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Why does everybody that makes soap from ashes put lime in the bottom of the leach?
Simply because if he does not he will have great trouble, even if he can make it at all, unless he does put the lime in, is about all the reason they can give. But lime causes the absorption of carbonic acid in the lye from the ashes, and also gives the lye a caustic property that enables it to combine with the grease, and thereby makes the soap, which it could not do, or at least not well do, except for the lime. The lime, then, does not hurt soap, but makes a better soap than can be made without it. Well, then, if it is good to assist in making soap from ashes, or potash, which comes from the ashes, why should it be thought injurious to combine it with sal soda for the same purpose? The one question answers the other, and ought to satisfy every reasonable person that lime is good and not injurious, as some suppose, for soap-making purposes. The manufacturers make soap by the use of potash, or soda, in the form or what is known as soda-ash, which is caustic, by means of its process of manufacture; but this article (soda-ash) cannot always be obtained, while the sal soda, which is a carbonate, can always be got; then we combine the lime with it, which gives it the same causticity that soda-ash has, and we thereby get just as good a soap. So have no fears in using them.
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