Soapstone

“ Of talc alone the United States produced 151,088 tons, and of soapstone 21,208 tons. Talc is a mineral of which soapstone is an impure massive form. Few people are aware how much we owe to talc and soapstone. It is one of the softest of minerals. It is so smooth and slippery that it has become a great panacea for friction in many branches of human industry. ”

“ On comparing it with the flint of chalk-beds, we find it much less translucent, its colour darker, and its hues duller; and its rough and irregular fracture, compared with the easy, smooth, and conchoidal cleavage of the true flint, decides it to be hornstone. It is found also forming considerable distinct beds on the hills; and is seen in detached pieces, and irregular pebbles, covering many of the ridges.
Alternating with the beds of limestone, and possessing the same formation, is a soft clay slate. Soapstone is found in it. ”

“ SOAPSTONE is composed principally of talc. It, too, results from the chemical activity of hot solutions ascending through serpentine and causing the mineral transformation. Bodies of this material are associated with the serpentinite at Westfield and Zoar, and northward in 119 sections of Vermont. ”

“ Steatite and talc-schists are widely distributed, and have occasionally been used as building stones. When first raised the stone is soft, but hardens on exposure. Soapstone from Gudbrandsdal is used in the cathedral of Trondhjem in Norway. Veins of steatite occur in the serpentine of the Lizard district in Cornwall, and the mineral was used under the name of soap rock in the manufacture of the old Worcester porcelain. Among localities of steatite in the British Isles mention may be made of Crohy Head and Gartan near Letterkenny in co. ”

“ The most remarkable feature in connection with the finds is that everything of a decorative nature is made of a steatitic schist or soapstone. This stone is found in the country, and is still employed by natives farther south in making pipes for smoking dokha or hemp; it lends itself easily to the tool of the artist, and is very durable. ”

“ Some become chloritic from the development of the soft, green hydrated mineral, chlorite, derived from the pyroxene, amphibole, biotite, and perhaps other silicates of the original rock. Others become talcose from the development of talc, a very soft, unctuous, hydrous magnesian silicate developed from the magnesian minerals of the original rock. Soapstone or steatite is a rock composed essentially of such secondary material. ”

“ Not many specimens affected. Am sending to camp for electric torches. Will extend search area underground by hacking away stalactites.
Still later. Have found peculiar soapstone fragment about six inches across and an inch and a half thick, wholly unlike any visible local formation—greenish, but no evidences to place its period. Has curious smoothness and regularity. Shaped like five-pointed star with tips broken off, and signs of other cleavage at inward angles and in center of surface. Small, smooth depression in center of unbroken surface. Arouses much curiosity as to source and weathering. ”

“ The substance is extremely soft and can easily be cut with a knife. Soapstone figures are cut from a variety known as PINITE—the Agalmatolite or Pagodite of China, called by them Hoa-chi. Many of these are very beautifully cut, a number being lucky figures presented in the guise of gods and goddesses, flowers, fruits, etc. This custom reminds of the “Household gods” of the ancients. A kind of soft steatite earth is still eaten by the savages of New Caledonia and other places.
All varieties of Steatite are under the zodiacal Taurus. ”

“ An aggregate appears, alternating with the loose schistose rock, which resembles the red sandstone, but is of a less firm texture.
From this place all the strata, east of the soapstone, occasionally appear, for the distance of about three hundred feet. This is probably on account of their undulatory forms and horizontal position. Most of the way we find the lower part [139] of the walls to consist of a kind of semi-indurated puddingstone. Sometimes a thin stratum of fine, loose sand occurs. At 300 feet the coal stratum disappears, passing below the bottom of the drift. ”

“ These are from Mr. G. B. Abbott’s collection, Corning, California. The stones used on these are flat, or oval water-worn stones and not finished, like mano stones common to the Cliff-Dweller country.
Fig. 506. (S. 1–4.) Soapstone dish. From the Peabody Museum collection, Salem, Massachusetts.
Fig. 507. (S. 1–9.) From the collection of G. B. Abbott, Corning, California.
104In the East and the South we have steatite or soapstone mortars, cooking-pots, dishes, bowls, and sometimes dippers. Most of the larger museums have examples of these and particularly in highly finished stone dishes. Fig. ”

“ They are now planed, and subjected to the proper mechanical treatment for making cakes of any form. The soap is coloured with strong alcoholic solution of archil for the rose tint, and of turmeric for the deep yellow. Transparent soaps, however pleasing to the eye, are always of indifferent quality; they are never so detergent as ordinary soaps, and they eventually acquire a disagreeable smell.
SOAPSTONE; see Steatite.
SODA, Caustic soda (Hydrate de soude, Fr.; Aetznatron, Germ.) ; is an alkaline substance, used in chemical researches, in bleaching, and in the manufacture of soap. ”

“ A moderate value of asphaltic products is realized each year. These consist of bituminous sandstones, asphaltic limestones, asphaltum, and gilsonite, from California, Kentucky, Indian Territory, Texas, and Utah. Peat is not worked to any important degree, but forms a not inconsiderable reserve of fuel in some Northern States. Slate is extensively produced in Vermont and Pennsylvania. Graphite occurs in the Champlain region of New York, also in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Alabama. Among other important products are abrasives, borax, pyrite, mineral paints, talc, soapstone, and manganese ore. ”

“ Here the blanks are plunged into a tank of cold water, which hisses and spits like a dozen angry snakes as the hot metal touches it. From the cooling bath the blanks go to the acid bath. Into this latter they disappear black with the oxide of copper clinging to them. Pears' Soap or Sapolio, or whatever means to cleanliness we may employ, would hardly accomplish the wonders in an hour's application to the human skin, [Pg 147] which a few seconds of the sulphuric solution accomplishes with the blank of the coin. They emerge from their bath in every sense white as snow. ”

“ The extracted salt leys, by being run through a lime cave, might have been converted into a good caustic ley, and used over again with advantage.
Soap-makers will do well to consider this case with attention. By so doing, disagreeable circumstances of a similar nature may be avoided; and, consequently, much time, expences, and an infinite quantity of trouble, saved. No soap-ley at any time ought to be used, but such as, by experiment, is proved to be a caustic ley, entirely freed from its fixed air. ”

“ Unless a soap-ley be rendered caustic, or deprived of its fixed air, it can have no natural attraction for vegetable or animal subtsances, such as oil, tallow, or grease of any kind, so as to convert them into a soap. For the sole purpose, therefore, of extracting the fixed air from the leys, do soapmakers use quicklime. Depriving the mild alkali of its fixed air, renders it caustic, or of a burning, corroding quality, and of that peculiar nature that instantly attach themselves to all greasy substances, and converts them into soap. ”

“ Two tons of tallow should yield three tons of white soap. In making the same quantity of common brown or yellow soap, twelve hundred weight less is required, on account of the substitution of that amount of yellow rosin.
17. The mottled appearance of some soaps is caused by dispersing the ley through it, towards the close of the operation, or by adding a quantity of sulphate of iron, indigo, or the oxide of manganese. Castile soap, now manufactured in the greatest perfection at Marseilles, in France, receives its beautifully marbled appearance from the sulphate of iron. ”

“ It is considered the best procedure to commence the pasting or saponification with weak lye.
In order to economise tank space, it is the general practice to store strong caustic lye (60° to 70° Tw., 33° to 37° B.) and to dilute it as it is being added to the soap-pan by the simultaneous addition of water.
Many manufacturers give all their soap a "brine wash" to remove the last traces of glycerine and free the soap from carbonates. This operation takes place prior to "fitting"; sufficient water is added to the boiling soap to "close" it and then brine is run in to "grain" it. ”

“ From the time I began to use the soap, my gravelish symptoms gradually abated; but, upon walking two or three miles, I made bloody urine. However, that symptom gradually abated; and in the year 1743 all the symptoms of a stone quite vanished, insomuch that I could walk, ride, or go in a machine, as well as ever.
From February 1739, to July 1743, I took every day five or six drachms of soap: but after that time I diminished the dose to half an ounce; and never after had any return of a gravelish symptom, tho' I still imagine the stone is not intirely dissolved ”

“ The only thing which will render it easy of removal is soap, as by its action it softens the oily material and dislodges it from the skin. Soap has acquired an evil reputation which it certainly does not deserve, and if it disagrees it is either due to the fact of its being an inferior article, or else the skin itself must be at fault. The best soap to use is the white, not the mottled, Castile, as it is made from pure olive oil. By the proper and judicious use of soap the skin is kept soft and natural, and the complexion is maintained in the hue of health. ”

“ The materials must be varied according to the season; during hot weather, more body with a less tendency to separate is given by the introduction of oils and fats richer in stearine; these materials also induce "figging".
The most important material, however, is the caustic potash lye which should average 40° Tw. (24° B.) , i.e., if a weak solution is used to commence saponification, a stronger lye must be afterwards employed to avoid excess of water in the soap, and these average 40° Tw. (24° B.) . The potash lye must contain carbonates, which help to give transparency to the resultant soap. ”

“ In West Central Africa, moreover, the natives, especially the Fanti race, have been accustomed to wash themselves with soap prepared by mixing crude palm oil and water with the ashes of banana and plantain skins. The manufacture of soap seems to have flourished during the eighth century in Italy and Spain, and was introduced into France some five hundred years later, when factories were established at Marseilles for the manufacture of olive-oil soap. Soap does not appear to have been made in England until the fourteenth century, and the first record of soap manufacture in London is in 1524. ”

“ Only soap made from best quality fats is usually milled, a suitable base being that obtained by saponifying a blend of the finest white tallow with a proportion, not exceeding 25 per cent., of cocoa-nut oil, and prepared as described in Chapter V.
The first essential of a milling base is that the saponification should be thorough and complete; if this is not ensured, rancidity is liable to occur and a satisfactory toilet soap cannot be produced. The soap must not be short in texture or brittle and liable to split, but of a firm and somewhat plastic consistency. ”

“ The indications to be noticed are the shape and size of the flakes of soap as the sample on the trowel breaks up and runs from the hot iron surface, when the latter is turned in a vertical position, as well as the condition of the iron surface from which the soap flakes have fallen. A closed soap will run slowly into a homogeneous sheet, leaving the trowel's surface covered with a thin layer of transparent soap; a grained mass will run rapidly down in tiny grains, about one-half an inch in diameter or less, leaving the hot trowel [Pg 39] absolutely dry. ”

“ Let us also take, as an example, those most commonly occurring injurious constituents, the magnesian and calcareous impurities. Hard water only produces a lather with soap when that soap has effected the softening of the water, and not till then. In that process the soap is entirely wasted, and the fatty acids in it form, with the lime and magnesia, insoluble compounds called lime and magnesia soaps, which are sticky, greasy, adhesive bodies, that precipitate and fix some colouring matters like a mordant. ”

“ Manipulation.—Shave up the soap, and place it in a vessel that can be heated by steam or water-bath; add to it two or three ounces of rose-water. When the soap is perfectly melted, add the wax and spermaceti, without dividing them more than is necessary to obtain the correct weight; this insures their melting slowly, and allows time for their partial saponification by the fluid soap; occasional stirring is necessary. While this is going on, blanch the almonds, carefully excluding every particle that is in the least way damaged. ”

“ When the cave has stood the above time, loose the pin, and let the ley run briskly off. When all is off, stop up again, and fill with water, which may stand the half of the former time; the pin may again be loosed, and the leys allowed to run gently off, keeping the cave always filled up or supplied with water. It may be unnecessary here to remark, that we must hitherto be supposed as laying down directions to a person just going to commence soap-making, but perfectly ignorant of the operation, and that he is preparing every necessary agreeable thereto. ”