Page:Treatise on Soap Making.djvu/31

15 with a small degree of attention, in one of those works, may soon be master of. To complete the soap-maker, a far different, and more extensive degree of knowledge is necessary. An intimate acquaintance with the alkaline materials, and their consequents, the leys, ought to be attentively cultivated, so as to be rendered perfectly familiar; the nature, strength, quality, and fitness of such reduced to a demonstration, clear and simple. After these necessary acquirements are substantiated, soap-making, with the various phenomena incident thereto, will become exceedingly plain, easy, and comprehensive. We shall therefore commence this treatise, by giving a short explanation, by way of introduction, of the different alkalis, with their source of production; avoiding all extraneous or useless matter, that could only serve to swell the book, without