CHAMPAGNE′. See Wines.
CHAPS. These are too well known to require description. Chapped hands are common amongst persons with a languid circulation, who are continually “dabbling” in water during cold weather. Chapped lips generally occur in persons with pallid, bluish, moist lips, who are much exposed to the wind in dry cold weather; especially in those who are continually moving from heated apartments to the external air. The application of a little COLD CREAM, POMATUM, SPERMACETI OINTMENT, LARD, or any similar article, will generally prevent chaps on the lips, and chaps and chilblains on the hands. Persons employed in oil and tallow works, or about oil, and who have consequently their hands continually in contact with greasy matter, never suffer from these things. A little oil or unguent of any kind, well rubbed on the hands on going to rest (removing the superfluous portion with a cloth), will not only preserve them from cold, but tend to render them both soft and white. See Chilblain.
CHAR (Potted). The flesh of the Salmo Alpinus (Linn.), or trout of the Alps, common in the lakes of Lapland, preserved by the common process of potting.
CHAR′BON-ROUX [Fr.]. See Charcoal, Wood (below).
CHAR′COAL. Charcoal is made by charring organic substances, such as wood, bone, blood, &c., and is, in other words, the fixed residuum of vegetable or animal matter exposed to a high temperature out of contact with atmospheric air.
There are several different varieties of charcoal, the chief of which, however, are wood and animal charcoal.
Charcoal, Animal. Syn. Animal black, Bone black, Ivory black, Carbo animalis. The charcoal obtained by igniting bone in close vessels, but often applied likewise to any charcoal obtained from animal matter.
Commercial. Bones (deprived of their grease by boiling) are broken to pieces, and put into small cast-iron pots, varying from 3⁄8 to 1⁄2 an inch in thickness. Two of these being filled, are dexterously placed with their mouths together and then luted with loam. A number of these vessels are then placed side by side and piled on each other, in an oven resembling a potter’s kiln, to the number of 100 or 150, or even more. The fire is next kindled, and the heat kept up strongly for 10 or 12 hours, according to circumstances, until the process is completed. The whole is then allowed to cool before opening the pots.
A more economical method is by distillation, as under:—
Bones (previously boiled for their grease) are introduced into retorts similar to those used in gas works, and heat being applied, the volatile products are conveyed away by iron pipes to cisterns where the condensable portion is collected. As soon as the process of distillation is finished, the solid residuum in the retorts, while still red hot, is removed through their lower ends into wrought-iron canisters, which are instantly closed by air-tight covers and luted over. These are then raised to the ground by a crane, and set aside to cool.