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TECHNICAL TREATfSE ON SOAP AND CANDLES. MATERIALS USED IN TITE MANUFACTURE OF SOAPS.

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ion parts in weight. Eupliorljium Wild mii3tard Caincliua Woad . Gourd . Lemon-tree . Onoporde acjinllie Epicea seeds Hempseed . Linseed Black mustard Beech . 3nnflower setd Apples . Grapesrtone . ilorsechestnut Olive . Oil extracted. 30 30 28 29 to 56 25 ON tx traded. . 4') tO 70 . 63 . 60 . Si to 58 . 4D to 54 . 28 to 46 . 5« lo 63 . 50 . 5') . 48 . 43 . 30 to 39 . 36 to 38 . 33.5 . 83.5 . 36 to 40 . 8S m 40 . 21) 100 pans in weight. Nut . Caator . Hazel-nut Cress . Sweet almonds . Bitter 23 24 14 to 25 20 to 30 15 Jo to 20 25 15 14 to 23 8 13 to 20 Black garden poppy Radishes Sesamum Lindeu Earlh-not . Cabbage "White mustard . Turnip. Plum . Coleseed Rapeseed Cotton-seed . Physical Properties of Oils.—Fixed oils, at the ordinary temperature, are nearly always liquid ; some however, such as palm oil, cocoanut oil, etc., are more or lesa consistent. They are also more or less mucilaginous, with a feeble taste, sometimes disagreeable, Some are colorless, but generally they have a sight yellow tint; srnne are of a greenish-yellow color, and this color is lue to a peculiar principle they hold in solution. Their specific gravity is le^s than that of water, all floating on this liquid, but it varies. OLIVE OIL is perhaps the oldest known and used for the purpose of making fine soaps, and possesses all the best characteristics for the purpose, making a firm white soap having an agreeable odor. At ordinary temperatures it is fluid, but at a low degree of hent it congeals, the stearin crystallizing. It consists of about seventy-five per cent, of olein with twenty-five per cent, of stearin, Olive oil beitig consumed as food in large quantities, there is much care taken to produce a fine quality for this purpose, and the best of the first and second pressing is usually reserved for table use. It is obtained from the ripe olives by

submit ting the crushed fruit to a pressure either between warmed iron plates, or heating1 the mass slightly, before putting it into the bags. The first o;! is called virgin oil. The marc, being again steamed or heated, is submitted to the press a second time; this product is still a very good oil. At the third pressing the marc is often mixed with hot water, and when it is pressed the oil runs out combined with the water and some albumen and floats upon the surface, whence it is skimmed off. For an inferior oil the marc is thrown into vats ami allowed to ferment;;the remaining oil beingliberated floats on the surface. This last oil i^ usually much colored and of unpleasant odor, but it is the oil usually applied in making soap. The resulting soap does not retain either color or odor, but is white and sweet. The oil of manufacture, or haile. soap, and, owing to its great value, it is the subject of much adulteration with other Maud or sweet oils, princi-jily nut oil, sesame oil, poppy oil, and cotton-seed oil. The detection of these sophistications is quite a difficult matter, although we give elsewhere some directions for that purpose. Olive oil, though making some of the best soaps known to commerce, ia now seldom used alone, the soap becoming when dry too hard for general purposes. It is now customary to ad(t to it a certain quantity of hemp-seed, rape-seed, poppy-seed, or ground-nut oil, these oils being slightly drying oils and producing a softer soap, qualify the olive-oil soap in its consistency. PALM OIL may be considered next in importance to olive oil in the fabrication of snap, for which purpose it is consumed in vast quantities, in England especially, where it was first used. It enters into nearly all their best rosin soaps, and this admixture has given both character and popularity to English 100 TECHNICAL TREATISE ON SOAP AND CANDLES. yellow soaps. If. is also used advantageously in many soaps for toilet purposes. It is obtained from the fruit of asjieciesof palm, the Avoira Elais or Etuis guianensis; according to others, however, from Cocus hutyracca, as well us from nil nreca species. It is, however, not improbable, that all these plants produce similar vegetable oils, ['aim oil is a product of the soil of tropicat Africa and South America (Guiana); the Canary Islands, and also of some other regions. 'Owing to its general application in manufacturing soap it has become H very important article of eomnierce, a place to which it was assigned by dint of a remarkable connection of circumstances, and by the endeavors of the English government in the suppression of the slave trade. Since this traffic, by the measures taken asjainst it by England—if not yet entirely suppressed—is tnu<:h limited, the natives of those coust districts are compelled, in lieu of as heretofore trading in human beings, to pay tor their necessary commodities, at this day, with some of the useful products of the African soil, including palm oil. The largest consumption of palm oil is in England, which country, in 1879, imported 147,903,216 lbs., but the consumption of it is hi so very great in G-eymany, France, and the United States. The different kinds in the market have various names; the prima logos and eeetiwia lagos being the most excellent; the former can be more easily bleached than the latter. The fruits vX these palms arc of the s;ze and dimension of a pigeon f3 egjt, and contain a solid kernel under a fleshy cover. The rafm oil is extracted from this latter, not from the kernel. For this purpose the pared flesh is boiled out in water, when the oil collects on the surface in a fluid state, and can easilv be skimmed off. Alter cooling off it forms a reddish-yellowy fat of the consistency of butter, which melts at 29° C. (84.2° F.). Since the word oil is applied to designate the liquid fata,the name of palm oil ia an improper one; pahn butter would lie more correct. Its smell ia strong, hut agreeably aromatic, and reminds one of orris root. As it appears in commerce, the palm oil ia always more or less rancid, MATERIALS USED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF SOAPS. 101 e. i., it contains free sebacie acids, instead of being in the fresh state neutral with glyceryl oxide. The quantity of these free acids increases wilh age, and at the same time the melting-point rises: the dark orange-red color changing into lemon-yellow. Pelouze and Bendot found in fresh palm oil one-third, in that which melted at 31° C. (87.8° F.) one-half, in another sample, which melted at 36° C. (96.8° F.), four-fifths of its weight in free acid. In very old palm oil, Stenliouse found the melting-point 37° C. (98.6° F.). From the tests made by Fremy and the above-mentioned chemists it was gleaned that thia vegetable fat contains free oleic acid, a specific Rebaeic acid, palmitic acid, and some ]'>almitin,«.£., palmitic acid oxide of glyceryl. The latter can be obtained by pressing the palm oil at 10° to 12° 0. (50° to 5:3.6° F.), and a second time at about 20° C. (68° F) in large quantities, as a candleshop.com/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=soforreal">wax-like white mass, of which a. sort of stearin candles can be made, while the yellow oil that flows off may be made into soap. Since the reddish-yellow color of the palm oil is not destroyed during saponiticafcion. but remains in the soap, the oil muBt, if white soaps are to be manufactured, first be bleached. This is done, either by means of oxides, as muriatic acid, nitric acid, sulphuric acid, etc., alone or with permanganate or chromate of potassa, or by heating* the palm oil toacertain degree. In all these cases the color will be more or less completely destroyed, without reappearing in the soap. It must, however, be observed, that the bleaching hy means of oxidation generally, especially with sulphuric acid and chromate of potash, furnishes a better and a whiter oil, and is more easily accomplished, although more expensive, tl^an tlie bleaching by heat. The latter requires, moreover, more attention in the managing of the process, and a greater loss (from three to four and a half per cent.) is entailed, than by the first method. For the bleaching of palm oil by meant- of bichromate of potassa, a quantity of palm oil is melted at 60° C. (140° F.), and left standing over-night, so that &\. impurities may 102 TECHNICAL TREATISE ON SOAP AND CANDLES. settle upon the bottom. On the day following, the clear oil ia placed in a clean barrel anJ allowed to cool oft' to 40° to 38° C. (104° to 100.4° h\). At the same time :i portion of water is heated to the boiling-point, and in this is dissolved a suitable quantity of .bichromate of potassa. If for instance 1000 kilogrammes (2200 lbs.) of palm oil are to be worked, 45 kilogrammes [99 lbs.) of water are taken, and 15 kilogrammes (33 lbs.) of the bichromate of potassa are dissolved therein. After the solution has cooled off somewhat, pour , in 60 kilogrammes (132 lbs.) commercial muriatic acid. Tliis mixture of chromic acid salt solution and muriatic acid ia now poured into the palm oil, wlrch during this process is being well stirred. After a period of live minutes, the oil becomes dark-green, by separation of ehromate or by formation of chrom-ehloride, which by a continuation of the stirring entirely separates, or is retained by the water in solution. Should the oil not yet be sufficiently bleached, the operation should be repeated by using \ kilogramme (8.8 az*,) bichromate of potassa and 1 kilogramme (±2 lbs) muriatic acid, as before. The bleaching of palm oil by the application of heat is more simple, but does not readily furnish such a clear oil as is required for some soaps, Here two things have to be observed : first, tliab the heat is not too much increased, because the oil might assume a disagreeable brownish color, which appears in the soap; secondly, that the oil is previously melted upon water, or at least melted at a moderate heat, and left to rest for a short time, and poured off as clear of all sediment as possible. If tiie latter, consisting especially of small pieces of fruit and of small imperfect fruits, is heated with the oils which are to 1« bleached, a good oil is never obtained. The temperature which is applied in this eaae varies, and some operators go as high as 160° C. (320° F-); but it is found that palm oil can he bleached thoroughly at 120° C. (248° F.), or as much as is possible by the process of heating. Tlie contact of the air accelerates the process of bleaching; and palm oil is bleached the fastest and best in a kettle which is covered with a well-fitting lid, in which

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