The Express.
London, England, 1851-06-28 00:00:00

THE SODA MANUFACTORIES OF THE
TYNE.

Messrs. Stevenson, of the Jarrow Chemical Com-
pany, have just prepared an immense mass of crystal soda,
two tons weight, for the Great Exhibition. This important
branch of our national manufactures has hitherto been un-
represented, and Bles,rs. Stevenson, having a week or two
ago, received a communication front London, stating that if
they would send up a large specimen, the commissioners
would grant spare on the landing-place of the stair-case, at
the entrance of the chemical department, for its exhibition,
this specimen has been prepared. The block is eight-sided ;
is three feet high ; six feet across the top ; the walls being
eight inches thick.

This mass of crystal soda is an appropriate type of •
branch of manufacture which has now attained to au im-
incase importance in this country, and which has risen to
its present extent from most insignificant beginnings, and
with a most unwonted rapidity. The old source of soda
was kelp or barilla, which contained it in very small pro.
portions. Since the abolition of the dutyon salt the process
at present employed has rapidly extended, and as rapidly
has the price declined, the price of to-day being one-half of
what it was twelve years ago, and one-fifth of what it was
26 years since.

- banks tif the Tyne between Newcastle and Shields
and South Lancashire are the principal seats of this impor-
tant trade, there are large manufactories also at Birming-
ham, Bristol, and Glasgow. One peculiarity of these works
is the quantity of ground they occupy, in the larger ones
as much as ten or twelve acres. The quantity of soda
crystals annually produced in Great Britain may be eati•
gaited at 36,000 tons. The materials used in the process
are none of them of great value, but the quantities used are
remarkable.
The following is an estimate of some particulars regard-
ing the extent of this trade on the Tyne alone :—Number
of men employed, 2,700; annual consumption of coals,
226,000 tons; annual consumption of salt, 45,000 tons;
annual consumption of chalk, 50,000 tons ; annual coasump-
tion of sulphur, 8,000 tone; annual consumption of iron
pyrites, 17,000 tons ; annual consumption of nitrate of soda,
1,400 tone. There is a prodigious consumption also of mate-
rials such as iron, timber, bricks, &c., all of them the pro-
duce of this country and giving much field for native
industry. The soda trade is very peculiar also from the largo
amount of shipping which it employs. From the manufac-
tories being collected in a few favourable spots most of the
raw materials and nearly every ton of the finished goods
have to be conveyed by sea, the trade on the Tyne receiving
and shipping annually 160,000 tons of goods, or nearly 600
tons a day.
Crystallised soda contains two-thirds of weight of water,
and it is to this water that its crystalline form is owing.
When heated the water evaporates and a white dry shape-
less powder remains. Instead of being crystallised large
quantities of soda are turned out in this dry form, known
as "soda ash," and it is this variety of soda which is used
in the manufacture of these two useful but dissimilar sub-
stances soap and glass. The Lancashire manufacturers pro-
duce scarcely anything but the soda ash, but on the Tyno
crystal soda is the staple product.