Page:Treatise on Soap Making.djvu/62

46 A mild ley, or that possessing fixed air, can have no effect upon vegetable or animal substances, so as to convert them into a soap.

Hence we may perceive the pernicious practices of some soap-boilers, (or pretenders to be so), namely, melting down, or dissolving American ash in boiling water, and, in that mild and improper state, adding those leys to the boiler.

Such consummate ignorance persevered in, must, and always have proved ultimate ruin to the person himself, or his unfortunate employer.

To determine, therefore, the proper state of the ley, take a quantity in a glass, or teacup, drop therein a few drops of vitriolic acid, or oil of vitriol; if this causes an effervescence, or seeming fermentation in the ley, the fixed air is not fully extracted; but, if