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Ephemera

It is customary with house keepers as well as professed soap-boilers, to mix lime with their ashes previous to drawing of the ley. The consideration of the office which is performed by the lime, viz. that of abstracting the fixed air, which would otherwise prevent the union of fat and ley, has suggested the following experiment, which has proved satisfactory.

To a large kettle of ley, while on the fire, was added a quarter of a peck of quick lime; this was stirred until the whole was near boiling, and then poured into tubs to settle. The fat being now set over the fire and melted, the clear ley was gradually added, when an almost instantaneous union took place: the result of which was a soap of the finest quality. The whole process occupied about two hours.

N.B. It is supposed that soap is made with the greatest success in the increase of the moon. A multiple of well authenticated facts renders it certain that the infuence of the moon on vegetation, on the sinking of manure, &c. is very considerable. Does not this subject deserve philosophical investigation?