This must be removed by applying a little powdered alum,or, if this fail, it should be once or twice slightly touched with blue-stone, and afterwards dressed with calamine cerate.

Soap was made by mixing bones and lard together, heating and then straining into a bucket containing alum, turpentine, and rosin.

They found likewise certain hills which produced alum, and one out of which a liquor like oil distilled; likewise sulphur in great abundance, from which the Spaniards made excellent gunpowder[50].

But if people will be stupid, let them take measures to protect themselves from their own stupiditymeasures which every chemist knows, such as putting alum into starch, which prevents starched articles of dress from blazing up.