[ 34 ] EXPERIMENTS made by Capt. PRYOR and Mr. THOMAS PAIN, for the Purpose of fixing some easy, cheap, and expeditious Method of making SALT-PETRE in private Families, in order to shew the practicality of a Plan proposed by Mr. PAIN, of forming a Salt-petre Association, for voluntarily supplying the public Magazines with Gunpowder.
F I R S T E X P E R I M E N T.
FRIDAY afternoon we sawed an old cask (of little or no value) into two tubs, and bored a hole in the bottom of each near the side, of about the size of a common cork, and stopt it with a wooden peg; over each hole we put a full handful of straw, then filled the tubs with earth[1], taken from the bottom of a cellar, and poured water thereon, filling it up as it sunk in, till the water stood about an inch above the earth. This is the same as setting a lye tub.
Second. Saturday morning we drew the liquor off, throwing it up till it ran clear, the quantity
- ↑ The earth of cellars, stables, barns, and our houses, open to the air, but covered from rain and sun, is impregnated with Nitre or Salt-petre, more or less; likewise, the soil under the floor of barns, which are raised from the ground, where fowls, hogs, &c shelter, will afford a large quantity---- We took about an inch and an half from the surface.
