Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets Part 2

36. FRENCH CHEMICAL SOAP

Take 5 lbs. castile soap, cut fine, 1 pint alcohol, 1 pint soft water, 2 ounces aquafortis (if for black cloth 1/2 ounce of lampblack,) 2 ounces saltpetre, 3 ounces potash, 1 ounce camphor, 4 ounces cinnamon in powder. Fist dissolve the soap, potash, and saltpetre by boiling, then add all the other articles, and continue to stir until it cools, then pour it into a box, let it stand 24 hours, and cut it into cakes. It is used for taking grease, stains, and paints from cloth, wood, &c. This receipt has frequently sold for $10.

37. BLACK INK WITHOUT SEDIMENT

This ink is not injured by frost--is a beautiful article, and only costs 5 cents. per gallon, and is sold for from $1 to $3. Take 1 lb.

logwood, 1 gallon soft water, simmer in an iron vessel for one hour, then dissolve in a little hot water 24 grains bychromate of potash, and 12 grains prussiate of potash, and stir into the liquid while over the fire, then take it off and strain it through fine cloth.

This ink is a jet black flows freely from the pen and will stand the test of oexylic acid.

38. INDELIBLE INK

1 inch of the stick of the nitrate of silver dissolved in a little water, and stirred into each gallon of the above, makes first rate indelible ink for cloth. Judge what indelible ink costs.

39. INDELIBLE INK

Nitrate of silver 1-1/2 oz., dissolved in liquor ammonia fortisine 5-1/2 oz., orchil for colouring 3/4 oz., gum mucilage 12 oz., mix the two latter, then mix them with the two former, and it is ready to use.

40. WRITING FLUID OR BLACK COPYING INK

Take two gallons of rain water and put into it gum arabic 1/4 lb., brown sugar 1/4 lb., clean copperas 1/4 lb., powdered nut galls 3/4 lb., mix and shake occasionally for ten days and strain. If needed sooner, let it stand in an iron kettle until the strength is obtained. This ink can be depended on for deeds or records, which you may want someone to read hundreds of years to come. Oexylic acid 1/4 oz., was formerly put in, but as it destroys the steel pens, and does just as well without it--it is now never used.

41. BEST INK POWDER

This is formed of the dry ingredients for ink, powdered and mixed.

Take powdered galls one pound, powdered green vitriol half a pound, powdered gum 4 ounces, mix all together, put it up into 2 ounce packages, each of which will make a pint if ink.

42. BEST RED INK

Take of best carmine (nakarot) 2 grains, rain water 1/2 ounce, water of ammonia 20 drops, add a little gum arabic, and it is in a few minutes ready for use.

43. YELLOW INK

Dissolve alum in saffron water to whatever shade of yellow you please. It makes a beautiful ink.

44. BLUE INK

Take Prussian blue, and oexylic acid, in equal parts, powder finely, and add soft water to bring it to a soft paste, and let it stand for a few days, then add soft water to the desired shade of colour; add a little gum arabic to prevent spreading.

45. GOLDEN INK

Take some white gum arabic, reduce it to an impalpable powder in a bra.s.s mortar, dissolve it in strong brandy, and add a little common water to render it more liquid, provide some gold in a sh.e.l.l, which must be detached in order to reduce it to a powder, when this is done moisten it with the gum solution, and stir the whole with a small hair brush, or your finger, then leave it for a night that the gold may be better dissolved. If the composition becomes dry during the night, dilute it with more gum water in which a little saffron has been infused, but take care that the gold solution be sufficiently liquid to flow freely in a pen; when the writing is dry polish it with a dry tooth.

46. WHITE INK FOR WRITING ON BLACK PAPER

Having carefully washed some egg sh.e.l.ls remove the internal skin and grind them on a piece of porphyry, then put the powder in a small vessel of pure water, and when it has settled at the bottom, draw off the water and dry the powder in the sun. This powder must be preserved in a bottle; when you want to use it put a small quant.i.ty of gum ammoniac into distilled vinegar, and leave it to dissolve during the night, next morning the solution will appear exceedingly white, and if you then strain it through a piece of linen cloth, and add to it the powder of egg sh.e.l.ls in sufficient quant.i.ty, you will obtain a very white ink.

47. SECRET INK FOR YOUNG LADIES AND GENTS

Take a drachm of clean rain water, put into it, in a clean vial, 10 or 12 drops of pure, clean sulphuric acid, and it is ready for use; write with this using a clean quill pen on letter paper, and when dry you can see no mark at all, then hold it to a strong heat and the writing becomes as black as jet. If you want to write to a young lady or gentleman, as the case may be, and fearing that the letter might be opened before she or he gets it, write with common black ink something of no importance, then between the lines write what you want to say with the secret ink. The person to whom you are writing must understand the scheme so that she or he may hold it to the heat and thereby make the writing visible.

48. CIDER WITHOUT APPLES

To each gallon of cold water put 1 lb. common sugar, 1/2 ounce of tartaric acid, one tablespoonful of yeast, shake well, make in an evening and it will be fit for use next day. I make in a keg a few gallons at a time, leaving a few quarts to make into next time, not using yeast again until the keg needs rinsing. If it gets a little sour, make a little more into it or put as much water with it as there is cider and put it with the vinegar. If it is desired to bottle this cider by manufacturers of small drinks, you will proceed as follows: put in a barrel 5 gallons of hot water, 30 lbs. of brown sugar, 3/4 lb. of tartaric acid, 25 gallons of cold water, 3 pints of hop or brewer's yeast, work into paste with 3/4 lb. of flower, and one pint water will be required in making this paste; put all together in a barrel which it will fill and let it work 24 hours, the yeast running out at the bung all the time by putting in a little occasionally to keep it full; then bottle, putting in two or three broken raisins to each bottle, and it will nearly equal champagne.

49. SPRUCE OR AROMATIC BEER

Take 3 gallons of water, 2-1/2 pints mola.s.ses, 3 eggs well beaten, 1 gill yeast, put into two quarts of the water boiling hot, put in 50 drops of any oil you wish the flavour of, or mix one ounce each, oil sarsafras, spruce, and wintergreen; then use the 50 drops. For ginger flavour take 2 ounces ginger root bruised and a few hops, and boil for 30 minutes in one gallon of the water, strain and mix all; let it stand 2 hours and bottle, using yeast, of course, as before.

50. LEMON BEER

To make 20 gallons, boil 6 ounces of ginger root bruised, 1/4 lb.

cream-tartar for 20 or 30 minutes in 2 or 3 gallons of water; this will be strained into 13 lbs. of coffer sugar on which you have put 1 oz. oil of lemon and six good lemons all squeezed up together, having warm water enough to make the whole 20 gallons, just so you can hold your hand in it without burning, or some 70 degrees of heat; put in 1-1/2 pint hops or brewer's yeast worked into paste as for cider, with 5 or 6 oz. of flower; let it work over night, then strain and bottle for use. This will keep a number of days.

51. PHILADELPHIA BEER

Take 30 gallons of water, brown sugar 20 lbs., ginger root bruised 1/4 lb., cream tartar 1-1/4 lb., carbonate of soda 3 ounces, oil of lemon 1 teaspoonful, put in a little alcohol, the white of 10 eggs well beaten, hops 2 ounces, yeast one quart. The ginger root and hops should be boiled for 20 or 30 minutes in enough of the water to make all milk warm; then strain into the rest, and the yeast added and allowed to work itself clear as the cider and bottled.

52. SILVER TOP DRINK

Take of water 3 quarts, white sugar 4 lbs., oil of lemons one teaspoonful, white of 5 eggs, beaten with one teaspoonful of flour; boil to form syrum, then divide into equal parts, and to one add 3 ounces of tartaric acid, and to the other part 4 oz. of carbonate of soda, then take two thirds of a gla.s.s of water, and put in a spoonful of each of the syrups, more or less, according to the size of the gla.s.s.

53. DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING SODA DRINKS

In getting up any of the soda drinks which are spoken of hereafter it will be preferable to put about 4 oz. of carbonate (sometimes called supercarbonate) of soda into one pint of water, and shake when you wish to make a gla.s.s of soda, and pour from this into the gla.s.s until if foams well instead of using dry soda as directed.

54. IMPERIAL CREAM NECTAR

Part 1st.--Take 1 gallon water, 6 lbs. loaf sugar, 6 ounces tartaric acid, gum arabic 1 oz.

Part 2nd.--Take 4 teaspoonsful of flour, the whites of four eggs beat finely together, then add 1/2 pint of water. Heat the first part until it is blood warm, then put in the second, boil 3 minutes and it is done.