During this latter ordeal the Wizard
contrives to effect a clever change in the
composition of the substances blended
together. In the last process the sulphuric
acid had seized the soda of the muriate of
soda or common salt so tightly and resolutely,
that the muriatic part of it felt compelled
to yield up possession; the consequence was
that, instead of muriate of soda, the chemist
finds he has a sulphate of soda. But now a
retribution awaits the acid. The lime,
naturally voracious for all acidulous matter,
has its appetite quickened by the great
heat applied; and which, whilst it renders
the sulphate of soda easily acted upon,
gives the lime a more powerful hold of the
acid which it instantly and remorselessly
seizes, becoming, in doing so, a new body—
sulphate of lime. The soda thus set free is
supplied with carbon from the burning coal,
though not to any large extent, and is transmuted
into sub-carbonate of soda, or common
washing soda.

Looking on whilst a number of hot, half-
clad, sooty people are raking with enormous
instruments interminable heaps of glowing
red-hot soda-ashes, from fiery furnaces that
appear to have no end or bottom to their
flaming abysses, I cannot believe that the
scorching soda-ash is the same substance as
the pure shining crystals so often beheld
in the hands of laundresses—identical in
nature with the beautiful white soda-powder
which forms the leading feature in the
refreshing Seidlitz draught; but all doubts are
removed by being shown the succeeding
process which completes the transformation.
Another large building, hotter and more
sooty than the last, is furnished with what
have the appearance of bakers' ovens, on a
very extensive scale. I am requested to peep
into one of these wholesale bakeries, and I do
so; but draw back rather more quickly than
anticipated. I had often read of that theory
which supposes the centre of our globe to
be composed of a torrid sea of liquid fire—an
ocean of the essence of Etna; here the very
hot waters of that ocean seemed to be
realized.

Another cautious peep at this wondrous
lake of phosphorus and flame—at this restless
rolling tide of flickering, hungry, remorseless
fire. I learn that this cavern is filled
with a solution of the soda-ash previously
seen, for the purpose of being evaporated to
a state of crystalline dryness. In ordinary
cases of evaporation by heat, the calorific
agency is applied below the matters to be
acted upon. But here the liquid, requiring
to be reduced to a state of solidity, is placed
in a long shallow receptacle, over the surface
of which a rolling flame of intense heat is
driven by a restless blast. This fiery agency
sweeps from end to end of the saline stream;
and, as it darts on its way, lifts up and bears
on its molten wings the lighter particles of
moisture, which accompany it through many
subterranean vaults of giant magnitude, and
finally find their way up the towering
chimney.

The thirsty flame is allowed to feed upon
the liquor, until the latter becomes so
concentrated that, upon cooling, it deposits the
salt held by it in solution in the shape of
fine, white, solid, many-sided crystals. In
another and far cooler factory we find this
solidifying liquor in the course of doing what
we thus learn about it. Wooden cisterns or
vats are standing about us, brim full of the
bright, clear liquor. At the bottom of these
tanks we perceive, on peeping down, a
collection of the crystals; whilst in a further
corner of the shed a number of men are busily
occupied in shovelling quantities of these
same crystals of soda into casks ready for
sale, the waste liquor having been first run
off. Those who are in the habit of seeing
"washing-soda" in handfuls at a time have
small conception of the vast importance of
the manufacture for general purposes. The
trade in this simple article—which may be
bought retail for something like a farthing a
pound—amounts in the aggregate to the
yearly value of a million sterling; a hundred
and fifty thousand tons being annually
produced of this and the ordinary soda-ash.
These articles are chiefly employed in the
manufacture of soap and glass; and for the
cleaning and bleaching cotton and linen
goods.

There is now the muriatic acid room, a
department smaller than the other. Magazines
of salt are stored up in the vicinity. This,
indeed, is the basis of the acid. Here again,
the Wizard is all-powerful. The salt, or
muriate of soda is blended with sulphuric acid,
which possessing a greater power over the
soda of the salt than its muriatic fellow, seizes
it, appropriates it, and by the violence of its
proceedings, compels the remaining acid to
mount up in the form of acidulous vapour,
which, passing away through stoneware
channels into reservoirs, becomes muriatic
acid.

This fighting and mastery of the acids; this
gaseous flight of the muriatic particles of the
salt, is going on all day long. It is at its
height as we enter the scene of the conflict.
A sharp puncturing in the nostrils, which
darts up as it were to the very brain, a twingeing
as if a thousand needles were perforating
my throat, a winking of the eyes similar to
that produced by hot blasts of sand in the
great African wilderness, combine to make
me regret having ventured within such
unpleasant precincts. It is impossible to stand
acid-proof against the horrid vapour that
permeates my inmost man. I am blinded, choked
and wretched, I look in vain for some exit
from this inferno. The deputy Wizard is
perfectly indifferent to any such sensation as I
suffer from. He is adamant, and wishes to
detain me to explain the process; but I intimate
that I know all about it; that the thing