Meanwhile, the Inland Revenue returns in 1863 showed a decreased consumption of spirit, from the fact of methylated spirit taking the place of duty-paid or pure spirit. Of the one article of spirit of nitre, very little is sold which is not distilled from “methylated finish.” This increased quantity of sweet spirit of nitre sold is not taken medicinally, but is extensively used in the adulteration of potable spirits.
What is Phosphate of Lime?
Phosphate of Lime, a minute constituent of all fertile soils and of most waters, is of great value to the ivory-turner, the manure-maker, the potter, the silver-assayer, the drug-manufacturer, the dyer, and the lucifer-match maker. It reaches all of them in the shape of the bones of dead animals; dead cattle from our farms, dead horses from the Pampas of South America, dead walrusses from the Arctic icebergs, dead whales from the Pacific Ocean, dead men even from fields of battle. Land and sea-plants have, as it were, milked this essential constituent of their frames, drop by drop, from the breast of nature. Animals of all classes, from the lowest to the highest, have robbed plants of their hard-gotten gains, and made their bones strong with the precious substance. Finally, the chartered robber man has robbed them all, claiming even the relics of his brethren, and obtaining in a handful of bone dust the phosphate of tons of rock and water.—Prof. G. Wilson.
What is Wood?
Its chief ingredients, charcoal and water, are uncostly and abundant; but in themselves they are useless to the carpenter, and he cannot change them into timber. So he calls to remembrance that his great grandfather planted an acorn, which has turned its first small capital to so excellent account that now it is a timber-merchant on a large scale, and will contract with you to build a ship of war out of oak of its own making. It is with other trees as with this ancestral oak. Each, with its republic of industrious roots and leaves, is a joint-stock company with limited liability, engaging to furnish you with pine-stems for masts, fir-wood for planking, logwood for dyeing, cork-bark for bottling, oak-bark for tanning, walnut for tables, rosewood for picture-frames, satinwood for looking-glasses, willow for cradles, mahogany for wardrobes, ebony for will-chests, elm-tree for coffins.—Those trees form the Worshipful Company of Woodmakers, an ancient guild.—Ibid.
How long will Wood last?
Cedar-wood will last 1000 years. The oil of cedar-wood, mixed with oil of creosote and forced into timber by means of a pump, will be found highly preservative of all timber for shipbuilding and breakwaters. In very old buildings, the timbers where they have been whitewashed, are often found in the highest state of preservation. In olden days they cut the timber in the winter season, when the sap was most out of it; but now, for the use of tanners, it is felled in summer; the result of which is, that it shrinks, chaps, and decays, sooner than it otherwise would. The wood of the walnut-tree is very durable, and so is that of the horse-chesnut-tree. Many very ancient barns about Gravesend are built entirely of the last. In preparing wood for shipbuilding, &c., it is best to lay it in a “running stream” for a few days only, to extract the sap that remains in it, and then dry it in the sun or air, by which it neither chaps, casts, nor cleaves. The use of linseed-oil, tar, or such oleaginous matter, tends much to the preservation of wood. Hesiod prescribes “smoking” timber in order to preserve it:—
“Temonem in fumo poneres.”
Virgil advised the same method:—