By the above test, after a little practice, so small an adulteration as one or two per cent. can be detected; it is, however, only a test of the purity or impurity of a lead, and if found adulterated, the degree or percentage of adulteration cannot be well ascertained by it.
Jewellers usually have all the necessary apparatus for making the test, and any one of them can readily make it by observing the above directions, and from them can be obtained a blow pipe at small cost.
If you have no open package of the lead to be tested, a sample can most easily be obtained by boring into the side or top of a keg with a gimlet, and with it taking out the required quantity; care should be used to free it entirely from the borings or particles of wood, and it should not be larger than the size mentioned; a larger quantity can be reduced, but of course more time will be required, and the experiment cannot be so neatly performed.
MESSRS. EDITORS:--I am satisfied that a great many fires originate through poorly constructed chimneys; and, although not a bricklayer by trade, I would offer a few hints how to construct a fire-proof chimney. Let the bed be laid of brick and mortar, iron, or stone; then the workman should take a brick in his left hand, and with the trowel, draw the mortar upon the end of the brick, from the under side, and not from the outside edge, as is usual. Then, by pressing the brick against the next one, the whole space between the two bricks will be filled with mortar; and so he should point up the inside as perfectly as the outside, as he proceeds.
By drawing the mortar on the edge of the brick, the space between the ends will not always be entirely filled, and will make (where the inside pointing is not attended to) a leaky and unsafe chimney, which, if not kept clear of soot, will, in burning out, stand a good chance of setting the building on fire. The best thing that I know of, to put the fire out in a burning chimney is salt; but the matter of first importance, after having a chimney properly constructed, is to keep it clean.
MESSRS. EDITORS:--Please allow me to say to the querist who, through your columns, asks what to do with crystalline honey, that if he will "doctor" it with almost any artificial honey of the day, it will not become like lard in cold weather, which change is a natural proof that it is pure. For almost any purpose, pure honey is preferable to that which has been adulterated, but purity is a minor consideration with many.