The experiments were conducted in a
room with ordinary doors and windows, but without a chimney; and we
were not troubled with any offensive smell--a state of things that
could not possibly have existed had we been experimenting with any
other apparatus hitherto employed in the manufacture of sulphate of
ammonia. The apparatus, which will presently be described, only
substitutes, for the present mode of distillation, a new one, which
forms the subject of Mr. Croll's patent. All other parts of present
apparatus can remain as they now exist.
Mr Croll has also introduced another mode of producing sulphate of
ammonia, which dispenses with all the apparatus hitherto in use after
the distillatory portion, and produces the salt in a state fit for the
farmer, ready to be put on the land. This process consists in sending
the products of distillation through a vessel filled with wood sawdust
saturated with sulphuric acid. The ammonia becomes fixed and
crystallized in the sawdust, and is ready for use. There are many
works, both at home and abroad, to which the conveyance of sulphuric
acid is both difficult and expensive, on account of the cost of
carriage and the breakage which occurs; and thus in many such works
the ammonia is not utilized.
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