Most liquids are measured by the pint, quart, gallon or barrel. We ordinarily speak of quarts of wine, gallons of milk, and barrels of molasses. When a new oil gusher is discovered, we speak of its output as so many barrels per day. There is one liquid, however, that is manufactured and consumed in such large quantities that the unit of measurement employed is the ton. This liquid is sulphuric acid.
It touches you in your daily life in a score of ways. If it were not for sulphuric acid, your car would stop, and you would go back to "old dobbin" and the buggy, for it is used extensively in the refining of kerosene and gasoline. The electric lights that illuminate your office, that shine upon your dinner table, that show you the way to bed at night, would not be possible without it.
When you get up in the morning and turn on the water for your bath, you use a nickel-plated faucet, which requires sulphuric acid in its manufacture. It was required also in the finishing of your enamelled tub. The soap you use has possibly been made from greases or oils that have been treated with the acid. Your towel has made its acquaintance before you made the acquaintance of your towel. The bristles in your hairbrush have required it, and your celluloid comb could not have been produced without it. Your razor, no doubt has been pickled in it after annealing.
You put on your underwear, you button up your outer garments. The bleacher, the manufacturer of dyes and the dyer himself used it. The button maker possibly found the acid necessary to complete your buttons. The tanner used sulphuric acid in making the leather for your shoes, and it serves us again when we wish to polish them.
You come down to breakfast. The cup and saucer, if they be other than plain white, could not have come into being without it. It is used to produce the gilt and other ornamental colourings. Your spoon, knife and fork have seen a bath of sulphuric acid, if they be silver-plated.
