The time requisite for completing the discharging process in the first press is sufficient to enable the other three workmen to put the remaining fifteen presses in play. The discharger proceeds now from press to press, admits the liquor, the air, and the water; and is followed at a proper interval by the assistants, who relax the press, move forwards another square of the cloth, and then restore the pressure. Whenever the sixteenth press has been liquored, &c., it is time to open the first press. In this routine, about ten minutes are employed; that is 224 handkerchiefs (16 × 14) are discharged every ten minutes. The whole cloth is drawn successively forward, to be successively treated in the above method.
When the cloth escapes from the press, it is passed between the two rollers in front; from which it falls into a trough of water placed below. It is finally carried off to the washing and bleaching department, where the lustre of both the white and the red is considerably brightened.
By the above arrangement of presses, 1600 pieces, consisting of 12 yards each = 19,200 yards, are converted into Bandannas in the space of ten hours, by the labour of four workmen.
The patterns, or plates, which are put into the presses to determine the white figures on the cloth, are made of lead in the following way. A trellis frame of cast-iron, one inch thick, with turned-up edges, forming a trough rather larger than the intended lead pattern, is used as the solid ground-work. Into this trough, a lead plate about one half inch thick, is firmly fixed by screw nails passing up from below. To the edges of this lead plate, the borders of the piece of sheet-lead are soldered, which covers the whole outer surface of the iron frame. Thus a strong trough is formed, one inch deep. The upright border gives at once great strength to the plate, and serves to confine the liquor. A thin sheet of lead is now laid on the thick lead-plate, in the manner of a veneer on toilette-tables, and is soldered to it round the edges. Both sheets must be made very smooth beforehand, by hammering them on a smooth stone table, and then finishing with a plane: the surface of the thin sheet (now attached), is to be covered with drawing paper, pasted on, and upon this the pattern is drawn. It is now ready for the cutter. The first thing which he does, is to fix down with brass pins all the parts of the pattern which are to be left solid. He now proceeds with the little tools generally used by block-cutters, which are fitted to the different curvatures of the pattern, and he cuts perpendicularly quite through the thin sheet. The pieces thus detached are easily lifted out; and thus the channels are formed which design the white figures on the red cloth. At the bottom of the channels, a sufficient number of small perforations are made through the thicker sheet of lead, so that the discharging liquor may have free ingress and egress. Thus, one plate is finished; from which, an impression is to be taken by means of printers’ ink, on the paper pasted upon another plate. The impression is taken in the hydrostatic press. Each pair of plates constitutes a set, which may be put into the presses, and removed at pleasure.
BARBERRY. The root of this plant contains a yellow colouring matter, which is soluble in water and alcohol, and is rendered brown by alkalis. The solution is employed in the manufacture of Morocco leather.
BARILLA. A crude soda, procured by the incineration of the salsola soda, a plant cultivated for this purpose in Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, &c. Good barilla usually contains, according to my analysis, 20 per cent. of real alkali, associated with muriates and sulphates, chiefly of soda, some lime, and alumina, with very little sulphur. Caustic lyes made from it, are used in the finishing process of the hard soap manufacture. 125,068 cwts. were imported in 1835, of which only 5,807 were exported. The duty is 2s. per cwt. Of the above quantity, 64,174 came from Spain and the Balearic islands, 39,943 from the Canaries, and 20,432 from Italy and the Italian islands.
BARIUM, the metallic basis of Baryta.
BARK OF OAK, for tanning. Unfortunately, the Tables of Revenue published by the Board of Trade, mix up this bark and the dyeing barks together, and give the sum of the whole for 1835, at 826,566 cwts., of which only 2,264 were re-exported. The duty is 1d. per cwt. from British possessions, and 8d. from other parts.
BARLEY (Orge, Fr. Gerste, Germ.) English barley is that with two-rowed ears, or the hordeum vulgare distichon of the botanists; the Scotch beer or bigg, is the hordeum vulgare hexastichon. The latter has two rows of ears, but 3 corns come from the same point, so that it seems to be six-eared. The grains of bigg are smaller than those of barley, and the husks thinner. The specific gravity of English barley varies from 1·25 to 1·33; of bigg from 1·227 to 1·265; the weight of the husk of barley is 1⁄6, that of bigg 2⁄9. 1000 parts of barley flour contain, according to Einhof, 720 of starch, 56 sugar, 50 mucilage, 36·6 gluten, 12·3 vegetable albumen, 100 water, 2·5 phosphate of lime, 68 fibrous or ligneous matter. Sp. gravity of barley, is 1·235 by my trials.
BARM. The yeasty top of fermenting beer. See [Beer], [Distillation], [Fermentation].