ommonest kind, with potash.

NAPLES SOFT SOAP is a fish oil (mixed with Lucca oil) and
potash, colored brown for the London shavers, retaining, when pure, its
unsophisticated "fishy" odor.

The above soaps constitute the real body or base of all the fancy
scented soaps as made by the perfumers, which are mixed and remelted
according to the following formula:--

The remelting process is exceedingly simple. The bar soap is first cut
up into thin slabs, by pressing them against a wire fixed upon the
working bench. This cutting wire (piano wire is the kind) is made taut
upon the bench, by being attached to two screws. These screws regulate
the height of the wire from the bench, and hence the thickness of the
slabs from the bars. The soap is cut up into thin slabs, because it
would be next to impossible to melt a bar whole, on account of soap
being one of the worst conductors of heat.

The melting pan is an iron vessel, of various sizes, capable of holding
from 28 lbs. to 3 cwt., heated by a steam jacket, or by a water-bath.
The soap is put into the pan by degrees, or what is in the vernacular
called "rounds," that is, the thin slabs are placed perpendicularly all
round the side of the pan; a few ounces of water are at the same time
introduced, the steam of which assists the melting. The pan being
covered up, in about half an hour the soap will have "run down." Another
round is then introduced, and so continued every half hour until the
whole "melting" is finished. The more water a soap contains, the easier
is it melted; hence a round of marine soap, or of new yellow soap, will
run down in half the time that it requires for old soap.

When different soaps are being remelted to form one kind when finished,
the various sorts are to be inserted into the pan in alternate rounds,
but each round must consist only of one kind, to insure uniformity of
condition. As the soap melts, in order to mix it, and to break up lumps,
&c., it is from time to time "_crutched_." The "crutch" is an instrument
or tool for stirring up the soap; its name is indicative of its form, a
long handle with a short cross--an inverted 'T', curved to fit the curve
of the pan. When the soaps are all melted, it is then colored, if so
required, and then the perfume is added, the whole being thoroughly
incorporated with the crutch.

[Illustration: Frame and Slab Gauge.]

The soap is then turned into the "frame." The frame is a box made in
sections, in orde