SULPHURIC ACID.

Thames Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 1894, 14 November 1874, Page 3

SULPHURIC ACID.

SuiiPHTTEiG acid, or oil of vitriol, is certainly the most important of all chemical. , products. It is seldom used for domestic purposes, and we presume there are thousands of our readers who never saw an ounce of the concentrated acid in their . lives. But this sour, corrosive liquid is of immense value to mankind, in'the great industrial world it .occupies:a posl- i; tion second perhaps to no other substance. If the amount of its manufacture and con- • sumption by any people does not measure the degree of their civilization, it must be,. • regarded as a common pivot around which revolvo all the industries pursued by any nation. It is through the agency of this acid that we have soda, soap, glass, paper,; v. bleaching and dyeing salts, nitric acid, ..-; aniline colours, kerosene oil, superphosphates for farmers, and a thousand otheE' agents which out modem civilization demands. Indeed, it is from the reactions to which it gives birth, that the greater part of the chemical products .employed in the arts and sciences, the greater parkof the medicaments used in the art oS, healing, result. Only those who are engaged in some pursuit; .demanding its employment,, or those who are specially": acquainted' with chemical industries, have any correct idea of the colossal scale upon which this acid is manufactured both in this country and in Europe. At one establishment in the city of Brooklyn, N.Y., the stream of concentrated acid ' 'which runs from the platinum retorts is nearly three-fourths of an inch in diameter, and this stream is constant, day and night, month after mouth, and year after year. This is but one of the many immense v acid factories scattered over our country. In Europe it is produced upon a stilk grander scale, and the united streams of the fiery liquid, which' flow from the thousands of retorts in active operation, would aggregate in volume soma of the mountain cascades so much admired in Switzerland, It is estimated that-the annual production in Europe reaches 800,000 tons. In order to gain some ;con-. • ception of the volume of the liquid, let us imagine that all the acid made in Europe were carried to Central Park and poured ; ; into-'a canal lined with lead. This canalwould require to be six .and and a half feet deep, 3<i feet .wide, and wore; thau half a mile long. 1 r l he acid would - fill the basin ■of the beautiful lake over which the boatmen convey passengers in , their gay barges; during the summer. 7 In Europe the acid is manufactured mostly from iron pyrites, and in thiscountry the pyrites are ;0 a considerable extent' being substituted for sulphur. The acid made in this city from the mineral ii... sold at a lower price'than that from, sulphur. The strength and effectiveness of the acid from the two sources ire the' same, but the iron sulphide is apt to contain traces of arsenic, which is found in" the acid. This does not, however, interfere with its use in the arta. Tho enormous consumption of the pyrites in Europe in this manufacture fills one with astonishment. It is estimated that more than 600,000 tons are used, a quantity which would require nearly 100,000 railroad cars to convey the mineral from the mines to the acid works. The statements ■ here presented are well calculated to show , tho great' iinportanco of one of our industrial products not well understood by " the majority of readers.—Journal: qf Chemistry.