Elk City mining news. (Elk City, Idaho) 1903-1913, 1913-02-13
THE INVENTION OF SOAP
Ancient Germans Given Credit for
Being First Manufacturers of
Soft and Hard Soap.

turing both hard and soft soaps. From
them the Romans learned the art, but
the soap was for a long time princi-
pally used by them as wash for the
hair. A complete soap boiling estab-
lishment, with soap in a good state
of preservation. has been discovered
at Pompeii. Some natural produc-
lions possess the qualities of soap, |
as the berries of the soap tree"
found in South America and the West
Indies, and the bark of the quillaja
soponaria, which has been carried
from Peru to Liverpool for washing
woolens. The juice of the soapwort
or bouncing bet" forms lather with
water and has been used in England
for securing dresses. In California
the root of the phalonginn pomarid-
ianum, which grows there abundantly
and has the color of brown soap, is
much used in washing clothes. Aka
line waters when used upon greasy
fabrics form soaps similar to those
produced in the regular process of
manufacture, say Chicago Retailers
Journal.
The ordinary method of soponifica-
ton, as the conversion of fats into
soaps is called, is by boiling them
with solutions of caustic, potash or
soda. Most fats require long contin-
ued boiling with excess OF alkal1, but
others-as lard, beef marrow, and oil
of sweet almonds-may be soponihed
by agitation with caustic alkali at or
binary temperatures, and under in
creased pressure the alkaline carbon
ates will readily produce soponifica-
ton of fats.
Every kind of soap contains a vari-
able quantity of water, partly in chem
ical combination. Soap is perfectly
soluble in alcohol and hot water, but
both solutions solidify to jelly at
certain stage of concentration. Cold
water does not dissolve the ingredl-
ents, which constitute ordinary soap,
without decomposition, the alkali be-
ing dissolved and the oily acid precl-
plated and when hot solutions are
cooled the same action takes place.
Soap is quite insoluble in solution
of common salt, containing more than
one part in 400 of water, SO that on
the addition of salt to the contents OF
a soap pan curd consisting of a solid
soap will rise to the surface, while
the alkaline salts and glycerin remain
dissolved in the water
In he modern soap factory the sci
ence of economical production for
everyday use has been developed to a
point that leaves little room for i'm
, provement.
AS practiced in the plant of this big
concern, the art of soap making may
be divided broadly into two branches
f -causticizing and saponifying. The
causticizing is the preparing of the
f lye, which is made from lime and car
donated soda. The saponifying is the
, boiling of the I've and the tallow to
gether in one or all of the big "ket
= ties" used for that purpose. With the
v completion of the boiling, which lasts
2 for six or seven days, the soap making
t may be said to be completed, as the
contents of the kettle are then in The
state that needs only good drying tt
be the soap of the every day market
But the work of drying the mass ant
V subsequent treatment are not less i'm
4 portant than the mere boiling of tn
watts. When the drying is completes
6 there are still to be performed tn
four great processes known in tn
trade as milling, pressing and wraI
ping.
cesses are now done chiefly with ma
chinery. In the milling machines tn
soap for toilet purposes is chippe
into ribbonlike strips, which are "plod
dered" or crushed in the machines TO
mixing in the color and perfume, o
II both. Then the soap is run throug
ly the pressing machine to give 1t tn
l. special cake form desired. Then
Il goes to the benches for wrapping
n, which in the toilet department is don
l., 4, mostly by hand, but in the laundr
r, soap department, it is almost who'll
r the work of machines.
NJ Chemistry is one of the most in
portant features of the modern soa
re making industry and all the leadin
40 soap manufacturers maintain in the
" plants the most thorough and be-
-, equipped chemistry departments tn;
ali money can procure. High price
to chemists, some of them with worl
od wide regulations in the domain
original research, give all their tin
e. to the scientific work to be done
the modern soap factories. EaC
great soap-making plant has its ov
chemist. and many of them have mo-
than one.
from I've and other soap-making m
terials the chemical laboratory pla.
sll a very important part. The by-pro
UT ucts of soap are made from materia
re that formerly were consigned to Il
waste tanks. But in the economi
of modern soap-making, with the ke'