A general treatise on the manufacture of soap, theoretical and practical: comprising the chemistry of the art, a description of all the raw materials and their uses, with an appendix

PREFACE


AMONG industrial pursuits the art of soap-making is
one of the most important and useful, as well in its bear-
ings on domestic economy as on many branches of manu-
factures. To every class of society, from the highest to
the lowest, soap has become an absolute necessity. Some
one has indicated the consumption of soap as a measure
and test of the advancement of any people in civiliza-
tion.

The art of manufacturing soap has for ages attracted
the attention of chemists, who have aimed to perfect an
operation which had long remained without explanation
upon a rational theory. Notwithstanding this, and with
all the researches, and the real services which their pre-
decessors had rendered toward the advancement of this
branch of industry, it is only since the appearance of the
important works of MM. Chevreul, and Braconnot, that
the theory of the reaction of the alkalies upon oils and
greases has been well understood, and consequently the
art of saponification reduced to sound principles.

The present work has over all others on this subject
which have preceded it, the advantage not only of the
improvements which have of late been generally applied




to the art, but also of the results of numerous experi-
ments which we have ourselves made, and which have
enabled us to describe with exactness the different ope-
rations which elucidate the principles involved.

We have much pleasure in acknowledging our in-
debtedness to the works of MM. Marcel de Serres,
D'Arcet, Pelletier, Lelievre, Collin, Chaptal, Berthollet,
Boutet, Lorme, Morfit, Chateau, Ure, Braconnot, and
especially to that of M. Chevreul. The work of Pro-
fessor Morfit, " Chemistry applied to the Manufacture
of Soap and Candles," as well as that of M. Lorme, we
have freely used, but for what we have said on the com-
position of fatty bodies, we are mainly indebted to our
illustrious master M. Chevreul, whose great work on that
subject we have without hesitation laid under contribu-
tion.

The materials which compose this treatise we have
arranged in a systematic manner, and we believe that
nothing has been omitted which is indispensable or could
be useful. Especially have we endeavored to describe
the most important improvements which have recently
been applied to the art.

We have aimed to avoid the use of scientific terms in
the description of the practical operations of the art, but
in the theoretical parts which are connected with the
chemistry of the subject we have been under the neces-
sity of retaining the language of science.