Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1891 — The Invention of Soap. [ARTICLE]

The Invention of Soap.

More than 2,000 years ago the Gauls were combining the ashes of the beech- ■ Tee with goat’s fat and making soap. When Marius Claudius Mureollus was hastening southward over the Flitminian Way,' laden with spoils wrested from the hands of Vlridmnar, the Gallic king lying dead by the banks of tho Po, his followers were bringing with them a knowledge of the method of making soap. The awful rain of burning ashes which fell upon Pompeii in 79-buried (with palaces and statues) the humble shop of a soup-mtiker, und in several other <*ities of Italy the business had even then a footing. In the eighth century there were many soap manufacturers in Italy and ripuiu, and fifty years luter the Phoenicians carried the business into France and established tho first factories iu Marseilles. Prior to tho invention of so.ip, fullers' earth was largely used for cleansing purposes, and the juice of certain plunts served a similar purpose. The earth was spread upon cloth, stamped iu with the foot, and subsequently removed by scouring. It was also used in buths, and as late seven as the eighteenth century wus employed by the Romans iu that way.—[Lippincott's Magazine.