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Alum   /ˈæləm/  /əlˈəm/   Listen
Alum

noun
1.
A white crystalline double sulfate of aluminum: the ammonium double sulfate of aluminum.  Synonyms: ammonia alum, ammonium alum.
2.
A white crystalline double sulfate of aluminum: the potassium double sulfate of aluminum.  Synonyms: potash alum, potassium alum.
3.
A person who has received a degree from a school (high school or college or university).  Synonyms: alumna, alumnus, grad, graduate.
4.
A double sulphate of aluminum and potassium that is used as an astringent (among other things).



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"Alum" Quotes from Famous Books



... well a teaspoonful of alum and a tablespoonful of water and place it in a hot oven until quite transparent. Wash the broken pieces in hot water, dry them, and while still warm coat the broken edges thickly; then press together very quickly, for it ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler

... The best is a heaping table-spoonful of powdered mustard, in a tumblerful of warm water; or powdered alum in half-ounce doses and strong coffee alternately in warm water. Give acid drinks after vomiting. If vomiting is not elicited thus, a stomach pump is demanded. Dash cold water on the head, apply friction, and use all means to keep the person awake ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... rests are much better than long stops, which have a tendency to stiffen the muscles. The walker on a long tramp must pay especial attention to the care of his feet. They should be bathed frequently in cold water to which a little alum has been added. A rough place or crease in the stocking will sometimes cause a very ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... issue, we feel that the slender tale of a boy's passion for the queen of courtesans and his metamorphosis into the scarlet windflower of the forest supplied no worthy motive for this intricate machinery. The metaphor of an alum basket crystallized upon a petty frame of wire occurs to us when we contemplate its glittering ornaments, and reflect upon the poverty of the sustaining theme. It might in fact stand for a symbol ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... dangerous to remain long in such a place; and so she prepared to move away, and Rollo and Josie, as they had now seen all that there was to be seen at this place, followed her. They went on by the road, round to another part of the crater, where there was some sort of manufactory of alum. The alum was made from the saline earth which was found there, and the evaporating basins used in the process, instead of being placed over a fire, were simply set in the ground, so that the process of evaporation was carried on by the natural ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott

... feet thick, of conglomerate worn into cliffs; these are the remains of a very extensive horizontally stratified formation, now all but entirely denuded. In the valley itself, the sandstone alternates with alum shales, which rest on a bed of quartz conglomerate, and the latter on black greenstone. In the bed of the river, whose waters are beautifully clear, are hornstone rocks, dipping north-east, and striking ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... Professor Robertson says that all the ground cherries near his home in Illinois are remarkable for their close mutual relation with two bees of the genus Colletes. So far as is known, the insignificant little greenish or purplish bell-shaped flowers of the Alum-root (Heuchera Americana), with protruding orange anthers, are the only other ones to furnish these females with pollen for their babies' bread. Slender racemes of this species are found blooming in dry ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... large springs and half a dozen smaller ones in this basin, all of them strongly impregnated with sulphur, alum and arsenic. The water from all the larger springs is dark brown or nearly black. The largest spring is fifteen to eighteen feet in diameter, and the water boils up like a cauldron from 18 to 30 inches, ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford

... he did not live to enjoy his rewards and honors, or even to see the end of the mutiny at which he struck the first heavy blows. In that very month of November when Sir Colin came to the rescue, Havelock was taken with dysentery, died on the twenty-second, and was buried in the Alum-Bagh, the fort containing a palace and a fortress, which he had ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... ginger, orange-peel, and caraway. If these were all, there would be small need of warning the young against the use of beer on account of its injurious ingredients, but when there are added, to preserve the frothy head, alum and blue vitriol; to intoxicate, cocculus indicus, nux vomica, and tobacco; and to promote thirst, salt,—then indeed does it become necessary to instruct and warn the innocent against the use ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... at the confluence of the Jimenoa and the Yaque del Norte an alum deposit reaches the surface and the natives gather alum which they sell in Santiago City. A deposit of amber having been reported in the Cibao a company was formed several years ago for its development, but as the company did nothing, so far as known, ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... obtained from wood ashes. Many substances were used as pigments: Pliny records white lead, cinnabar, verdigris and red oxide of iron; and the preparation of coloured glasses and enamels testifies to the uses to which these and other substances were put. Salts of ammonium were also known; while alum was used as a mordant in dyeing. Many substances were employed in ancient medicine: galena was the basis of a valuable Egyptian cosmetic and drug; the arsenic sulphides, realgar and orpiment, litharge, alum, saltpetre, iron rust were also used. Among the Arabian and later alchemists ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... breadth of effect is desired in the picture. It is a very heavy cream-colored paper, rough in texture, and giving black tones by development, but designed to give sepia or brown tones on a tinted ground by subsequent toning with a bath of hypo and alum. This paper, also, may be had in two grades for hard or soft effects; it is further adapted for being printed on through silk or bolting cloth, this modification adding to the effect of breadth ordinarily given by the paper itself. ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant

... expensive; but the paper of inferior quality which was received in Manila, where nothing was imported regularly but common articles of low price, was of kotsu. As all Chinese-made paper it was coated with alum, the finer [the paper] the thicker [the coating], for the purpose of whitening it and making the surface smooth, a deplorable business, for it made the paper very moisture absorbent, a condition fatal in such a humid climate as in these islands. Moreover, as the alum used is impure and contains ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous

... alum, salt ammoniac, sublimated mercury, rock salt, alcali salt, common salt, rock alum, alum schist (?), arsenic, sublimate, ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... origin. It is about thirty-nine miles long, and from eight to twelve miles broad. It is fed by the river Jordan, and drained by the evaporation of a fierce and terrible sun. Its water is clear and inodorous, but nauseous like a solution of alum; it causes painful itching and even ulceration on the lips and if brought near a wound, or any diseased part, produces a most excruciating sensation. It contains muriatic and sulphuric acid, and one-fourth of ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... again formed numerous boiling pools. In these we put our fingers, but pulled them out quickly. Next we inserted the handles of our riding-whips: the brass bands round them turning mauve and violet from the sulphur and alum in the water; but this pretty effect soon wore off. The colour of the water and deposit round the edges of this pool were very pretty, and the bubbles as they ascended took the most lovely colours—emerald, purple, etc., turning into aqua-marine before breaking on the surface; but the odour was ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... was no less flourishing than agriculture; Italy at this period was rich in industries—silk, wool, hemp, fur, alum, sulphur, bitumen; those products which the Italian soil could not bring forth were imported, from the Black Sea, from Egypt, from Spain, from France, and often returned whence they came, their worth doubled by labour and fine workmanship. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Patients; the saline Draughts and cooling Medicines; Infusions of Camomile Flowers and of other Bitters; Dr. Morton's Powders of Camomile Flowers, Salt of Wormwood, and diaphoretic Antimony; Dr. Mead's Powders of Camomile Flowers, Salt of Wormwood, Myrrh, and Alum; Alum and Nutmeg; large Doses of sal ammoniac; large Quantities of Spirits of Hartshorn; the antimonial Drops and Powders; to some we gave Emetics, both in the Intervals and immediately before the Fits. In some we tried ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro

... who fortunately did not carry my rifle, got a tremendous capsize from bad riding, a common occurrence with most after-riders who have been employed in my service. The afternoon was spent in drying the mane of the wet lion, skinning out the feet, and preserving the skin with alum and ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... used for epic verse. The slight and uninteresting framework of this poem, which opened a new sphere for Italian literature, and prepared the way for Ariosto's golden cantos, might be compared to one of those wire baskets which children steep in alum water, and incrust with crystals, sparkling, artificial, beautiful with colours not their own. The mind of Poliziano held, as it were, in solution all the images and thoughts of antiquity, all the riches of his native literature. In that vast reservoir of poems and mythologies and phrases, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... grape wine, or French brandy, or corn or rye whiskey. I have all the drugs right here." And he took out a little box out of his pocket. "My father is a importer of rare old wines, and I know just how it is done. I have 'em all here,—capiscum, coculus Indicus, alum, coperas, strychnine. I will make some of the choicest and purest imported liquors we have in the country, in five ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... of Assyria, bitumen, naphtha, petroleum, sulphur, alum, and salt have also to be reckoned. The bitumen pits of Kerkuk, in the country between the Lesser Zab and the Adhem, are scarcely less celebrated than those of Hit; and there are some abundant springs of the same character close to Nimrud, in the bed of the Shor Derrell torrent. The Assyrian palaces ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... large, Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins, 125 Be stopp'd in vials, or transfix'd with pins; Or plung'd in lakes of bitter washes lie, Or wedg'd whole ages in a bodkin's eye: Gums and Pomatums shall his flight restrain, While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain; 130 Or Alum styptics with contracting pow'r Shrink his thin essence like a rivel'd flow'r: Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel The giddy motion of the whirling Mill, In fumes of burning Chocolate shall glow, 135 And tremble at the ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... floor, it hurts their feet and hips. I know it. Hens want sun in winter and shade in summer. If hens' feet crack, bleed, and sore places, melt mutton tallow and white sugar together, rub it on faithful, they get well. If they bleed great deal, put on warm alum water first, they get well. If hens' feet swell, put on sweet apple balsam every day, they get well. If hens' head turns over, give her Epsom salts and black pepper, she get over it for a while. If ...
— A Complete Edition of the Works of Nancy Luce • Nancy Luce

... other products of petroleum, will not part with their hydrogen or change the nature of their compounds, except by decomposition from a union with oxygen, that is, by combustion. These humbugs, who deceive people for their own gains, may put camphor, salt, alum, potatoes, etc., into naphtha, and call it by whatever fancy name they please. The camphor is dissolved, the salt partially; potatoes have no effect whatever. The camphor may disguise the smell of the naphtha, and sometimes myrhane or burnt almonds may be used for the same purpose. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... different modifications of clay in soils. In their natural state they may be boiled in concentrated sulphuric acid, without sensible change; but if feebly burned, as is done with the pipe-clay in many alum manufactories, they dissolve in the acid with the greatest facility, the contained silica being separated like jelly in a soluble state. Potters' clay belongs to the most sterile kinds of soil, and yet it contains within itself ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... it, leaving it covered close another day. Rub up in a mortar one drachm of potash, with a teaspoonful of the liqueurs; when well blended, put this into the liqueur, and in the same way pound and add a drachm of alum, shake well, and in an hour or two filter through thin muslin. Ready for use in a week ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen

... 1866.—The hills we crossed were about 700 feet above Nyassa, generally covered with trees; no people were seen. We slept by the brook Sikoche. Rocks of hardened sandstone rested on mica schist, which had an efflorescence of alum on it, above this was dolomite; the hills often capped with it and oak-spar, giving a snowy appearance. We had a Waiyau party with us—six handsomely-attired women carried huge pots of beer for their husbands, who very liberally invited us to partake. After seven ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... about Manuel" that summer,—in 1919, upon the back porch of our cottage at the Rockbridge Alum Springs, whence, as I recall it, one could always, just as Manuel did upon Upper Morven, regard the changing green and purple of the mountains and the tall clouds trailing northward, and could observe that the things ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... side in Eucalypti and Araucaria. These, together with other and sub-tropical forms, demonstrate the existence of a once luxuriant forest that extended to the Isle of Wight, where, in the cliffs bounding Alum Bay, are contemporaneous beds. The Bournemouth clay beds belong to the ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath

... diseases of the head, his most important section is on diseases of the respiratory system. In this he treats first of angina, and recommends as gargles at the beginning light astringents; later stronger astringents, as alum and soda dissolved in warm water, should be employed. Warm compresses, venesection from the sublingual veins, and from the jugular, and purgatives in severe cases, are the further remedies. He treats ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... Coffees and teas were so adulterated that we felt like Charles Lamb, who, in a similar predicament, said, "If this be coffee, give me tea; and if it be tea, give me coffee." Even our medicines were so craftily adulterated that they were sure to kill. There was alum in our bread, chalk in our milk, glass in our sugar, Venetian red in our cocoa, and heaven knows what ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... clothes cheaply. Then we haue also for scowring our clothes earths and claies, as Walkers clay, [Footnote: Fuller's earth, which attains a thickness of 150 feet near Bath.] and the clay of Oborne little inferior to Sope in scowring and in thicking. Then also haue we some reasonable store of Alum and Copporas here made for dying, and are like to haue increase of the same. Then we haue many good waters apt for dying, and people to spin and to doe the rest of all the labours we want not. [Sidenote: Supply of the want of oile.] ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... wuth cracklins ef ye didn't. I wouldn't gin four cents fer a man thet didn't git into truble; hit trys 'em out an' ye ken tell what they're made uf. Look at all the men ye know who don't know enuf to make truble. What do they amount to? Why they ain't got enuf grit in 'em to suck alum." ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... as a friend by taking over your debt, I'll no deny that ye gied me a fricht. For hae I no this day delivered to the bursar o' the castle o' Thrieve sax bales o' pepper and three o' the best spice, besides much cumin, alum, ginger, seat-well, almonds, rice, figs, raisins, and other sic thing. Moreover, there is owing to me, for wine and vinegar, mair than twa hunder pound. Was that no enough to gar me tak a 'dwam' when ye spoke o' ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... out into the woods, were hobbled and the bells were opened. The barter for salt and iron was made first at Baltimore; Frederick, Hagerstown, Oldtown, and Fort Cumberland, in succession, became the places of exchange. Each horse carried two bushels of alum salt, weighing eighty-four pounds to the bushel. This, to be sure, was not a heavy load for the horses, but it was enough, considering the scanty subsistence allowed them on the journey. The common price of a bushel of alum salt, at an ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... put in action at the gas works in Kilkenny and another on a larger scale, and differing somewhat in detail, here in Glasgow at the Alum and Ammonia Company's works, where the liquor from the Tradeston Gas Works is converted. The trials on a working scale have only been made at both places within the past ten days; and, so far, nothing has appeared ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various

... wheat in stalk. In Brittany, it is maintained that grain is exported and stored up abroad. In Touraine, it is certain that this or that wholesale dealer allows it to sprout in his granaries rather than sell it. At Troyes, a story prevails that another has poisoned his flour with alum and arsenic, commissioned to do so by the bakers.—Conceive the effect of suspicions like these upon a suffering multitude! A wave of hatred ascends from the empty stomach to the morbid brain. The people are everywhere in quest of their imaginary enemies, plunging forward with closed eyes ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Sardine Oil; (3) Practical Anatomy, including The Scalp and How to Lift it, The Ears and How to Remove them, and, as the Major Course for advanced students, The Veins of the Face and how to open and close them at will by the use of alum. ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... at the rate of 3 ft. per day. Tamping and puddling still left a filtration of 12 in. per day, with a tendency to increase. Enough water filtered through the concrete to produce settlement and cracks. Finally, the concrete was water-proofed with two coats of soap, two of alum, and one of asphalt. This has made all the reservoirs water-tight. Elaterite, an asphalt paint made by the Elaterite Paint and Manufacturing Company, of Des Moines, Iowa, was used successfully on the Luna Reservoir. This paint is applied cold, and preliminary tests showed it ...
— The Water Supply of the El Paso and Southwestern Railway from Carrizozo to Santa Rosa, N. Mex. • J. L. Campbell

... thought of reaching the mountains my heart leaped with joy. We all slept in the one flea-infested, windowless room of the "tavern" that night; and before dawn I was up and untethered the horses, and Polly Ann and I together lifted the two bushels of alum salt on one of the beasts and the ploughshare on the other. By daylight we had left Hans and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... our match-maker's thoughts were her niece, Mabel Aylott, and her own departed husband's namesake, Frederic Chilton. She dilated to herself and to Mabel with especial gusto upon the "wonderful leading," the inward whisper that had prompted her to propose a trip to the Rockbridge Alum Springs early in July. Neither she nor Mabel was ailing in the slightest degree, but she imagined they would be the brighter for a glimpse of the mountains and the livelier scenes of that pleasant Spa—and whom should they meet there ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... milk. In order to the removal of it, the milk should be first frequently drawn, and the parts well washed with soft soap and warm water; after which, a substance composed of elder ointment and wax melted together, to which is then added a little alum and sugar of lead, in fine powder, may be used to the parts after milking at night and in the morning; or a weak solution of white vitriol and a little sugar of lead, in soft water may be made use of in the same way, in some cases, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... vessel, which, Heaven be praised, we ha'e na!' After this there was a grand banquet in the town-hall; and when the heat of the day was over the King left with his train for Hoghton Tower, visiting the alum mines on the way thither. We are bidden to breakfast by Sir Richard, so we must push on, Dick, for his Majesty is an early riser, like myself. We are to have rare sport to-day. Hunting in the morning, a banquet, and, as I have already intimated, a masque ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... possession, and completed the spoilation by ripping the silver filigree-work off the ceiling of the Throne-room. Not long after this, yet another adventurer took a hand in the work of destruction, tortured the members of the imperial family, and put out the eyes of the helpless old emperor, Shah Alum. Here Lord Lake's cavalcade arrived, too, in 1803, and found the blinded chief of the royal house of Timour and his magnificent successors, who built Delhi and Agra, seated beneath the tattered remnants of a little canopy, a mockery of royalty, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... wind from the South. G Shannon joined the Boat last night. Course this morning is S 47 W. 11/4 on the S. point West 11/4 me. to the Commencement of a Bluff on the L. S. the High land near the river for Some distance below. This Bluff contain Pyrites alum, Copperass & a Kind Markesites also a clear Soft Substance which will mold and become pliant like wax) Capt lewis was near being Poisened by the Smell in pounding this Substance I belv to be arsenic or Cabalt. I observe great Quantity of Cops. ans and almin pure & Straters of white ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... are constructed in the sea, they set hard under water. The reason for this seems to be that the soil on the slopes of the mountains in these neighbourhoods is hot and full of hot springs. This would not be so unless the mountains had beneath them huge fires of burning sulphur or alum or asphalt. So the fire and the heat of the flames, coming up hot from far within through the fissures, make the soil there light, and the tufa found there is spongy and free from moisture. Hence, when the three substances, all formed ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... being applied is an aid. Placing the feet in hot mustard water is of decided use. Another excellent expedient is to wrap absorbent cotton round a smooth probe (piece of whalebone, for example), dip the cotton in an alum-water mixture (half teaspoonful powdered alum in a half cupful of water), and then push it into the bleeding nostril as far as you can with gentle force. A valuable remedy is Peroxide of Hydrogen used full strength and freely ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague

... more pure, or less pernicious, to quench my thirst; but, although the natural springs of excellent water are seen gushing spontaneous on every side, from the hills that surround us, the inhabitants, in general, make use of well-water, so impregnated with nitre, or alum, or some other villainous mineral, that it is equally ungrateful to the taste, and mischievous to the constitution. It must be owned, indeed, that here, in Milsham-street, we have a precarious and scanty ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... two fine lilac dyes from plants of domestic growth, not hitherto applied to this purpose. One is from the berry of the Portugal laurel, and the other the black currant. The simplest process with alum is all that is required for either; and as far as his trials go, the best tint is produced by the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various

... of Lord Mornington was speedily followed by action, for at the end of January an army of nearly 37,000 men had been assembled at Vellore. Of these some 20,000 were the Madras force. With them were the Nizam's army, nominally commanded by Meer Alum, but really by Colonel Wellesley—afterwards Duke of Wellington—who had with him his own regiment, the 33rd; 6,500 men under Colonel Dalrymple; 3,621 infantry, for the most part French troops who had re-enlisted under us; and ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... have been allowed to mar the simplicity of the valley.—G. H.] Here they built some rude form of temple, afterwards, it seems, converted into a hermitage. This was how the spot obtained the name Thordisa, a name it retained down to 1620, when the requirements of workmen from the newly-started alum-works at Sandsend led to building operations by the side of the stream. The cottages which arose became known afterwards as ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home

... you may obtain large crystals, for no portion of the salt is converted into vapor. The water of our atmosphere is fresh though it is derived from the salt sea. Sugar dissolved in water, and permitted to evaporate, yields crystals of sugar-candy. Alum readily crystallizes in the same way. Flints dissolved, as they sometimes are in nature, and permitted to crystallize, yield the prisms and pyramids of rock crystal. Chalk dissolved and crystallized yields Iceland spar. The diamond is crystallized carbon. All our ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... held a pile of white powder on a small wooden stand. This was said to be salt—which in Japan is credited with great cleansing properties—but as far as could be ascertained by superficial examination it was a mixture of alum and salt. He stood at one end of the fire-bed and poised the wooden tray over his head, and then sprinkled a handful of it on the ground before the glowing bed of coals. At the same time another priest who ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... quart of water well boiled and skimmed; add this to the curacoa. Rub up in a mortar one dram of potash with a teaspoonful of the liqueur; when well mixed add it, and then do the same with a dram of alum. Shake well, and in an hour or two filter through thin muslin. It will be ready for use ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen

... on enquiry to yield more than ten times the acid of the sweet wines; and in red Port, at least in what we are content to call so, there is an astringent quality, that is most mischievous in these cases: it is said there is often alum in it: how pregnant with mischief that must be to persons whose bowels require to be kept open, is most evident. Summer fruits perfectly ripe are not only harmless but medicinal; but if eaten unripe they will be very prejudicial. A light supper, which will leave ...
— Hypochondriasis - A Practical Treatise (1766) • John Hill

... without a thought of futurity; and were often tempted by a momentary interest to serve the common enemy of their religion. A colony of Genoese, [76] which had been planted at Phocaea [77] on the Ionian coast, was enriched by the lucrative monopoly of alum; [78] and their tranquillity, under the Turkish empire, was secured by the annual payment of tribute. In the last civil war of the Ottomans, the Genoese governor, Adorno, a bold and ambitious youth, embraced the party of Amurath; and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... peppers; slice and soak over night in salt water. Soak cucumbers separately, rinse in cold water. One-half gallon vinegar; two tablespoonfuls mustard seed; one tablespoonful celery seed; six cups brown sugar; one-fourth teaspoonful tumeric; one teaspoonful powdered alum. Let the vinegar and seasoning come to a boil, add the onions and peppers, cook five minutes; then add the cucumbers and cook five minutes. ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various

... stores for sale on the shelves, and I was interested to notice the cheerful promiscuity with which bottles of cyanide of potassium and perchloride of mercury were scattered among bottles of carbonate of soda, of alum, of Moet and Chandon (spurious), of pickles, and Howard's quinine. The first time that cyanide of potassium is sold for alum, or corrosive sublimate for bicarbonate of soda there will be an eclat given to the dealings ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... the nicest or least nasty of the wild fruits, is a sodden strawberry flavoured with apple-peel; but if rashly tasted an hour before it is ripe, the poroporo is an alum pill flavoured ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... possessing any theory concerning the affinities of bodies, or attractions of cohesion or aggregation, they clarify the muddy waters of their rivers, for immediate use, by stirring them round with a piece of alum in a hollow bamboo; a simple operation which, experience has taught them, will cause the clayey particles to fall to the bottom: and having ascertained the fact, they have given themselves no further ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... desolation, the accustomed sights and sounds of nature all gone. Terraces, cliffs, lakes, ridges, rivers, mountain sides, whirlpools, chasms of lava surrounded us, solid, black, and shining, as if vitrified, or an ashen grey, stained yellow with sulphur here and there, or white with alum. The lava was fissured and upheaved everywhere by earthquakes, hot underneath, and emitting a ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... come back. She must keep that bottle. She hurried across the old-time stick-house, locked the door and took the key with her, then met Alick coming back to finish his lesson on the crystallization of alum, and said, "I am tired of your colored doll's jewelry. Come and tell me about flowers," leading ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... tramped down the valley after his mule, in dutiful fear of increasing his cold, and found Cormayeur crowded, only an attic au quatrieme to be had. After trying to doctor himself with gray pill, kali, and senna, Coutet cured his throat with an alum gargle, and they ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... potash in a cupful of warm water. Gargle the throat with this every hour or two during the day, but do not swallow the mixture. After this has been used for a day or two, then a solution may be made by adding a teaspoonful of pulverized alum to a cupful of warm water; this is applied to the inflamed sides of the throat by means of a swab. Gargling the throat with a solution of ordinary extract of witch hazel, one part, and water ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... may be made of other Substances, as Madder, Rue, &c. but that Alcalizate Salts do not Always Extract the same Colour of which the Vegetable appears (from 376 to 378.) Annotation the third, That the Experiments related may Hint divers others (378) Annotation the fourth, That Alum is usefull for the preparing other ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... produced, from which we can judge that the whole space beneath us is hollow. This excursion is a very disagreeable one; we are continually marching across a mere crust of earth, which may give way any moment. I found here a manufactory of brimstone and alum. A little church belonging to the Capuchins, where we are shewn a stone on which St. Januarius was decapitated after the bears had refused to tear him to pieces, stands on a ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... Perote, one who knew "the difference between alum and barley-sugar,"[3] if ever man did, a good catholic, a conscientious person, a dragoman, and as such necessarily attached to truth, and never telling a lie, save in the way of business, was himself the hero, or the witness rather of the story he narrated. He was sent ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various

... The Amir Syed Abdul Ahad succeeded in 1885. The Uzbegs are still the dominant race. The religion is Mahommedan. The chief towns are Bokhara (about 75,000) and Karshi (25,000). The chief products are sheep, goats, camels, horses, rice, cotton, silk, corn, fruit, hemp and tobacco. Gold, salt, alum and sulphur are the chief minerals. There are cotton, woollen and silk manufacturers. Many Indian goods such as shawls, tea, drugs, indigo and muslins are imported. The Amir has 11,000 troops, 4,000 of which are ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... they were found, abounded in nitre, copperas, alum, and salts. The whole of this covering, with the baskets, was perfectly sound, without ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes

... market from a distance, they are salted. They have to be soaked in water, all bits of flesh scraped off, and the hair removed, generally by the use of lime. After another washing, they are put into alum and salt for a few minutes; and after washing this off, they are dried, stretched, and then are ready for the softening. Nothing has been found that will soften the skins so perfectly as a mixture of flour, salt, and the yolk of eggs—"custard," as the workmen call it. The custard and the ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... linen and canvas from Brittany; corn, hemp, flax, tar, pitch, wax, osmond, iron, steel, copper, pelfry, thread, fustian, buckram, canvas, boards, bow-staves and wool-cards from Germany and Prussia; coffee, silk, oil, woad, black pepper, rock alum, gold and cloth of gold from Genoa; spices of all kinds, sweet wines and grocery wares, sugar and drugs, from Venice, Florence and the other Italian States; gold and other precious stones from Egypt and Arabia; ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... as in many parts of Western, Africa. The material is sometimes Daum or other palm: there are, however, many plants in more common use; they are made of every variety in shape and colour, and are dyed red, black, and yellow,—madder from Tajurrah and alum being ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... camarade. But it is time that we took our order, for methinks that between the Needle rocks and the Alum cliffs yonder I can catch a glimpse of the topmasts of the galleys. Hewett, Cook, Johnson, Cunningham, your men are of the poop-guard. Thornbury, Walters, Hackett, Baddlesmere, you are with Sir Oliver on the forecastle. Simon, you bide ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... ascends to a height of from 50 to 100 feet, with a roar like that of the escape from a steamboat boiler. Associated with the geysers are numerous hot springs, some clear, some turbid, and variously impregnated with iron, sulphur or alum. In Nevada the Steamboat Springs, as they are designated, exist in Washoe Valley, east of the Virginian range. They come nearer in character to the Yellowstone geysers, their waters depositing true geyserite, ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... speed of his prey, And straight to Ludgate he took the way; Ye wot well, that pothecaries walk very late, He came to a door and privily spake To a prentice for a penny-worth of euphorbium,[144] And also for a halfpenny-worth of alum plumb; This good servant served him shortly, And said, is there ought else that you would buy? Then he asked for a mouthful of quick brimstone;[145] And down into the cellar, when the servant was gone, Aside as he kest[146] his eye, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley

... story of the Argonauts, where Medea concocts a magic brew. She put divers herbs in it, herbs yielding coloured juices such as safflower and alkanet, and soapwort and fleawort to give consistency or 'body' to the lye; she put in alum and blue vitriol (or sulphate of copper), and she put in blood. The magic brew was no more and no less than a dye, a red or purple dye, and a prodigious deal of chemistry had gone to the making of it. For the copper was there ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... with the sulphates of the alkali metals to form double sulphates, which correspond to the alums. Chrome alum, K2SO4.Cr2(SO4)3.24H2O, is best prepared by passing sulphur dioxide through a solution of potassium bichromate containing the calculated quantity ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... both sides occurred in 1296. The Genoese residences at Pera were fired, their great alum works on the coast of Anatolia were devastated, and Caffa was stormed and sacked; whilst on the other hand a number of the Venetians at Constantinople were massacred by the Genoese, and Marco Bembo, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... ingredients of Grapes are sugar (grape and fruit), gum, tannin, bitartrate of potash, sulphate of potash, tartrate of lime, magnesia, alum, iron, chlorides of potassium and sodium, tartaric, citric, racemic, and malic acids, some albumen, and azotized ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... — N. sourness &c. adj.; acid, acidity, low pH; acetous fermentation, lactic fermentation. vinegar, verjuice[obs3], crab, alum; acetic acid, lactic acid. V. be sour; sour, turn sour &c. adj.; set the teeth on edge. render sour &c. adj.; acidify, acidulate. Adj. sour; acid, acidulous, acidulated; tart, crabbed; acetous, acetose[obs3]; acerb, acetic; sour as vinegar, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... idling around camp, June Tucker sounded the assembly, and we were ordered aboard the cars. We pulled out for Millboro; from there we had to foot it to Bath Alum and Warm Springs. We ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... that while the main body had gathered there, 6,000 men under Sir James Outram had crossed the Goomtee from the Alum Bagh, and, after defeating two serious attacks by the enemy, had taken up a position at Chinhut. On the 9th, Sir Colin Campbell captured the Martiniere with trifling loss. On the 11th General Outram pushed his advance as far ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... halted for the night, and the horses were hobbled and turned loose, the bells were once more unstopped.[42] Several men accompanied each little caravan, and sometimes they drove with them steers and hogs to sell on the sea-coast. A bushel of alum salt was worth a good cow and calf, and as each of the poorly fed, undersized pack animals could carry but two bushels, the mountaineers prized it greatly, and instead of salting or pickling their venison, they jerked it, by drying ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... murmured the man. "Well, as I was saying, it's all a trick," he went on. "Strong alum solution in your mouth, just a dash of alcohol to make a blaze that flares up but goes out quickly if you smother it right. You know the game," ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... patents in the medical field later published by the Commissioners of Patents[4] includes only six issued during the 17th century, four for baths and devices, one for an improved method of preparing alum, and one for making epsom salts. The first patent for a compound medicine was granted in 1711, and only two other proprietors preceded Benjamin Okell in seeking this particular legal form ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen

... it contained poison—not deadly poison, for I knew that my enemies hated me too much to allow me the boon of death, but poison sufficient to aggravate my discomfort. At breakfast I had cantaloupe, liberally sprinkled with salt. The salt seemed to pucker my mouth, and I believed it to be powdered alum. Usually, with my supper, sliced peaches were served. Though there was sugar on the peaches, salt would have done as well. Salt, sugar, and powdered alum had ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... pound of alum in two quarts of boiling water; then add two gallons of pure cold water. In this solution place the material and let it remain for a day. Dissolve a quarter of a pound of sugar of lead in two quarts boiling water, then add two gallons of cold water. Take the material from ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... the thatch would burn. For, before the baths were tessellated, I filled the area with alum and water, and soaked the timbers and laths for many months, and covered them afterward with alum in powder, by means of liquid glue. Mithridates taught me this. Having in vain attacked with combustibles a wooden tower, I took it by stratagem, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... double-and twisted idiot would ask such a fool question. I was paying so much attention to your dumbed story that I chewed up a green persimmon—one that hadn't been touched by the frost. It's puckered my mouth so that I will never get it straight again. It's worse than a pound of alum and a gallon of tanbark juice mixed together. O, laugh, if you want to—that's just what I'd expect from you. That's about all the ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... years a crowd of companies, every one of which confidently held out to subscribers the hope of immense gains, sprang into existence—the Insurance Company, the Paper Company, the Lutestring Company, the Pearl Fishery Company, the Glass Bottle Company, the Alum Company, the Blythe Coal Company, the Swordblade Company. There was a Tapestry Company, which would soon furnish pretty hangings for all the parlours of the middle class, and for all the bedchambers ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot

... more pleasant, you may use the Vintners Way thus: Take four Ounces of Stone Brimstone, one Ounce of burnt Alum, and two Ounces of Brandy; melt all these in an Earthen Pan over hot Coals, and dip therein a piece of new Canvas, and instantly sprinkle thereon the Powders of Nutmegs, Cloves, Coriander and Anise-seeds: This Canvas set on fire, and let it burn hanging in the Cask ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous

... of allspice. 3 gallons vinegar. 1/4 pound of black pepper. 3 quarts salt. 1 oz cloves. 6 ounces of alum. Horseradish to flavor. ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... "enact a masque for old Neptune's benefit? It would be so complimentary, you know; bring down the house, no doubt, I have a sea-green tarlatan lying so conveniently. Colonel Latrobe looks exactly like a Triton, with that wondrous beard. A little alum sprinkled over its red-gold ground would do wonders in the way of effect—would be ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... book-stalls. It was now high time to cut the connection, for the Socratics were rapidly withdrawing. The association, for want of the true golden astringent, like a dumpling without its suet, or a cheap baker's quartern loaf without its 'doctor,' (i.e. alum), was falling to pieces. The worthy treasurer had retired, seizing on such articles as were most within reach; and when I called upon him with my resignation, I had the pleasure of seeing my own busts ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... finishing them, and I tell you she admired 'em. Those crackle ware pieces were from an old pitcher of her mother's that came to me—it got broken, and I worked 'em in at the corners. I don't set no great store by that alum cross. They're kind o' common, but it turned out so nice I let it stand there. How did I make it? Why you just take a cross of wood and wind it with yarn and let it hang overnight in a solution of ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... ground to powder for the use of dyers by large powerful mills constructed especially for the purpose. Logwood, when boiled in water, easily imparts its red colour. If a few drops of acetic acid (vinegar) is added, a bright red is produced; and when a little alum is added for a mordant, it forms red ink. If an alkali, such as soda or potash, is used instead of an acid, the colour changes to a dark blue or purple, and with a little management every shade of these colours can be obtained. Logwood ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead

... matches that would take fire by the heat of friction. He knew of many other ways of starting a fire. If water gets to the cargo of lime in a vessel it sets the ship on fire. It is of no use to try to put it out by water, for it only makes more heat. He knew that dried alum and sugar suitably mixed would burst into flame if exposed to the air; that nitric acid and oil of turpentine would take fire if mixed; that flint struck by steel would start fire enough to explode a powder magazine; and that Elijah called down from heaven a kind of fire that burned twelve ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... to say, it takes but little account of the hordes of wretches who openly, and in the face of day, hunt down living men in their nefarious dealings as porter brewers, quack doctors, informers, attorneys, manufacturers of bean flour, alum, and Portland stone; and torture their subjects like so many barbacued pigs, in the complicated processes of their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various

... water will retard the setting of the plaster, but will not preserve its hardening. Marshmallow powder also retards the setting. In this way the plaster may be handled a long time without getting hard. If you wish the plaster to set extra hard, then add a little sulphate of potash, or powdered alum. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics



Words linked to "Alum" :   potassium alum, Ivy Leaguer, styptic, astringent, scholar, student, double salt, graduate, astringent drug, chrome alum, bookman, al, atomic number 13, old boy, scholarly person



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