The following is a very exact Defeription of the whole Procefs of BLEACHING, taken from a curious Book lately published at Edinburgh, intitled, Experiments on Bleaching, by FRANCIS HOME, M. D. T HE two methods of bleaching, established by A a general practice, are the Dutch, and the Irish; one or other is followed at prefent by every bleacher, A defcription of each of thefe, is then a defcription of the whole practice. The Dutch method is that much followed for fine cloth by the skilful bleachers; while, for cheapnefs, they ufe, in the whitening of coarfe cloth, the Irish method, or one very like it. I shall then give a short defcription of the facts which happen in each. The Dutch method is as follows. After the cloth has been forted into parcels of an equal fineness, as near as can be judged, they are latched, linked, and then fleeped. Steeping is the first operation which the cloth undergoes, and is performed in this manner. The linens are folded up, each piece diftin&t, and laid in a large wooden veffel; into which is thrown, blood-warm, a fufficient quantity of water, or equal parts of water and lye, which has been used to white cloth only, or water with rye-meal or bran mixed with it, till the whole is thoroughly wet, and the liquor rifes over all. Then a cover of wood is laid over the cloth, and that cover is fecured with a post betwixt the boards and the joifting, to prevent the cloth from rifing during the fermentation which enfues. About fix hours after the cloth has been steeped in warm water, and about twelve in cold, bubbles of air arife, a pellicle is formed on the furface of the liquor, and the cloth fwells when it is not preffed down. This inteftine motion continues from thirty-fix to forty-eight hours, acFebruary, 1756. B cording to the warmth of the weather; about which time the pellicle or fcum begins to fall to the bottom. Before this precipitation happens, the cloth must be taken out; and the proper time for taking it out, is when no more air bubbles arife. This is allowed to be the jufteft guide by the most experienced bleachers. The cloth is then taken out, well rinfed, difpofed regularly by the felvage, and washed in the put-mill to carry off the loofe duft. After this it is fpread on the field to dry; when thoroughly dried, it is ready for bucking; which is the fecond operation. Bucking, or the application of falts, is performed in this manner. The first, or mother-lye, is made in a copper, which we shall fuppofe, for example, when full, holds 170 Scots gallons of water. The copper is filled three-fourths full of water, which is brought to boil: Juft when it begins, the following proportion of afhes is put into it, viz. 30 pounds of blue, and as much white pearl ashes; 200 pounds of Marcroft athes (or, if they have not thefe, about 300 pounds of Cafhub) 300 pounds of Mufcovy, or blanch-afhes; the three laft ought to be well pounded. This liquor is allowed to boil for a quarter of an hour, stirring the athes from the bottom very often ; after which the fire is taken away. The li D quor must ftand till it has fettled, which takes at least fix hours, and then it is fit for ufe. Out of their firft, or mother-lye, the fecond, or that used in bucking, is made in this manner. Into another copper, holding, for example, 40 Scots gallons, are put 38 gallons of water, two pounds of foft foap, and two galions of motherElye; or, for cheapnefs, in place of the foap, when they have lye which has been ufed to white linen, called white-linen lye, they take 14 gallons of it, leaving out an equal quantity of water. This is called backing-lye. After 52 PROCESS of BLEACHING. After the linens are taken up from the held dry, they are fet in the vat or cave, as their large veffel is called, in rows, endways, that they may be equally wet by the lye; which, made blood-warm, is now thrown on them, and the cloth is afterwards fqueezed down by a man with wooden fitnes. Each row undergoes the A fame operation, until the veffel is full, or all the cloth in it. At first the lye is put on milk-warm, and after standing a little time on the cloth, it is again let off by a cock into the bucking-copper, heated to a greater degree, and then put on the cloth again. This courfe is repeated for fix or feven hours, and the degree of heat gradually increafed, till it is at the laft turn B or two thrown on boiling hot. The cloth remains after this for three or four hours in the lye; after which the lye is let off, thrown away, or used in the first buckings, and the cloth goes on to another operation. The cloth is then carried out, generally early in the morning, fpread on the grafs, C pinned, corded down, exposed to the fun and air, and watered for the first fix hours, so often, that it never is allowed to dry. Afterwards it is allowed to lie till dry fpots appear before it is watered, After feven at night it gets no more water, unless it be a very drying night. Next day in the morning and forenoon it is watered twice, or thrice if the day is very dry; but if the weather be not drying, it gets no water: After which it is taken up dry if the green is clean if pot, it is rinfed, mill-washed, and laid out to dry again, to become fit for bucking. D This alte nate courfe of bucking and watering, is performed for the most part E from ten to fixteen times, or more, before the linen is fit for fouring; gradually increting the ftrength of the lye from the fift to the middle bucking, and from that gradually decreafing it till the fouring begins The lyes in the middle buckings are generally about a third stronger than the first and last. F Feb, If the milk is thick, about an eighth of water is added to it; if thin, no water. Sours made with bran, or rye-meal and water, are often ufed inftead of milk, and ufed milk warm. Over the first row of cloth a quantity of milk and water is thrown, to be imbibed by the fecond; and fo it is continued till the linen to be foured is fufficiently wet, and the liquor rifes over the whole. The cloth is then kept down by covers filled with holes, and fecured with a poft fixed to the joift, that it may not rife. Some hours after the cloth has been in the four, air-bubbles arife, a white cum is found on the furface, and an inteftine motion goes on in the liquor. In warm weather it appears fooner, is ftronger, and ends fooner, than in cold weather. Juft before this fermentation, which lafts five or fix days, is finished, at which time the fcum falls down, the cloth fhould be taken out, rinfed, mill-washed, and delivered to the women to be washed with foap and water. Wahing with foap and water is the fifth operation; and is performed thus. Two women are placed oppofite at each tub, which is made of very thick flaves, fo that the edges, which flope inwards, are about four inches in thickness. A fmall veffel full of warm water is placed. in each tub. The cloth is folded fo that the felvage may be firft rubbed with foap and warm water length-ways, till it is fufficiently impregnated. In this manner all the parcel is rubbed with foap, and afterwards carried to be bucked. The lye now ufed has no foap in it, except what it gets from the cloth ; and is equal in ftrength to the ftrongest formerly ufed, or rather stronger, becaufe the cloth is now put in wet. From the former operation thefe lyes are gradually made ftronger, till the cloth feems of an uniform white, nor any darkness or brown colour appears in its ground. ter this the lye is more fpeedily weakened than it was increased; fo that the last which the cloth gets, is weaker than any it got before. Af But the management of fours is different; for they are used ftrongeft at tift, and decreased fo in strength, that the laft four, confidering the cloth is then always taken up wet, may he reckoned to con tain three-fourths of water. Souring, or the application of acids to cloth, is the fourth operation. It is dif $ult to fay when this operation fhould commence, and depends mostly on a length of experience. When the cloth has an equal colour, and is mostly freed from the fprat, or outer bark of the lint, it is then thought fit for fouring; which is performed in the following manner. Ging, as formerly, obferving only to overInto a large vat or veffel is poured fuch a quantity of butter-milk, or four milk, as wall fufficiently wet the fift row of cloth; Which is tied up in loofe folds, and prefied down by two or three men bare-footed. 2 From the bucking it goes to the water Jap the felvages, and tie it down with cords, that it may not tear; then it ie turns to the four, milling, washing, bucking, and watering again. Thefe operations fucceed one apother alter nately 1756. WHYTT of the fenfible Parts of the Body. mately till the cloth is whitened; at which time it is blued, itarched, and dried. [To be continued in our next.] Dr. WHYTT's Obfervations on the Senfibility HE doctor firft obferves, that in difcover the fenfibility or infenfibility of the feveral parts of animals, particular regard fhould be had to an observation of Hippocrates, viz. "That a greater pain deftroys, in a confiderable degree, the feeling of a leffer one." Of the truth of B this obfervation, he has given many proofs, and if this is the cafe, it is not to be wondered at, that after the more fenfible parts were cut, thefe animals, which Dr. Haller opened, fhewed no figns of pain, when the lefs fenfible parts were wounded. The conclusion there. fore which should be made from his experiments, is, not that the parts he mentions are wholly deftitute of feeling, but that they are much lefs fenfible than fome others, or than has been commonly believed by phyficians. That the marrow is not infenfible, he fays, is manifeft from the experiments of Duverney, and his collegue Mr. Monroe, and adds, that the feeling of it is not owing to its oil; but to the membranes -containing this oil, which are proved to he furnished with nervous filaments, al tho', perhaps, too fubtle to be traced by the knife of the most accurate anatomift. That the tunica cornea is not infenble any one may foon be convinced of by an experiment upon his own eye; for when E the cornea is touched with the point of one's finger, a very fenfible pain is felt; and powder of tobacco, or any acid li quor, applied to the cornea, excites a very painful fenfation. And thus Dr. Haller's pofition, that all membranes are deftitute of feeling, muft admit at least of one exception. 53 excites immediately fhooting pains in the glands there, tho' no mark of the bruife appears in the skin. Dr. Haller allows, continues Dr. Whytt, the membranes of the aorta near the heart, and of the temporal, lingual, labial, thyroid and pharyngean arteries, to be fenfible; but thinks the coats of the arteries in other parts of the body have either no feeling, or a very obfcure degree of it; tho' it does not appear from his experiments, that animals complained more when the former, than when the latter were irritated. In this cafe, he relinquishes the appeal to experiment, and founds his opinion on his tracing nerves to the former, which he could not do to the latter: An argument he makes use of upon feveral other occafions, and which is next to be examined. As our author not only founds his opinion of the infenfibility of many parts of the body upon experiments made on living animals, but alfo on their being deftitute of nerves; we shall briefly confider, whether from the real or feeming infenfibility of any part, or from anatomifts being unable to demonftrate its nerves, we are intitled to conclude that it has none. Altho' the tendons are quite infenfible, according to Dr. Haller, and their nerves" can scarcely be demonftrated by anatoDmifts; yet we are convinced, that the tendons are not deftitute of nerves, from the following obvious obfervation. In foetufes and new-born children, the parts which afterwards in an adult ftate, become tendinous, are mufcular, or partly fo; and as animals advance in age, the proportion of the tendinous to the mufcular part, gradually increafes: We must either, therefore, deny nerves to the muscles, or allow them to the tendons alfo. Altho' we cannot trace nervous filaments to the small arteries, we have reafon to believe they are furnished with them, elfe how could the distraction of their coats in inflammations occafion fuch F acute pain? I think we may conclude every part that is liable to be inflamed by irritation, to be, in fome degree, fenfible, and endowed with nerves; for, fince the inflammation cannot in this cafe be owing to any increased force of the heart, the diftenfion of the fmall arteries, and the greater impetus of the blood in them, must be owing to an increafed ofcillatory motion in the veffels themfelves, excited by the unufual irritation: But thefe motions of the small veffels being of a like kind with thofe alternate contractions which are obferved in mufcles whofe A phyfician of the doctor's acquaintance, who had occafion to fee the operation of nephrotomy performed, was told by the patient, that when the kidney was opened, he felt pain, tho' duller and lefs acute than when the skin was cut. Again, the acute pain attending a nephritis, and fometimes occafioned by a Alone lodged in the kidneys, fhews, be- G yond doub', that they are endowed with feeling That the glands are not infenfile, is evident from the exquifite torture a man fels from a bruife on the testicle, and a blow on a woman's breath, often BRITAIN to ACADIA. fibres have been irritated, it will follow, that those veffels partake of a muscular nature, and confequently have nerves like the other mufcles. With regard to the membranes; fince the dura mater and pleura are furnished with nervous filaments, which anatomists have been able to demonftrate, we A may reafonably conclude, that the other membranes are not deftitute of them, altho' they may be too fmall to come under the eye of the best dissector: This is certainly true of the cornea and membranes containing the marrow, which we have fhewn, from undoubted experiments, to be fenfible, and confequently not without nerves. It appears therefore, that we can by no means conclude any part to be infenfible, merely because its nerves cannot be demonstrated. Feb. the firmness of parts, and its effect upon their nerves, we could never account for what has been obferved above, viz. that the parts of mufcles, which in feetufes and children are lax contracting fibres, and very fenfible, become, in a great measure, infenfible, in a found ftate, when, by the creature's advancing in age, they are compacted into tendons, as happens to many of them. If fenfibility, then, be a fure mark of the existence of nerves in any part of the body, there is not one that is deftitute of them, altho' anatomifts will never be able to demonstrate them in every part. From what has been faid, it may apB that Dr. Haller's experiments on pear, living animals do not fufficiently prove the doctrine he would deduce from them; and that his argument, for the infenfibility of parts, taken from their nerves not heing demonftrable, is altogether inconclufive. On the other hand it is allowed, that we cannot certainly conclude, from a part's being furnished with nerves, that, it is fenfible at all, or in what degree: For the nerves must be in a certain de-C gree of flexibility and tenfion, to perform their offices rightly; and in proportion as they recede from this, their fenfibility. will be more or lefs blunted. Examples will illuftrate this. The bones, which in a natural found ftate are infenfible, are nevertheless most certainly furnished with nerves, as appears from the remarkable fenfibility of D the granulated fubftance which rifes from them after fractures, or their being chi-. zelled, or when they expoliate: This foft flesh, however, gradually lofes its feeling as it grows harder, till being, at laft, turned into a callous or bony fubfance, it becomes wholly infenfible. The membranes of the tela cellularis E are, in a natural ftate, foft, flexible, and diffentile, and have but little feeling; but, in every wound or ulcer, when they acquire fome more firmness, they are fenfible of every touch and every acrid application, as furgeons fee daily. After a cicatrice has, fometime, covered the parts where the fore was, and they have returned to their natural foftnefs, thefe F cellular membranes lofe again their fen. ibility, as appears on making a wound thro' the cicatrice; and recover it again, whenever they become firm and tenfe, by the new inflammation and fuppuration. new The dura mater, which, in a found fate, has but little feeling, granulates G after the trepan, and feels every irritating fubftance applied to it; and the fame thing happens to cartilages, ligaments, tendons, membranes, &c. Without attention to this change in t.] [To be continued in our next. SOLUTION to a QUESTION in Vol. xxiv. p. 462. by the Propafer. L a ET 100 the radius of the given quadranty the radius of the infcribed circle ; then y = 22aa-a= 41, 42, &c. Putx the radius of the little infcribed circle, then by a natural = proceffion 16y2x2+8ayx2 + 4a2x2. 8ya2x2 + Sy'x + 4y ax· 16y3x4a3x=2a y2 — a+ — y +. Kence x = 4.011, &c. A fair Reprefentation of bis Majefty's Right to ACADIE, continued from p. 8. NGLAND claims not only as Nova E Scotia or Acadie, all the peninfula that goes by that name, but also all the territory on the continent before defcribed, within 43° and 50° of north lat. all the fea coafts of that district on the Atlantick, and round the bay of Fundi, on which are the forts of Pentagoet and St. John on the north fide, and Port Royal or Annapolis Royal on the fouth, as parts of the country yielded to us by Whereas the the treaty of Utrecht. French pretend, that neither thofe forts, nor any part of the coafts round the bay of Fundi, are to be comprized within the ancient limits of that country. To demonftrate our right the English com miffaries produced proofs of the limits and boundaries at three different periods of time, viz. Firft, At concluding the treaty of St. Germains, 1632. Secondly, At the treaty of Breda, 1667. Thirdly, At the treaty of Utrecht, 1713 First, By the third article of the treaty of St. Germains, Charles the Fit "pro mules 1756. Account of the TREATY with Pruffia. A mifes to restore to his most christian ma- F Secondly, By the tenth article of the treaty of Breda, England was to restore Acadie in North-America, which his most chrißian majefty formerly enjoyed. By the inftrument for reftoring it, according to the ftipulation of this treaty, dated Feb. 17, 1667, king Charles furrendered all that country called Acadie which the faid most chriftian king did formerly enjoy, as namely, the forts and habitations of Pentagoet, St. John, Port-Royal, La Heve and Cape Sable. In the original inftrument, oppofite to the names of these forts there is a marginal note in these words: "Inferted at the request of monGeur Ruvigny," who was then the French ambaffador at our court, When com-G plaint was made, after they thus had it in poffeffion, of the English fishing upon the coafts of Acadie, they defcribe them as extending from the ine Percee, which lies' near Cape Rofjeres, at the entrance of the river St, Laurence, to St. George's 55 inland, lying at the mouth of the river St. George. When they were to vindicate their right of importing goods into Pentagoet, they insisted that by the treaty of Breda, it had been decided to be in Acadie, and had been delivered up to the king their mafter, by virtue thereof. When the governors of Acadie were to complain to thofe of New-England of incroachments, they mention in their letters the river Kennebequi, as the boundary of the two nations. When PortRoyal was taken by the English in 1710, monf. Subercaife, governor of Acadie, and commander of that fort, in the arti❤ cles of capitulation ftiled himself, "Governor of Acadie, Cape-Breton, and the inlands and lands adjacent, from CapeRozieres of the river of St. Laurence, to the weft of the river Kennebequi." Which no doubt his commiffion warranted him to do. Thus from their own records it appears, that, from the treaty of St. Germains to the treaty of Breda, and from thence to the time of the treaty of Utrecht, which was the last period of their poffeffion, they made Acadie comprehend, not only the peninsula but aifo the continent on the other fide of the bay of Fundi ; and to take in the forts of Port Royal, Pentagoet, and St. John, together with the fame northern and ears tern boundaries as are now claimed by the crown of Great-Britain. [To be concluded in our next.] Subftance of the late Treaty with Prufa, H IS majesty the king of Great Britain, and the king of Pruffia, having ma◄ turely confidered that the differences which have lately arifen in America may easily extend much farther, and even reach Europe; having moreover always had the welfare and fafety of Germany, their com mon country, much at heart, and being extremely defirous to maintain her peace and tranquillity, have, as the most effectual means of obtaining this falutary end, agreed upon between themfelves, and caufed to be figned on the 16th of Janu ary laft by their ministers, a convention of neutrality, which purely relates to Germany, and tends to offend no perfon whatever. By this convention their majefties reciprocally bind themfelves not to fuffer foreign troops of any nation whatfoever to enter into Germany or pafs thro it, during the troubles aforefaid, and the confequences that may refult from them; but to oppofe the fame, in all cafes, with their utmost might; in order to fecure Germany from the calamities of war, maintain ber fundamental laws and conftitutions, and preferve her peace uninterrupted; • Then the name given to the subtle Erglife North America. |