AMMONIAC, gum-resin. This is the inspissated juice of an umbelliferous plant (the dorema armeniacum) which grows in Persia. It comes to us either in small white tears clustered together, or in brownish lumps, containing many impurities. It possesses a peculiar smell, somewhat like that of assafœtida, and a bitterish taste. It is employed in medicine. Its only use in the arts is for forming a cement to join broken pieces of china and glass, which may be prepared as follows: Take isinglass 1 ounce, distilled water 6 ounces, boil together down to 3 ounces, and add 11⁄2 ounce of strong spirit of wine;—boil this mixture for a minute or two; strain it; add, while hot, first, half an ounce of a milky emulsion of gum ammoniac, and then five drams of an alcoholic solution of resin mastic. This resembles a substance sold in the London shops, under the name of diamond cement. The recipe was given me by a respectable dispensing chemist.
AMORPHOUS. Without shape. Said of mineral and other substances which occur in forms not easy to be defined.
ANALYSIS. The art of resolving a compound substance or machine into its constituent parts. Every manufacturer should so study this art, in the proper treatises, and schools of Chemistry or Mechanics, as to enable him properly to understand and regulate his business.
ANCHOR. (Ancre, Fr.; Anker, Germ.) An iron hook of considerable weight and strength, for enabling a ship to lay hold of the ground, and fix itself in a certain situation by means of a rope called the cable. It is an instrument of the greatest importance to the navigator, since upon its taking and keeping hold depends his safety upon many occasions, especially near a lee shore, where he might be otherwise stranded or shipwrecked. Anchors are generally made of wrought iron, except among nations who cannot work this metal well, and who therefore use copper. The mode in which an anchor operates will be understood from inspection of [fig. 6.], where, from the direction of the strain, it is obvious that the anchor cannot move without ploughing up the ground in which its hook or fluke is sunk. When this, however, unluckily takes place, from the nature of the ground, from the mode of insertion of the anchor, or from the violence of the winds or currents, it is called dragging the anchor. When the hold is good, the cable or the buried arm will sooner break than the ship will drive. Anchors are of different sizes, and have different names, according to the purposes they serve; thus there are, sheet, best bower, small bower, spare, stream, and kedge anchors. Ships of the first class have seven anchors, and smaller vessels, such as brigs and schooners, three.
The manufacture of anchors requires great knowledge of the structure of iron, and skill in the art of working it. I shall give, here, a brief notice of the improved system introduced by Mr. Perring, clerk of the cheque at Plymouth, in which the proportions of the parts are admirably adapted to the strains they are likely to suffer. In [fig. 7.] A is the shank; B, the arm or fluke; C, the palm; D, the blade; E, the square; F, the nut; G, the ring; H, the crown.
Formerly the shank was made of a number of square iron rods, laid parallel together in a cylindrical form, and bound by iron hoops. When they were welded into one bar, the exterior rods could not fail to be partially burned and wasted by the strong heat. Mr. Perring abated this evil by using bars of the whole breadth of the shank, and placing them right over each other, hooping them and welding them together at two heats into one solid mass. To any one who has seen the working of puddled iron, with a heavy mill hammer, this operation will not appear difficult.