Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/579

 Popular Science Monthly

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��It Would Take a Book to List the World's Soap Curiosities

THERE are varieties of soaps to suit every taste and clime. There is the dainty fit-the-palm toilet soaps of the harem, with the national star-and-crescent emblems of Turkey inscribed on them; the soaps of the Holy Land and Armenia, with their Arabic legends; the floating, violet- perfumed soaps of the Greek coast; the human-fat toilet soaps of Paris, and others too numerous to mention.

The tw^o soaps illustrated below, however, may be put in the class of the super-curious. One is the primitive Chinese rice-bran soap and the other is the clay-ball, floating soap so popular with the natives of India. With each purchase of rice the Chinese housewife expects a small quantity of rice-bran. About a teaspoonful of this bran is placed in a small muslin bag and boiling hot water poured over it, making a thin, gruel-like fluid. Using the bag as a friction brush the skin is effectively cleaned without utilizing any of the animal fats.

The clay-ball soap is made of copra oil, potash, resin and a clay resembling in- fusorial earth. The color ranges from dark brown to black brown. The dusky- skinned boys of the Malabar Coast not only use this soap for toilet purposes but they play ball in the water with it.

����This type of watering trough provides a resting-place for pedestrians and a shelter from sun and wind for the horses. It takes up comparatively little space

The Two-in-One Idea as Applied to Watering Troughs

THE commodious and substantial-look- ing street rest, shown in the illustra- tion, is an example of the way the citizens of San Francisco conserve their street space and combine utility with ornamentation. Formerly an old-fashioned watering trough on four massive legs took up about thirty- six square feet of the corner, which is an exceptionally busy one near the heart of the city. The new arrange- ment shuts ofT the sight of the water- ing trough en- tirely from the sidewalk and pro- vides at the same time a resting place for pedes- trians and a shel- ter from sun and wind for the horses. The seat and trough are of concrete and the back of the seat is so wide and high that there is no danger of splashing. The trough is arranged at a convenient height, so that horses may drink withput the driver being compelled to get down to loosen the check-rein.

��Above: The clay-ball soap used in India is made of copra oil, resin, F>otash and clay. At left: Chinese rice-bran soap. Both of these soaps cleanse by fric- tion rather than lather

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