A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & IISleeman, W. H. (William Henry), Sir
History
A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II
Sleeman, W. H. (William Henry), Sir
Oudh (India) -- Description and travel
The sujjee is formed from the reha by filtration. A tank is formed on
a terrace of cement. In a hole at one corner is a small tube. Rows of
bricks are put down from one end to the other, with intervals between
for the liquor to flow through to the tube. On these rows a layer of
stout reeds is first placed, and over them another layer composed of
the leaves of these reeds. On this bed the coarse reha earth is
placed without being refined by the process described in the text
above. Some coarse common salt (kharee nimuck) is mixed up with the
reha. The tank is then filled with water, which filters slowly
through the earth and passes out through the tube into pans, whence
it is taken to another tank upon a wider terrace of cement, where it
evaporates and leaves the sujjee deposited. The second tank is
commonly made close under the first, and the liquor flows into it
through the tube, rendering pans unnecessary. It is only in the hot
months of March, April, May, and part of June, till the rains begin
to fall, that the reha and sujjee are formed. During the other nine
months, the _Looneas_, who provide them, turn their hands to
something else. The _reha_, deprived of its carbonic acid and
moisture by heat, is fused into glass. Deprived of silex by this
process of filtration, it is formed into sujjee, from which the soap
is made.
On this process of filtration. Doctor O'Shaughnessy observes:-"I do
not clearly understand the use of the common salt, used in the
extraction of soda, in the process you described. But many of the
empirical practices of the natives prove, on investigation, to square
with the most scientific precepts. For example, their proportions in
the manufacture of corrosive sublimate are precisely identical with
those which the _atomic theory_ leads the European chemist to follow.
The filtering apparatus which you describe is really admirable, and I
doubt much whether the best practical chemist could devise any
simpler or cheaper way of arriving at the object in view."
The country is well provided with mango and other fine trees, single,
and in clusters and groves; but the tillage is slovenly and scanty,
strongly indicative of want of security to life, property, and
industry. No symptom of the residence of gardeners and other
cultivators of the better classes, or irrigation, or the use of
manure in tillage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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