Salt, Common Spirit

In the days of alchemy and the phlogiston theory, no system of nomenclature that would be considered logical ia the 1990s was possible. Names were not based on composition, but on historical association, eg, Glauber s salt for sodium sulfate decahydrate and Epsom salt for magnesium sulfate physical characteristics, eg, spirit of wiae for ethanol, oil of vitriol for sulfuric acid, butter of antimony for antimony trichloride, Hver of sulfur for potassium sulfide, and cream of tartar for potassium hydrogen tartrate or physiological behavior, eg, caustic soda for sodium hydroxide. Some of these common or trivial names persist, especially ia the nonchemical Hterature. Such names were a necessity at the time they were iatroduced because the concept of molecular stmcture had not been developed, and even elemental composition was incomplete or iadeterminate for many substances. 

The language used will be the Queen s English or that subset of it as approved by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). Where chemical names are concerned there are some lost causes, such as caustic soda, where little would be gained if those who clean factories called this substance sodium hydroxide. Arguably, the name caustic soda conveys more useful information. Similar lost causes are spirits of wine (ethyl alcohol or ethanol) and spirits of salts (hydrochloric acid). While lipid chemists may insist on referring to triacylglycerols many people in industry continue to refer to triglycerides. Similarly trivial names for fatty acids such as lauric will continue to be used. The principle in all of this is to use the proper name but to mention other names that are in common use. 

Methanol test. Most common cuts do not dissolve in pure alcohol although cocaine does. Unfortunately for the dealer, procaine and methamphetamine also dissolve in pure alcohol. It is imperative that pure methanol be used since any water in the alcohol will tend to dissolve sugar and salt. Methanol can be obtained in most paint supply stores as methalated spirits. The dealer will take two equal amounts of the cocaine substance and place the equal amounts in two teaspoons next to one another. At this time, V of a teaspoon of pure methanol is added to one of the spoons. The mixture is then stirred and any powder that remains is compared to the original unaltered amount in the second teaspoon to determine the percentage of the cut. If, for example, 20% of the original amount did not dissolve, the substance tested would be no more than 80% pure. If the suspected cut is procaine, the cocaine substance can be added to sodium carbonate solution. This would dissolve all the cocaine leaving just the procaine. 

This I also say, that if the spirit of common salt be joined to the spirit of wine, and distilled together with it, it becomes sweet, and loses its acidity. This prepared spirit does not dissolve gold bodily, but if it be poured on prepared calx of gold, it extracts the essence of its colour and redness. If this be rightly done, it reduces the white and pure moon to the colour of that body from which it was itself extracted. The old body may also receive back its former colour through the love of alluring Venus, from whose blood it, in the first instance, derived its origin. 

We are of opinion, that many of the nitrates might be advantageously employed in the manufacture of fire works. Some, as nitrate of strontian, communicate a red color to flame, as the flame of alcohol. Nitrate of lime also might be used.. . . Muriate of strontian, mixed with alcohol, or spirit of wine, will give a carmine-red flame. For this experiment, one part of the muriate is added to three or four parts of alcohol. Muriate of lime produces, with alcohol, an orange-coloured flame. Nitrate of copper produces an emerald-green flame. Common salt and nitre, with alcohol, give a yellow flame.14... 

Philosophical Calcination is an extraction of the substance of water, of salt, of oil, of the spirit and the rest of earth, and a change of accidents, an alteration of quantity, a corruption of the substance, yet in such a manner that all these separate things may reunite so as to form a more perfect body. Common Calcination is made by the action of the fire of our cooking-stoves, or of the concentrated rays of the Sun Water is the agent of Philosophical Calcination for this reason the Philosophers say Chemists burn with fire, and we burn with water whence one must conclude that common chemistry is as different from Hermetic Chemistry, as fire from water. 

Ammonium salts of weak acids are readily decomposed into the acid and ammonia. Ammonium carbonate [(NH3)2co3 h2oj is a colorless-to-white crystalline solid commonly known as smelling salts. In a water solution it is sometimes called aromatic spirits of ammonia . Ammonia also reacts with Lewis acids (electron acceptors) such as sulfur dioxide or sulfur trioxide or boron trifluoride219. 

Spirit Blue [2152-64-9]y Cl Solvent Blue 23 (Cl 42760), is one of the few dyes sulfonated as the leuco base. The degree of sulfonation depends on the conditions. Monosulfonated derivatives, commonly referred to as alkali blues, eg, Cl Acid Blue 119 [1324-76-1]> are used as their barium or calcium salts in printing inks. Disulfonated compounds, eg, Cl Acid Blue 48 [1324-77-2], are employed as their sodium or ammonium salts for blueing paper, whereas the trisulfonic derivatives or ink blues, eg, Cl Acid Blue 93 [28983-56A] are used in writing inks (qv). 

Lemery defined precipitation as an expression chemists used to describe the fall of a body which had been suspended dissolved in a liquid from which it has been subsequently disunited. Although Fontenelle construed this as a physical definition based on the principles of hydrostatics, Lemery used it to differentiate true metallic precipitates, or the products of displacement reactions, from false ones. One could obtain false precipitates, or the matters that lost their initial metallic form and were reduced to a friable and indissoluble mass, in several ways. Calcination (red and violet mercury), incomplete dissolution in acids (antimony in spirit of salt or in regal water), and calcination after dissolution and evaporation (mercury in spirit of niter), all produced such precipitates. True metallic precipitates differed from false ones in that they were directly separated from their dissolution in liquid. As Lemery put it, false precipitates were abandoned by the liquid, while true precipitates abandoned the liquid themselves. True precipitates were made sometimes naturally through agitation, but mostly with recourse to the intermediates such as alkali salts or other metals. The choice of intermediates depended on the nature of the bodies to be precipitated. Lemery provided an exhaustive discussion for each case. In order to precipitate a resinous matter dissolved in spirit of wine, one could use common water which, by meshing intimately with the spirit, would precipitate the resinous matter. Camphor in spirit of wine could thus be... 

FUSIBILITY — A Quality of Melting under Heat possessed by certain Bodies. The term is scarcely applicable to anything but metals. The quality in question is due to the Mercury of the Bodies — those which have more Mercury being more fusible, while those which have less are harder and offer more resistance to fire. Many chemists, misled by common experience, have attributed fusibility to Sulphur, but, as Becher points out, it only accelerates fusion by absorbing the Acid Spirits and Salt. 

Salts Compounds formed by the union of acids and bases, by the action of alkalies upon metals, or by the direct union of elements. The term is often incorporated in the common name of salts used as pharmaceuticals bitter salts, epsom salt, or Seidlitz salt (magnesium sulfate), preparing salt (sodium stannate), Preston s salts (ammonium chloride), Rochelle salt or Seignette s salt (potassium and ammonium tartrate), salt of Mars (ferrous sulfate), salt of Saturn (lead acetate), salt of tartar (potassium carbonate), salt of tin (stannous chloride), salt of wisdom (mercury bichloride and ammonium chloride), sore-throat salt (fused potassium nitrate), vinegar salts (calcium acetate), and vomiting salt (zinc sulfate). The term is also applied to some acids, such as salt of lemon or sour salt (citric acid), salt of sorrel (oxalic acid), and spirit of salt (muriatic acid). ... 

Nature is fill of secret bounty. Common dew is the distilled essence of Heaven and Earth, a condensation of the Universal Spirit the Secret Fire, The best way to collect it is to use purified plant salts, which are highly hygroscopic and absorb dew from the air. Plant Salt is understood alchemically as a transitional substance, since it bridges two kingdoms, in this case vegetable and mineral. 

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