No. 4. — Brown's (Non poisonous) Preservative Soap.
Whiting or chalk, 2.5 lb.
Chloride of lime, 2 oz.
Soft soap, 1 lb.
Tincture of musk, 1 oz.
Boil together the whiting and the soap with about a pint of water; then stir in the chloride of lime (previously finely pounded) while the mixture is hot; if this point is not attended to, the mixture will not work smoothly; when nearly cool, stir in the tincture of musk. This will about fill a 6 lb. Australian meat tin. Caution: It is not necessary to hold the mouth over the mixture while hot, as chlorine is then rapidly evolved. This mixture has stood the test of work and time, and I therefore confidently bring it to the notice of the public as completely superseding the arsenical paste or soap for small mammals and all birds; indeed, numbers of persons, totally unknown to me, have written to me about its advantages.
One says: "I have followed the bird-stuffing now for several years in connection with another trade, but I have never seen anything to touch it before. I have quite given up arsenic, and can get on fine without it, and only wish that I had known the grand secret before."
Another: "Your recipe for preservative unction (non-poisonous) is simply invaluable to taxidermists. I have been trying for a long time to make a non-poisonous unction, but never fairly succeeded; always had a doubt as to their efficacy, prejudice had something to do with it."
A third says: "I have tried your recipe, and am well satisfied of its qualities for preserving skins, having tried Swainson's, and Bécoeur's, and yours, and after a twelvemonth have relaxed the skins, and give my favour to yours as a toughener of the skin."
None of the above correspondents are known tome, and their opinion was sent unasked. Those people I do know who are using it are perfectly satisfied, as I myself am after a constant use of it for the past seven years. I find that skins dressed by it are not "burned," as some people may think, but relax most perfectly after a lapse of years by any method, even by the water process spoken of hereafter. I do not think it any better or worse than the arsenical preparations for preventing the attacks of insects, but the addition of tincture of musk (a lasting perfume) has seemed to me to be a great gain. One person wrote to me stating his opinion that the lime unduly corroded the wires used in setting up. I believe this might happen in cases where the mixture was used in a more fluid state than directed, namely, as a paste of a creamy consistence. I know of no evil effects produced.