The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, 1879-07-15
ThInus that are MIsnamed.


articles well known In trade by saying
Why should trade not have johnson
or a Webster TO classify and correct the
mass of inconsistencies that go TO make
up its nomenclature We not only tax
our brains to invent " fantastic'' names
for every new fabric, varied perhaps
only by q thread or q shade from what
our grandparents wore century ago,
but there are in use positive misnomers
for many staple articles of merchandise
The following imperfect list, culled from
sources ready at hand will give a faint
idea of them.
Acid (sour), applied in chemistry to
class of bodies to which sourness is only
accidental, and by no means universal
characteristic. Thus rock crystal quartz,
flint, etc., are chemical acids, though
no particle of acidity belongs to them.
Black lead does not contain a single
particle of lead, being composed of car
bon and iron.
Brazilian grass does not come from
Brazil, or even grow there; nor is it
grass at all. 1t consists of strips of q
palm leaf (chanoerops drgentcd) and is
imported chiefly from Cuba.
Burgundy pitch is not pitch, nor is it
manufactured in or exported from Bur-
gundy. The best is resinous substance
prepared from common frankincense
and brought from Hamburg; but by far
the greater quantity is mixture of
resin and palm oil.
China, as name for porcelain gives
rise to the contradictory expressions,
British china, Dutch china, Chelsea
china, etc., like wooden milestones, iron
milestones, brass shoe-horns, iron pens,
steel pens.
Cutie bone is not bone at all, sbut a
structure of pure chalk, once embodied
loosely in the substance of certain ex-
tinct species of cutie fish. 1t is enclos-
ed in q membraneous sac, within the
body of the fish, and drops out when
the sac is opened, but it has no con-
nection whatever with the sac or the
cutie fish.
Galvanized iron is not galvanized. 1t
Is simply iron coated with zinc bath con-
tanning muriatic acid.
German silver is not silver at all, nor
was the metallic alloy called by that
name invented by a German, but has
been in use in China time out of mind.
Honey soap contains no honey, nor is
honey any way employed in its manu-
facture. 1t is a mixture of palm oil
soap and olive oil soap, each one part,
with three parts OF curd soap, or yellow
soap, scented
Japan lacquer contains no lac at all,
but is made from kind of nut tree
called anacardiacee
Kid gloves are not made from kid
skins, but of lamb or sheep skins. At
present many of them are made of rat
skins.
Meerschaum is not petrified sea
foam," as it's name implies, but is a
composition of silica, magnesia and
water.
Mosaic gold has no connection with
Moses or the metal gold. 1t is an alloy
of copper and zinc, used in the ancient
musivum or tessellated work.
Mother of pearl is the inner layer of
several sorts of shells. 1t is not the
mother of pearl, as its name indicates,
but in some cases the matrix of the
pearl.
Pen means feather Latin penno, a
wing. A steel pen is not very choice
expression.
Prussian blue does not come from
Prussia, but is the precipitate of the salt
of protoxide of iron with prussiate of
potassa.
Salad oil is not oil for salad, but oil for
cleaning sallades, i. e., helmets.
Salt is not salt at all, and has long
been excluded from the class of bodies
denominated "salts."
Sealing wax is not wax at all, nor
does it contain single particle of wax.
1t is made of shellac, Venice turpentine
and cinnabar. Cinnabar gives it deep,
red color, and the turpentine renders the
shellac soft and less brittle.
Sperm oil properly means "seed oil"
(Latin, spernaa, seed), from the notion
that it was spermaceti 1.-THE sperm or
melt of whale). The sperm whale is
the whale which gives the "seed oil,
which is taken chiefly, but not wholly,
from the head.
WhalebOne is not bone at all. nor
does it possess any of the properti ties of