6378. To Wash Silks

6378.     To Wash Silks. No person should ever wring or crush a piece of silk When it is wet, because the creases thus made will remain forever if the silk is thick and hard. The way to wash silk is to spread it smoothly upon a clean board, rub white soap upon it, and brush it with a clean hard brush. The silk mast be rubbed until all the grease is extracted, then the soap should be brushed off with clean cold water, applied to both sides. The cleansing of silk is a very nice operation. Most of the colors are liable to be extracted with washing in hot suds, especially blue and green colors. A little alum, dissolved in the last water that is brushed on silk, tends to prevent the colors from running. Alcohol and camphene, mixed together, are used for removing grease from silk.

6379. To Extinguish Fires

6379.    To Extinguish Fires. Dr. Clan-ny's solution consists of 5 ounces sal-ammoniac to 1 gallon water. The compound used in Phillip's Fire Annihilator is said to consist of dried prussiate of potash, sugar, and chlorate of potash.

6380. To Prevent Mouldiness

6380.    To Prevent Mouldiness. The best preventive is any of the essential oils, as the oil of lavender, cloves, peppermint, etc.. Russia leather, which is scented with the tar of the birch tree, is not subject to mouldiness, and books bound in it will even prevent mouldiness in other books bound in calf, near which they happen to lie.

6381. To Keep Gum-Arabic from Moulding

6381.     To Keep Gum-Arabic from Moulding. Solutions of gum-arabic soon mould and sour, and finally lose their adhesive property. It is said that sulphate of quinine will prevent this, while it imparts no bad odor of its own. The addition of a solution of a few crystals of this salt to gum-arabic will prevent the formation of mould quite as effectually as carbolic acid, and by analogy it is safe to suppose that the same salt could be used in wilting ink, mucilage, and, possibly, glue.

6382. To Prevent the Formation of a Crust in Tea-kettles

6382.    To Prevent the Formation of a Crust in Tea-kettles. Keep an oyster-shell in your tea-kettle. By attracting the stony particles to itself, it will prevent the formation of a crust.

6383. Bird Lime

6383.    Bird Lime. Boil the middle bark of the holly 7 or 8 hours in water; drain it, and lay it in heaps in the ground, covered with stones, for 2 or 3 weeks, till reduced to a mucilage. Beat this in a mortar, wash it in rain water, and knead it till free from extraneous matters. Put it into earthen pots, and in 4 or 5 days it will be fit for use. An inferior kind is made by boiling linseed oil for some hours, until it becomes a viscid paste.

6384. Substitutes for Lenses

6384.    Substitutes for Lenses. Procure a piece of thin platinum wire, and twine it once or twice round a pin's point, so as to form a minute ring with a handle to it. Break up a piece of flint glass into fragments a little larger than mustard seed; place one of these pieces on the ring of wire, and hold it in the point of the flame of a candle or gas-light. The glass will melt and assume a complete lens-like or globular form. Let it cool gradually, and keep it for mounting. Others are to be made in the same manner; and if the operation be carefully conducted but very few will be imperfect. The smaller the drop melted, the higher in general will be its magnifying power. It may be mounted by placing it between two pieces of brass which have corresponding circular holes cut in them, of such size as to hold the edge of the lens. They are then to be cemented together. A perfectly round glass globe filled with pure water also makes a powerful lens.