General Science by Bertha May Clark (best historical fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

If washing powder is put on clothes dry, or is thrown into a crowded tub, it will eat the clothes before it has a chance to dissolve in the water. The only safe method is to dissolve the powder before the clothes are put into the tub. The trouble with our public laundries is that many of them are careless about this very fact, and do not take time to dissolve the powder before mixing it with the clothes.

The strongest washing powder is soda, and this cheap form is as good as any of the more expensive preparations sold under fancy names. Borax is a milder powder and is desirable for finer work.

One of the most disagreeable consequences of the use of hard water for bathing is the unavoidable scum which forms on the sides of bathtub and washbowl. The removal of the caked grease is difficult, and if soap alone is used, the cleaning of the tub requires both patience and hard scrubbing. The labor can be greatly lessened by moistening the scrubbing cloth with turpentine and applying it to the greasy film, which immediately dissolves and thus can be easily removed. The presence of the scum can be largely avoided by adding a small amount of liquid ammonia to the bath water. But many persons object to this; hence it is well to have some other easy method of removing the objectionable matter.

208. To remove Stains from Cloth. While soap is, generally speaking, the best cleansing agent, there are occasions when other substances can be used to better advantage. For example, grease spots on carpet and non-washable dress goods are best removed by the application of gasoline or benzine. These substances dissolve the grease, but do not remove it from the clothing; for that purpose a woolen cloth should be laid under the stain in readiness to absorb the benzine and the grease dissolved in it. If the grease is not absorbed while in solution, it remains in the clothing and after the evaporation of the benzine reappears in full force.

Cleaners frequently clean suits by laying a blotter over a grease spot and applying a hot iron; the grease, when melted by the heat, takes the easiest way of spreading itself and passes from cloth to blotter.

209. Salts. A neutral liquid formed as in Section 204, by the action of hydrochloric acid and the alkali solution of caustic soda, has a brackish, salty taste, and is, in fact, a solution of salt. This can be demonstrated by evaporating the neutral liquid to dryness and examining the residue of solid matter, which proves to be common salt.

When an acid is mixed with a base, the result is a substance more or less similar in its properties to common salt; for this reason all compounds formed by the neutralization of an acid with a base are called salts. If, instead of hydrochloric acid (HCl), we use an acid solution of potassium tartrate, and if instead of caustic soda we use bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), the result is a brackish liquid as before, but the salt in the liquid is not common salt, but Rochelle salt. Different combinations of acids and bases produce different salts. Of all the vast group of salts, the most abundant as well as the most important is common salt, known technically as sodium chloride because of its two constituents, sodium and chlorine.

We are not dependent upon neutralization for the enormous quantities of salt used in the home and in commerce. It is from the active, restless seas of the present, and from the dead seas of the prehistoric past that our vast stores of salt come. The waters of the Mediterranean and of our own Great Salt Lake are led into shallow basins, where, after evaporation by the heat of the sun, they leave a residue of salt. By far the largest quantity of salt, however, comes from the seas which no longer exist, but which in far remote ages dried up and left behind them their burden of salt. Deposits of salt formed in this way are found scattered throughout the world, and in our own country are found in greatest abundance in New York. The largest salt deposit known has a depth of one mile and exists in Germany.

Salt is indispensable on our table and in our kitchen, but the amount of salt used in this way is far too small to account for a yearly consumption of 4,000,000 tons in the United States alone. The manufacture of soap, glass, bleaching powders, baking powders, washing soda, and other chemicals depends on salt, and it is for these that the salt beds are mined.

210. Baking Soda. Salt is by all odds the most important sodium compound. Next to it come the so-called carbonates: first, sodium carbonate, which is already familiar to us as washing soda; and second, sodium bicarbonate, which is an ingredient of baking powders. These are both obtained from sodium chloride by relatively simple means; that is, by treating salt with the base, ammonia, and with carbon dioxide.

Washing soda has already been discussed. Since baking powders in some form are used in almost all homes for the raising of cake and pastry dough, it is essential that their helpful and harmful qualities be clearly understood.

The raising of dough by means of baking soda—bicarbonate of soda—is a very simple process. When soda is heated, it gives off carbon dioxide gas; you can easily prove this for yourself by burning a little soda in a test tube, and testing the escaping gas in a test tube of limewater. When flour and water alone are kneaded and baked in loaves, the result is a mass so compact and hard that human teeth are almost powerless to crush and chew it. The problem is to separate the mass of dough or, in other words, to cause it to rise and lighten. This can be done by mixing a little soda in the flour, because the heat of the oven causes the soda to give off bubbles of gas, and these in expanding make the heavy mass slightly porous. Bread is never lightened with soda because the amount of gas thus given off is too small to convert heavy compact bread dough into a spongy mass; but biscuit and cake, being by nature less compact and heavy, are sufficiently lightened by the gas given off from soda.

But there is one great objection to the use of soda alone as a leavening agent. After baking soda has lost its carbon dioxide gas, it is no longer baking soda, but is transformed into its relative, washing soda, which has a disagreeable taste and is by no means desirable for the stomach.

Man's knowledge of chemicals and their effect on each other has enabled him to overcome this difficulty and, at the same time, to retain the leavening effect of the baking soda.

211. Baking Powders. If some cooking soda is put into lemon juice or vinegar, or any acid, bubbles of gas immediately form and escape from the liquid. After the effervescence has ceased, a taste of the liquid will show you that the lemon juice has lost its acid nature, and has acquired in exchange a salty taste. Baking soda, when treated with an acid, is transformed into carbon dioxide and a salt. The various baking powders on the market to-day consist of baking soda and some acid substance, which acts upon the soda, forces it to give up its gas, and at the same time unites with the residue to form a harmless salt.

Cream of tartar contains sufficient acid to act on baking soda, and is a convenient and safe ingredient for baking powder. When soda and cream of tartar are mixed dry, they do not react on each other, neither do they combine rapidly in cold moist dough, but as soon as the heat of the oven penetrates the doughy mass, the cream of tartar combines with the soda and sets free the gas needed to raise the dough. The gas expands with the heat of the oven, raising the dough still more. Meanwhile, the dough itself is influenced by the heat and is stiffened to such an extent that it retains its inflated shape and spongy nature.

Many housewives look askance at ready-made baking powders and prefer to bake with soda and sour milk, soda and buttermilk, or soda and cream of tartar. Sour milk and buttermilk are quite as good as cream of tartar, because the lactic acid which they contain combines with the soda and liberates carbon dioxide, and forms a harmless residue in the dough.

The desire of manufacturers to produce cheap baking powders led to the use of cheap acids and alkalies, regardless of the character of the resulting salt. Alum and soda were popular for some time; but careful examination proved that the particular salt produced by this combination was not readily absorbed by the stomach, and that its retention there was injurious to health. For this reason, many states have prohibited the use of alum in baking powders.

It is not only important to choose the ingredients carefully; it is also necessary to calculate the respective quantities of each, otherwise there will be an excess of acid or alkali for the stomach to take care of. A standard powder contains twice as much cream of tartar as of bicarbonate of soda, and the thrifty housewife who wishes to economize, can make for herself, at small cost, as good a baking powder as any on the market, by mixing tartar and soda in the above proportions and adding a little corn starch to keep the mixture dry.

The self-raising flour, so widely advertised by grocers, is flour in which these ingredients or their equivalent have been mixed by the manufacturer.

212. Soda Mints. Bicarbonate of soda is practically the sole ingredient of the soda mints popularly sold for indigestion. These correct a tendency to sour stomach because they counteract the surplus acid in the stomach, and form with it a safe neutral substance.

Seidlitz powder is a simple remedy consisting of two powders, one containing bicarbonate of soda, and the other, some acid such as cream of tartar. When these substances are dissolved in water and mixed, effervescence occurs, carbon dioxide escapes, and a solution of Rochelle salt remains.

212a. Source of Soda. An enormous quantity of sodium carbonate, or soda, as it is usually called, is needed in the manufacture of glass, soap, bleaching powders, and other commercial products. Formerly, the supply of soda was very limited because man was dependent upon natural deposits and upon ashes of sea plants for it. Common salt, sodium chloride, is abundant, and in 1775 a prize was offered to any one who would find a way to obtain soda from salt. As a result of this, soda was soon manufactured from common salt. In the most recent methods of manufacture, salt, water, ammonia, and carbon dioxide are made to react. Baking soda is formed from the reaction. The baking soda is then heated and decomposed into washing soda or the soda of commerce.

213. While baking powder is universally used for biscuits and cake, it is seldom, if ever, used for bread, because it does not furnish sufficient gas to lighten the tough heavy mass of bread dough. Then, too, most people prefer the taste of yeast-raised bread. There is a reason for this widespread preference, but to understand it, we must go somewhat far