CHEMISTRY OF THINGS FAMILIAR
What is Starch?—How Manufactured?—Composition of Wheat Flour—Acids—Alkalies—Sulphuric, Nitric, and Muriatic Acids—Sulphuretted Hydrogen—Tanning of Hides to Form Leather—Vinegar—Alcohol—Yeast—Fruit, How Preserved—Decay in Wood—What is Ether?—Disinfecting Agents—How Smoking Preserves Meat—What is Albumen?—What is a Poison?—Arsenic—Certainty of its Detection—Lead Pipes, How Poison Water—Verdigris—Calomel—Preservation of Wood—Common Names of Chemicals
What is starch?
The name starch is given to a mealy substance which is deposited in most vegetables at the time of ripening, from the juices with which the cells of the plants are filled.
What common vegetable especially abounds in starch?
The potato, which consists entirely of cells filled with starch and water.
A cell is a little membranous bladder filled with a solid or fluid substance.
Why does a laundress find it necessary to boil starch before using it for stiffening linen, etc.?
The starch, consisting of little granules, is insoluble in cold water; but when acted upon by hot water, the granules burst and allow their contents, which are soluble, to become mingled with the water.
Starch is manufactured as follows:—