Page:Treatise on Soap Making.djvu/118

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102

before witnessed. I found the pan almost brimful; and, upon dipping in my finger, and applying it to the tongue, I discovered the pan to be completely choked or poisoned with salt. On inquiry I learned, that he had expended more materials upon this single pan of soap, than, with proper management, might have completed three such boilings. Leys had been added in their mild state, which always have the tendency to run the materials into a kind of entire mass, and preventing the possibility of extracting the leys therefrom, the whole being converted into a kind of thin soap. In this state of a soap pan, it is usual to add some common salt, to facilitate the separation of the leys from the other materials, which generally has that effect, (provided the leys boiled with were weak caustic ley): But, if the leys were mild, the fixed air not having been properly extracted,