reduced to its minimum, the cost of soda depended upon that of sulphuric acid. The demand for sulphuric acid now increased to an immense extent; and, to supply it, capital was embarked abundantly, as it afforded an excellent remuneration. The origin and formation of sulphuric acid was studied most carefully; and from year to year, better, simpler, and cheaper methods for making it were discovered. With every improvement in the mode of manufacture, its price fell, and its sale increased in an equal ratio. Sulphuric acid is now manufactured in leaden chambers, of such magnitude that they would contain the whole of an ordinary-sized house. As regards the process and the apparatus, this manufacture has reached its acme; scarcely is either sus-. ceptible of improvement. The leaden plates of which the chambers are constructed, requiring to be joined together with lead (since tin or solder would be acted on by the acid)—this process was, until lately, as expensive as the plates themselves; but now, by means of the oxyhydrogen blowpipe, the plates are cemented together at their edges by mere fusion, without the intervention of any kind of solder, and so easily that a child might perform the operation. And then, as to the process: according to theory, 100 pounds weight of sulphur ought to produce 306 pounds of sulphuric * M acid; in practice 300 pounds are actually obtained; the amount of loss is therefore too insignificant for consideration. It is impossible to trace all the ramifications of this tissue of changes and improvements resulting from one chemical manufacture; but I must still claim your attention to a few more of its most important and immediate results. I have already told you, that, in the manufacture of soda from culinary salt, it is first converted into sulphate of soda. In this first part of the process, the action of sulphuric acid produces fuming concentrated muriatic acid to the extent of one-and-a-half times or twice the amount of the sulphuric acid employed. At first, the profit upon the soda was so great, that no one took the trouble to collect the muriatic acid: indeed it had no commercial value. A profitable application of it was, however, soon discovered: it is a compound of chlorine, and this substance may be obtained from it purer and more cheaply than from any other source. The bleaching power of chlorine has long been known; but it was only employed upon a large scale after it was obtained from this residuary muriatic acid, and it Iwas found that in combination with lime it could be transported to distances without inconvenience. Thenceforth it was used for bleaching cotton; and, but for this new bleaching process, it would scarcely have been possible for the cotton manufacture of Great Britain to have attained its present enormous extent, it could not have competed in price with that of France and Germany. In the old process of bleaching, every piece had to be exposed to the air and light during several weeks in the summer, and kept continually moist by manual labour. For this purpose, meadow land, eligibly situated, was essential. Now, a single establishment near Glasgow, of only moderate extent, bleaches 1,400 pieces of cotton daily throughout the year. What an enormous capital would be required to purchase land for this purpose! How greatly would it increase the cost of bleaching to pay interest upon this capital, or to hire so much land in England! This expense would scarcely have been felt in Germany. Besides the diminished expense, the cotton stuffs bleached with chlorine suffer less in the hands of skilful workmen than those bleached in the sun; and already the peasantry in some parts of Germany have adopted it and find it advantageous. Another use to which cheap muriatic acid is applied, is the manufacture of glue from bones. Bone contains from 30 to 36 per cent. of earthy matter-chiefly phosphate of lime—and the remainder is gelatine. When bones are digested in muriatic acid they become transparent and flexible, like leather, the earthy matter is dissolved, and after the acid is carefully washed away, pieces of glue of the same shape as the bones remain, which are soluble in hot water, and adapted to all the purposes of ordinary glue, without further preparation. Another important application of sulphuric acid may be adduced; namely, to the refining of silver and the separation of gold, which is always present in some proportion in native silver. Silver, as it is usually obtained from mines in Europe, contains in 16 ounces, 6 to 8 ounces of copper. When used by the silversmith, or in coining, 16 ounces must contain in Germany 13 ounces of silver, in England about 14. But this alloy is always made artificially by mixing pure silver with the due proportion of copper; and for this purpose the silver must be obtained pure by the refiner. This he formerly effected by amalgamation, or by cupelling it with lead; and the cost of this process was about 21. for every hundred weight of silver. In the silver so prepared, about 10 tooth part of gold remained; to effect the separation of this by quartation, with nitric acid, was more expensive than the value of the gold; it was therefore left in utensils, or circulated in coin, valueless. The copper, too, of the native silver was lost to the possessor. But the th part of gold, being about one and one-half per cent. of the value of the silver, now covers the cost of refining, and affords an adequate profit to the refiner; so that he effects the separation of the copper, and returns to his employer the whole amount of the pure silver, as well as the copper, without demanding any payment; he is amply remunerated by that minute portion of gold. The new process of refining is a most beautiful chemical operation; the granulated metal is boiled in concentrated sulphuric acid, which dissolves both the silver and the copper, leaving the gold nearly pure, in the form of a black powder. The solution is then placed in a leaden vessel containing metallic copper; this is gradually dissolved, and the silver precipitated in a pure metallic state. The sulphate of copper thus formed is also a valuable product, being employed in the manufacture of green and blue pigments. ANIMAL HEAT. All living creatures, whose existence depends upon the absorption of oxygen, possess within themselves a source of heat, independent of surrounding objects. This general truth applies to all animals, and extends to the seed of plants in the act of germination, to flower-buds when developing, and fruits during their maturation. In the animal body, heat is produced only in those parts to which arterial blood, and with it the oxygen absorbed in respiration, is conveyed. Hair, wool, and feathers receive no arterial blood, and therefore in them no heat is developed. The com |