peat, adding a little blue with the hot water; wring tight and shake well. To Wash Damask Curtains.-Shake the dust off, lay in cold water to free from smoke, use boiled soap as in blankets, and wash in tepid water, then rinse in cold water with a handful of salt thrown into it. To Wash Carpets. Sweep the carpet thoroughly, take a large pail of hot water, coloured with blue, if any white in it; wet about half a yard of the carpet, rub it well with a piece of soap, then use a hard brush, wash off with clean flannel, and dry with a coarse cloth. Repeat on other parts. Do not wet the carpet too much, and have the water frequently changed. To Clean Ermine Fur.-Take out the linings and stuffings, lay the fur flat on a table covered with a clean cloth. Take a piece of fine whiting and rub it into the fur; shake thoroughly, and repeat again till clean. Rub well with a clean towel. To Renovate Black Clothes.-Carefully clean from dust; take out any spots of grease with turpentine, the smell of which may be destroyed by essence of lemon. Boil a few chips of logwood in a little water, and sponge the cloth with it; or, make a strong infusion of galls, and a solution of copperas and green vitriol, or sulphate of iron, and either moisten the parts separately, or mix the liquids in a phial. To Cleanse Glass Vessels in which Petroleum has been kept.-Wash the vessel with thin milk of lime, which forms an emulsion with the petroleum, and removes every trace of it; wash a second time with milk of lime and a small quantity of chloride of lime, and the smell will be completely removed. If the milk of lime be used warm, instead of cold, the operation is rendered much shorter. To Render Wood, Cloth, Paper, &c., incombustible. Use silicate of potassium. requires great care. Cover one side of a flat piece of glass, after having made it perfectly clean, with bees'-wax, then draw the design with some sharp-pointed instrument, taking care that every stroke cuts completely through the wax. Make a border of wax all round the glass; take finelypowdered fluate of lime (flour_spar), strew evenly over the plate and then gently pour upon it, not to displace the powder, sulphuric acid, diluted with thrice its weight of water, to cover it. Let remain for three hours, then remove; clean the glass with oil of turpentine. The figures which were traced through the wax will be found engraved on the glass, while the parts which the wax covered will be uncorroded. Be very careful in the management of the acid, as if too strong it will eat through the glass. Fixing Glass in Stone Windows.Portland cement, though often used, is not so good as a mixture of Bath stone dust and linseed oil, made up like putty. To Colour Glass or Porcelain Black. -Use Iridium. The "Furry" Deposit in Tea-Kettles may be removed by a very weak solution of muriatic, nitric, or acetic acid, which will immediately dissolve it with effervescence. Care must be taken to remove the acid as soon as the deposit is dissolved, or it would attack the iron. After the operation boil water in the kettle some days before using. Razor Paste. Mix together, and rub over the strop, two parts of emery, reduced to an impalpable powder, and one part of spermaceti ointment. Plate Powder.-Mix together four ounces of prepared chalk, and two ounces each of Polisher's putty and burnt hartshorn. Asphalte Pavement for garden walks, floors, for sheds, &c., is thus laid down:-The place must be levelled; then put on it a coat of tar, and sift some road sand or coal ashes all over Paint to Resist the Action of the Air, it very thickly; when dry repeat the Sun and Water.-Use silicate of potas-operation four times. You will then sium and zinc white. have a dry, hard path. Plant-Sticks, &c., may be preserved To Engrave on Glass.-This process by dipping the portions which are, then quickly but carefully dry. If inserted in the ground two or three the wine be free from logwood, the times in hot tar. Hot asphalte is colour shown will be grey or rose red better, but both are excellent preser- greyish, but if logwood is present the vatives. Another way. Char the tinge will be sky-blue. ends in the fire till black. To Render Wood Uninflamable and to Preserve it Underground. - Place the wood unplaned for twenty-four hours in a liquid composed of one part of concentrated silicate of potassa and three of pure water. After being removed and dried for several days, soak it again in this liquid, and after being again dried, paint over with a mixture of part of cement, and four parts of the above liquid; when the first coat of this paint is dry, repaint twice. To Prevent Rust on Iron.-Immerse the iron for a few minutes in a solution of carbonate of potash or soda. To Preserve Iron and Steel from Atmospheric Influences. Coat with melted sulphur, the sulphur chills and sets into a hard, thin, protecting covering. To Detect Arsenic.-Mix the arsenious liquid with hydrochloric acid until fumes appear; chloride of tin is then added, which produces a basic precipitate, containing the greater part of the arsenic as metal, mixed with oxide of tin. Imperishable Putty.-Mix together ten pounds of whiting and one pound of white lead, with the necessary quantity of boiled linseed oil, adding a wine-glassful of best sweet oil. This last prevents the white lead from hardening. To Preserve Wood.-Mix one pound of chloride of zinc with five gallons of water. Steep the wood in this solution. Volunteers' Belts are glazed by a beaten white of egg, adding to an equal quantity of cold water, and a little sugar candy. A Preservation against Lead Poison- To Bleach Hair.-Wash well in ing. The use of milk at meals pre- strong warm pearlash water; spread serves those employed in lead works the hair upon the grass for several from any symptoms of lead disease. days, that it may be alternately exTo preserve the purity of water pass-posed to dew and sun. Light hair ing through leaden pipes, insert an internal lining of block tin. Drying of Wood.-The drying of all kinds of timber by artificial means should be effected slowly, and the temperature moderate to begin with, for small pieces, such as are used for joiners and furniture-makers, place in dry sand and heat to 100°-the sand acts as an absorber of the moisture as well as a diffuser of the heat. Danger from Union of Metals.-The pipes leading to a leaden cistern should be of lead; if of iron and connected with an iron boiler, a kind of galvanic battery is formed, which will gradually destroy the boiler. To Detect Logwood in Wine.-Take a strip of good filtering paper, and place it in an aqueous solution of neutral acetate of copper and then dry. Dip the paper into the wine, and the adhering drops should be made to run backwards and forwards on the paper, will bleach this way. Dark hair should be sent to a professed bleacher, as many of the means used destroy the gloss. Light Mahogany-to Darken.-If in repairing old furniture lighter pieces of wood are introduced, they may be darkened by washing with a weak solution of quick lime. Green Paint.-An economical and capital paint for summer houses, &c., is made thus:-Take four pounds of Roman vitriol, and pour on it boiling water; when dissolved add two pounds of pearlash, and stir the mixture well with a stick until the effervescence ceases; then add a quarter of a pound of pulverized yellow arsenic, and stir the whole together. Inodorous Paint. A composition for mixing with lead and other colours to form a paint in lieu of linseed oil, turpentine, and the usual driers, has lately been patented. The material consists of methylated spirit, shellac, and castor-oil; it dries very quickly and is without smell. Transfer Papers.-A useful transfer paper may be made for copying monumental inscriptions, brasses, &c., by rubbing a mixture of black-lead and soap over silver paper. To Preserve Bright Steel from Rusting.--Smear it over with hot melted fresh mutton suet; before it cools and Imitation Ivory.-Make into a paste isinglass, brandy, and powdered eggshells. Colour as you desire, cast it, warm, into an oiled mould; in a few hours it will be firmly set. Gun Cotton Ivory. Camphor, triturated with gun cotton, and sub-hardens, have some powdered unjected to hydraulic pressure, produces dust it over the hot suet which covers slacked lime in a muslin bag, and a hard white substance, which, if coated with a compound of gun cotton and castor oil, resembles ivory, to which for many purposes it is superior. Fire-Proof Stucco. The following which is a useful and comparatively inexpensive mixture, has been tried and found to answer. Take moist gravelly earth, (previously washed), and make it into stucco with this composition; mix well one part of common clay with two parts of pearlash and five parts of water. the steel. Easily-made Storm-Glass. Take two drachms of camphor, half drachm of pure nitrate of potash (nitre or saltpetre), and half drachm of muriate of ammonia (sal-ammoniac), and pound them together in a mortar, until they are thoroughly pulverized. The operation may be assisted by adding a few drops of alcohol. When well powdered, the mixture is to be dissolved in about two ounces of alcohol, and put into a tall phial, or into a glass tube of about ten inches in height and three-fourths of an inch in diameter, the mouth of which is to be covered with a bit of bladder or the like, perforated with a pin. The instrument is then complete. It gives the following indications :-If the atmosphere be dry and the weather promising to be fine, all the solid part of the composition which appears in the glass will be closely collected at the bottom, and the liquor above will be quite clear; but on the approach to a change to rain, the solid matter will appear gradually to rise, and small crystalline stars will be observed to float about in the liquid, which, however, will remain otherwise pellucid. On the ap Hot Water Pipes -to stop leakage in. -Mix iron borings and filings with vinegar and a little sulphuric acid; let stand till it becomes paste. Dry the pipe, fill in the cracks with this mixture, and keep the pipe dry until hard. This cement lasts a long time. Alabaster Ornaments-to clean. When these have become discoloured, they may be cleansed by the fumes of chlorine, applied for a short time, and afterwards being bleached in the sun, and then being sprinkled over with a diluted solution of chlorinated soda, commonly called chloride of soda. Care must be taken not to expose the alabaster too long to the action of the chlorine, or its colour will be injured; and the fumes, being danger-proach of winds, flocks of the compoous, must not be inhaled. sition, apparently in the form of a leaf, will appear on the surface of the liquid, which in this case will seem thick and in a state of fermentation. These indications often begin to exhibit themselves twenty-four hours before the actual breaking forth of the storm. The quarter of the compass from which the wind blows will always be indicated by the solid particles lying more closely to the opposite side of the glass. During the winter, the Durable Paste. -Take common flour paste, rather thick, add a little brown sugar and corrosive sublimate, which will prevent fermentation, and a few drops of oil of lavender, which will prevent mouldiness. When this paste dries it resembles horn, and may be used again by adding water. This paste will keep well for years if kept in a covered pot, and is always ready for use. |