months, the _Looneas_, who provide them, turn their hands to
something else. The _reha_, deprived of its carbonic acid and
moisture by heat, is fused into glass. Deprived of silex by this
process of filtration, it is formed into sujjee, from which the soap
is made.

On this process of filtration. Doctor O'Shaughnessy observes:-"I do
not clearly understand the use of the common salt, used in the
extraction of soda, in the process you described. But many of the
empirical practices of the natives prove, on investigation, to square
with the most scientific precepts. For example, their proportions in
the manufacture of corrosive sublimate are precisely identical with
those which the _atomic theory_ leads the European chemist to follow.
The filtering apparatus which you describe is really admirable, and I
doubt much whether the best practical chemist could devise any
simpler or cheaper way of arriving at the object in view."

The country is well provided with mango and other fine trees, single,
and in clusters and groves; but the tillage is slovenly and scanty,
strongly indicative of want of security to life, property, and
industry. No symptom of the residence of gardeners and other
cultivators of the better classes, or irrigation, or the use of
manure in tillage.

_December_ 25, 1849.--Nawabgunge, eleven miles. The soil good, as
indicated by the growth of fine trees on each side of the road as far
as we could see over the level plain, and by the few fields of corn
in sight; but the cultivation is deficient and slovenly. A great part
of the road lay through the estate of Mundone, held by Davey Persaud,
the tallookdar; and the few peasants who stood by the side of the