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Program Consultants
Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, PhD
Douglas Fisher, PhD
Kathleen A. Hinchman, PhD
David OíBrien, PhD
Taffy Raphael, PhD
Cynthia Hynd Shanahan, EdD
Copyright © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the
United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form
or means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Send all inquiries to:
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill
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Printed in the United States of America
 Contents *

1 Miss Youghal's Sais . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 20 A Wagner Matiné e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Rudyard Kipling Willa Cather
2 The Lagoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 21 The Open Boat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Joseph Conrad Stephen Crane
3 The Rocking-Horse Winner . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 22 The Jilting of Granny Weatherall . . . . . . 181
D. H. Lawrence Katherine Anne Porter
4 Araby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 23 The Bridal Party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
James Joyce F. Scott Fitzgerald
5 The Duke's Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 24 In Another Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Frank O’Connor Ernest Hemingway
6 A Cup of Tea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 25 Soldiers of the Republic and Penelope 207
Katherine Mansfield Dorothy Parker
7 The Demon Lover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 26 The Second Tree from the Corner . . . . . 210
Elizabeth Bowen E. B. White
8 A Shocking Accident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 27 Breakfast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Graham Greene John Steinbeck
9 A Mild Attack of Locusts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 28 A Rose for Emily . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Louise Erdrih William Faulkner
10 Mammie's Form at the Post Office . . . . . 68 29 A Worn Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
E. A. Markham Eudora Welty
11 The Life You Save May Be Your Own . . 71 30 The Portrait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Flannery O’Connor Tomás Rivera
12 The Devil and Tom Walker . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 31 The Rockpile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Washington Irving James Baldwin
13 The Minister's Black Veil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 32 The Magic Barrel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Nathaniel Hawthorne Bernard Malamud
14 The Pit and the Pendulum . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 33 Nineteen Thirty-Seven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Edgar Allan Poe Edwidge Danticat
15 An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge . . 116 34 Snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
Ambrose Bierce Julia Alvarez
16 The Celebrated Jumping Frog of . . . . . . 125 35 Ambush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Calaveras County Tim O’Brien
Mark Twain 36 Rain Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
17 The Outcasts of Poker Flat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Longhang Nguyen
Bret Harte 37 Bread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
18 To Build a Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Margaret Atwood
Jack London 38 Se me enchina el cuerpo al oír tu cuento 272
19 The Story of an Hour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Norma Elia Cantú
Kate Chopin

* Titles or authors here and in the body of the book are interrelatedly linked.
 Contents

39 Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 50 The Californian's Tale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Donald Barthelme Mark Twain
40 Chee's Daughter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 51 The Interlopers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Juanita Platero Saki
41 Two Kinds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 52 As It Is with Strangers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
Amy Tan Susan Beth Pfeffer
42 Catch the Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 53 Mrs. James . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Judith Ortiz Cofer Alice Childress
43 Through the Tunnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 54 A Sound of Thunder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Doris Lessing Ray Bradbury
44 By the Waters of Babylon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 55 Lullaby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Stephen Vincent Benét Leslie Marmon Silko
45 What I Have Been Doing Lately . . . . . . . . 327 56 Winter Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
Jamaica Kincaid Kay Boyle
46 With All Flags Flying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330 57 Waltz of the Fat Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Anne Tyler Alberto Alvaro Ríos
47 A White Heron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339 58 The Masque of the Red Death . . . . . . . . . . 427
Sarah Orne Jewett Edgar Allan Poe
48 The Monkey's Paw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 59 To Da-duh, in Memoriam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
W. W. Jacobs Paule Marshall
49 Contents of the Dead Man's Pocket . . . 358
Jack Finney
 Rudyard Kipling

When Man and Woman are agreed, what can the Kazi1 do?
Proverb.

ome people say that there is no romance in India. Those people are
wrong. Our lives hold quite as much romance as is good for us.
Sometimes more.
Strickland was in the Police, and people did not understand him;
so they said he was a doubtful sort of man and passed by on the other side.

1. A kazi (k
azē) is a civil judge.

A View of Benares. Holger Jerichau (1861–1900). Burlington Paintings, London.

Viewing the painting: How does the setting of the painting reflect that of the story?

1
Strickland had himself to thank for this. He
held the extraordinary theory that a
Policeman in India should try to know as much
about the natives as the natives themselves.
Now, in the whole of Upper India there is only
one man who can pass for Hindu or
Mahommedan,2 hide-dresser or priest, as he
pleases. He is feared and respected by the natives
from the Ghor Kathri3 to the Jamma Musjid;4
and he is supposed to have the gift of invisibility
and executive control over many Devils. But
this has done him no good in the eyes of the
Indian Government.
Strickland was foolish enough to take that
man for his model; and, following out his absurd
theory, dabbled in unsavory places which no
respectable man would think of exploring—all
among the native riff-raff. He educated himself
in this peculiar way for seven years, and people
could not appreciate it. He was perpetually
“going Fantee”5 among natives, which, of
course, no man with any sense believes in. He
was initiated into the Sat Bhai 6 at Allahabad7
once, when he was on leave; he knew the
Lizzard-Song of the Sansis,8 and the Hálli-
Hukk dance, which is a religious can-can9 of a
2. A Mahommedan is a Muslim.
3. The Ghor Kathri (ōr kā trē) in the city of Peshawar,
Pakistan, was once a Buddhist monastery and later a sacred
Hindu temple.
4. The Jamma Musjid (j
am
a m
as jid) is the Principal Mosque
in Delhi. A mosque (mosk) is the Muslim place of worship.
5. Going Fantee (f
antē) means “mixing with the natives and
conforming to their habits.”
6. Sat Bhai (s
at b¯) literally means “seven brothers.”
7. Allahabad (al´ ə hə bad) is a city in north central India that is
a Hindu pilgrimage site.
8. The Sansis (s
an sēz) are a low-caste people of the Indian
state of Punjab (pun j
ab). The caste system is a rigid social
division characterized by hereditary status, hereditary occupa-
tion, and fixed social barriers.
9. The can-can is a Parisian dance characterized by exaggerated
high kicking.
Vocabulary
unsavory (un sā vər ē) adj. sinister; morally questionable
2
startling kind. When a man knows who
dance the Hálli-Hukk, and how, and
when, and where, he knows something to be
proud of. He has gone deeper than the skin.
But Strickland was not proud, though he had
helped once, at Jagadhri,10 at the Painting of
the Death Bull, which no Englishman must
even look upon; had mastered the thieves’-
patter of the chángars; had taken a Eusufzai11
horse-thief alone near Attock; and had stood
under the sounding-board of a Border mosque
and conducted service in the manner of a
Sunni Mollah.12
His crowning achievement was spending
eleven days as a faquir or priest in the gardens of
Baba Atal at Amritsar,13 and there picking up
the threads of the great Nasiban Murder Case.
But people said, justly enough, “Why on earth
can’t Strickland sit in his office and write up his
diary, and recruit, and keep quiet, instead of
showing up the incapacity of his seniors?” So the
Nasiban Murder Case did him no good depart-
mentally; but, after his first feeling of wrath, he
returned to his outlandish custom of prying into
native life. When a man once acquires a taste for
this particular amusement, it abides with him all
his days. It is the most fascinating thing in the
world—Love not excepted. Where other men
took ten days to the Hills, Strickland took leave
for what he called shikar,14 put on the disguise
that appealed to him at the time, stepped down
into the brown crowd, and was swallowed up for
a while. He was a quiet, dark young fellow—
spare, black-eyed—and, when he was not
10. Jagadhri (j
a 
adrē) is a town in the Punjab.
11. The Eusufzai (ū soofz¯) are a tribe of northwest Pakistan.
12. A Sunni Mollah (s¯¯¯oonē mə l
a) is a Muslim religious
leader or teacher.
13. Amritsar (
amrit´ser) is a city in northwestern India and the
center of the Sikh (sēk) faith. Sikhs believe in one God and
are disciples of the ten Gurus (¯¯¯ ooz), or teachers.
oor¯¯¯
14. Shikar (sh¯ kar) means “hunting.”
thinking of something else, a very interest-
ing companion. Strickland on Native
Progress as he had seen it was worth hearing.
Natives hated Strickland; but they were afraid
of him. He knew too much.
When the Youghals came into the station,
Strickland—very gravely, as he did every-
thing—fell in love with Miss Youghal; and she,
after a while, fell in love with him because she
could not understand him. Then Strickland told
the parents; but Mrs. Youghal said she was not
going to throw her daughter into the worst paid
department in the Empire, and old Youghal
said, in so many words, that he mistrusted
Strickland’s ways and works, and would thank
him not to speak or write to his daughter any
more. “Very well,” said Strickland, for he did not
wish to make his lady-love’s life a burden. After
one long talk with Miss Youghal he dropped the
business entirely.
The Youghals went up to Simla15 in April.
In July Strickland secured three months’
leave on “urgent private affairs.” He locked up
his house—though not a native in the Province
would wittingly have touched “Estreekin
Sahib’s”16 gear for the world—and went down to
see a friend of his, an old dyer, at Tarn Taran.
Here all trace of him was lost, until a sais17 or
groom met me on the Simla Mall with this
extraordinary note:
DEAR OLD MAN,—Please give bearer a box of
cheroots18—Supers, No. 1, for preference.
They are freshest at the Club. I’ll repay when I
reappear; but at present I’m out of
society.—Yours,
E. STRICKLAND.
15. From 1865 to 1939, Simla (sēml
a) was India’s summer
capital and is still a popular summer resort.
16. In colonial India, Sahib (s
a hēb) was a respectful form of
address for a European man.
17. A sais (s
a ēs) is a servant who attends to horses; a groom,
or an attendant who follows on foot behind a mounted rider
or carriage.
18. Cheroots (shə r¯¯¯ oots) are cigars.
3
I ordered two boxes, and handed them over
to the sais with my love. That sais was
Strickland, and he was in old Youghal’s employ,
attached to Miss Youghal’s Arab. The poor fel-
low was suffering for
an English smoke,
and knew that,
whatever happened,
I should hold my
tongue till the busi-
ness was over.
Later on, Mrs.
Youghal, who was Did You Know?
An Arab is an Arabian horse
wrapped up in her prized for its speed and purity
servants, began talk- of breed.
ing at houses where
she called of her paragon among saises—the man
who was never too busy to get up in the morn-
ing and pick flowers for the breakfast-table, and
who blacked—actually blacked—the hooves of
his horse like a London coachman! The turn-
out19 of Miss Youghal’s Arab was a wonder and a
delight. Strickland—Dulloo, I mean—found his
reward in the pretty things that Miss Youghal
said to him when she went out riding. Her par-
ents were pleased to find she had forgotten all
her foolishness for young Strickland, and said
she was a good girl.
Strickland vows that the two months of his
service were the most rigid mental discipline he
has ever gone through. Quite apart from the
little fact that the wife of one of his fellow-
saises fell in love with him and then tried to poi-
son him with arsenic because he would have
nothing to do with her, he had to school himself
into keeping quiet when Miss Youghal went out
riding with some man who tried to flirt with
her, and he was forced to trot behind carrying
the blanket and hearing every word! Also, he
had to keep his temper when he was slanged20 in
the theater porch by a policeman—especially
19. Turn-out refers to the horse’s carriage or other equipment
or furnishings.
20. Slanged means “attacked with abusive language.”

once when he was abused by a Naik21 he
had himself recruited from Isser Jang vil-
lage—or, worse still, when a young subaltern22
called him a pig for not making way quickly
enough.
But the life had its compensations. He
obtained great insight into the ways and thefts
of saises—enough, he says, to have summarily
convicted half the population of the Punjab if
he had been on business. He became one of
the leading players at knuckle-bones,23 which
all jhampánies 24 and many saises play while they
are waiting outside the Government House25
or the Gaiety Theater of nights; he learned to
smoke tobacco that was three-fourths cow-
dung; and he heard the wisdom of the grizzled
Jemadar 26 of the Government House grooms.
Whose words are valuable. He saw many things
which amused him; and he states, on honor,
that no man can appreciate Simla properly till
he has seen it from the sais’s point of view. He
also says that, if he chose to write all he saw his
head would be broken in several places.
Strickland’s account of the agony he endured
on wet nights, hearing the music and seeing the
lights in “Benmore,” with his toes tingling for
a waltz and his head in a horse-blanket, is
rather amusing. One of these days Strickland is
going to write a little book on his experiences.
That book will be worth buying, and even
more worth suppressing.
21. A Naik (n
a ēk) is a corporal of the native infantry.
22. A subaltern is a junior military officer.
23. Knuckle-bones is a game played by tossing and catching
sheep bones.
24. Jhampánies ( j
am p
anēz) are bearers of a jampan, a chair
that is designed to hold one person and is carried on poles
by men.
25. The Government House is the residence of a governor or of
the owner or manager of an estate.
26. A Jemadar ( jə mə d
ar) is the head of a group of servants.
Vocabulary
compensation (kom´pən sā shən) n. something that offsets, counterbalances, or makes
up for
suppressing (sə prəsin) n. the prohibition of the publication or circulation of; censorship
4
Rudyard Kipling

Thus he served faithfully as Jacob
served for Rachel;27 and his leave was
nearly at an end when the explosion came. He
had really done his best to keep his temper in
the hearing of the flirtations I have mentioned;
but he broke down at last. An old and very dis-
tinguished General took Miss Youghal for a ride,
and began that specially offensive “you’re-only-
a-little-girl” sort of flirtation—most difficult for
a woman to turn aside deftly, and most madden-
ing to listen to. Miss Youghal was shaking with
fear at the things he said in the hearing of her
sais. Dulloo—Strickland—stood it as long as he
could. Then he caught hold of the General’s
bridle, and, in most fluent English, invited him
to step off and be flung over the cliff. Next
minute Miss Youghal began to cry, and
Strickland saw that he had hopelessly given
himself away, and everything was over.
The General nearly had a fit, while Miss
Youghal was sobbing out the story of the disguise
and the engagement that was not recognized by
the parents. Strickland was furiously angry with
himself, and more angry with the General for
forcing his hand; so he said nothing, but held
the horse’s head and prepared to thrash the
General as some sort of satisfaction. But when
the General had thoroughly grasped the story,
and knew who Strickland was, he began to puff
and blow in the saddle, and nearly rolled off with
laughing. He said Strickland deserved a V.C.,28 if
it were only for putting on a sais’s blanket. Then
he called himself names, and vowed that he
deserved a thrashing, but he was too old to take
it from Strickland. Then he complimented
27. Jacob served for Rachel refers to Genesis 29:15–40, in which
Jacob served Rachel’s father, Laban, for fourteen years in
return for Rachel’s hand in marriage.
28. V.C., or the Victoria Cross, is a British military decoration
bestowed for conspicuous bravery in battle.
Miss Youghal on her lover. The scandal of
the business never struck him; for he was a
nice old man, with a weakness for flirtations.
Then he laughed again, and said that old
Youghal was a fool. Strickland let go of the
cob’s29 head, and suggested that the General
had better help them if that was his opinion.
Strickland knew Youghal’s weakness for men
with titles and letters after their names and
high official position. “It’s rather like a forty-
minute farce,” said the General, “but, begad, I
will help, if it’s only to escape that tremendous
thrashing I deserve. Go along to your home,
my sais-Policeman, and change into decent
kit,30 and I’ll attack Mr. Youghal. Miss Youghal,
may I ask you to canter home and wait?”
* * *
About seven minutes later there was a wild hur-
roosh31 at the Club. A sais, with blanket and
head-rope, was asking all the men he knew: “For
Heaven’s sake lend me decent clothes!” As the
men did not recognize him, there were some
peculiar scenes before Strickland could get a hot
bath, with soda in it, in one room, a shirt here, a
collar there, a pair of trousers elsewhere, and so
on. He galloped off, with half the Club wardrobe
on his back, and an utter stranger’s pony under
him, to the house of old Youghal. The General,
arrayed in purple and fine linen, was before him.
What the General had said Strickland never
29. A cob is a short-legged stout variety of horse.
30. Here, kit means “outfit or uniform.”
31. Here, a hurroosh is a commotion.
Vocabulary
farce (f
ars) n. a humorous drama in which the situation and characters are greatly
exaggerated
5
knew, but Youghal received Strickland
with moderate civility; and Mrs.
Youghal, touched by the devotion of the
transformed Dulloo, was almost kind. The
General beamed and chuckled, and Miss
Youghal came in, and, almost before old
Youghal knew where he was, the parental con-
sent had been wrenched out, and Strickland
had departed with Miss Youghal to the tele-
graph office to wire for his European kit. The
final embarrassment was when a stranger
attacked him on the Mall and asked for the
stolen pony.
In the end, Strickland and Miss Youghal
were married, on the strict understanding that
Strickland should drop his old ways, and stick
to Departmental routine, which pays best and
leads to Simla. Strickland was far too fond of
his wife, just then, to break his word, but it was
a sore trial to him; for the streets and the
bazaars, and the sounds in them, were full of
meaning to Strickland, and these called to him
to come back and take up his wanderings and
his discoveries. Some day I will tell you how he
broke his promise to help a friend. That was
long since, and he has, by this time, been
nearly spoiled for what he would call shikar. He
is forgetting the slang, and the beggar’s cant,32
and the marks, and the signs, and the drift of
the undercurrents, which, if a man would mas-
ter, he must always continue to learn.
But he fills in his Departmental returns
beautifully.
32. Cant means “language, jargon, or manner of speaking.”
 Joseph Conrad

he white man, leaning with both arms over the roof of the little
house in the stern of the boat, said to the steersman:
“We will pass the night in Arsat’s clearing. It is late.” The Malay1 only
grunted, and went on looking fixedly at the river. The white man rested
his chin on his crossed arms and gazed at the wake of the boat. At the
end of the straight avenue of forests cut by the intense glitter of the river,
the sun appeared unclouded and dazzling, poised low over the water that
shone smoothly like a band of metal. The forests, somber and dull, stood
motionless and silent on each side of the broad stream. At the foot of
big, towering trees, trunkless nipa palms rose from the mud of the bank,
in bunches of leaves enormous and heavy, that hung unstirring over the
brown swirl of eddies. In the stillness of the air every tree, every leaf,
every bough, every tendril of creeper and every petal of minute blossoms
seemed to have been bewitched into an immobility perfect and final.

1. A Malay is one who comes from the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia.

6
Nothing moved on the river but the eight
paddles that rose flashing regularly, dipped
together with a single splash; while the steers-
man swept right and left with a periodic and
sudden flourish of his blade describing a glint-
ing semicircle above his head. The churned-
up water frothed alongside with a confused
murmur. And the white man’s canoe, advanc-
ing upstream in the short-lived disturbance of
its own making, seemed to enter the portals2
of a land from which the very memory of
motion had forever departed.
The white man, turning his back upon the
setting sun, looked along the empty and broad
expanse of the sea-reach. For the last three
miles of its course the wandering, hesitating
river, as if enticed irresistibly by the freedom of
2. Here, portals is used to mean “entranceway.”
Vocabulary
discordant (dis k
ordənt) adj. harsh, clashing, or disagreeable in sound
7
an open horizon, flows straight into the sea,
flows straight to the east—to the east that har-
bors both light and darkness. Astern of the boat
the repeated call of some bird, a cry discordant
and feeble, skipped along over the smooth water
and lost itself, before it could reach the other
shore, in the breathless silence of the world.
The steersman dug his paddle into the
stream, and held hard with stiffened arms, his
body thrown forward. The water gurgled aloud;
and suddenly the long straight reach seemed to
pivot on its center, the forests swung in a semi-
circle, and the slanting beams of sunset
touched the broadside of the canoe with a fiery
glow, throwing the slender and distorted shad-
ows of its crew upon the streaked glitter of the
river. The white man turned to look ahead.
The course of the boat had been altered at right
angles to the stream, and the carved dragon
head of its prow was pointing now at a gap in
the fringing bushes of the bank. It glided
through, brushing the overhanging twigs, and
disappeared from the river like some slim and
amphibious creature leaving the water for its
lair in the forests.
The narrow creek was like a ditch: tortu-
ous, fabulously deep; filled with gloom under
the thin strip of pure and shining blue of the
heaven. Immense trees soared up, invisible
behind the festooned draperies of creepers.
Here and there, near the glistening blackness
of the water, a twisted root of some tall tree
showed amongst the tracery of small ferns,
black and dull, writhing and motionless, like
an arrested snake. The short words of the pad-
dlers reverberated loudly between the thick
and somber walls of vegetation. Darkness
oozed out from between the trees, through
the tangled maze of the creepers, from behind
the great fantastic and unstirring leaves; the
darkness, mysterious and invincible; the dark-
ness scented and poisonous of impenetrable
forests.
The men poled in the shoaling water.3
The creek broadened, opening out into a
wide sweep of a stagnant lagoon. The forests
receded from the marshy bank, leaving a level
strip of bright green, reedy grass to frame the
reflected blueness of the sky. A fleecy pink
cloud drifted high above, trailing the delicate
coloring of its image under the floating leaves
and the silvery blossoms of the lotus. A little
house, perched on high piles, appeared black
in the distance. Near it, two tall nibong
palms, that seemed to have come out of the
forests in the background, leaned slightly
over the ragged roof, with a suggestion of sad
tenderness and care in the droop of their leafy
and soaring heads.
3. Shoaling water means “water that is becoming shallow.”
Vocabulary
propitiate (prə pish ē āt´) v. to appease; to conciliate
8
The steersman, pointing with his paddle,
said, “Arsat is there. I see his canoe fast between
the piles.”
The polers ran along the sides of the boat
glancing over their shoulders at the end of the
day’s journey. They would have preferred to
spend the night somewhere else than on this
lagoon of weird aspect and ghostly reputation.
Moreover, they disliked Arsat, first as a
stranger, and also because he who repairs a
ruined house, and dwells in it, proclaims that
he is not afraid to live amongst the spirits that
haunt the places abandoned by mankind. Such
a man can disturb the course of fate by glances
or words; while his familiar ghosts are not easy
to propitiate by casual wayfarers upon whom
they long to wreak the malice of their human
master. White men care not for such things,
being unbelievers and in league with the Father
of Evil, who leads them unharmed through the
invisible dangers of this world. To the warnings
of the righteous they oppose an offensive pre-
tense of disbelief. What is there to be done?
So they thought, throwing their weight on
the end of their long poles. The big canoe
glided on swiftly, noiselessly, and smoothly,
towards Arsat’s clearing, till, in a great rattling
of poles thrown down, and the loud murmurs of
“Allah4 be praised!” it came with a gentle
knock against the crooked piles below the
house.
The boatmen with uplifted faces shouted
discordantly, “Arsat! O Arsat!” Nobody came.
The white man began to climb the rude ladder
giving access to the bamboo platform before
the house. The juragan5 of the boat said sulkily,
“We will cook in the sampan,6 and sleep on the
water.”
4. Allah is the “supreme being” for the Muslims.
5. A juragan is a captain of a boat.
6. A sampan is a flat-bottomed Asian boat.

“Pass my blankets and the basket,” said the
white man, curtly.
He knelt on the edge of the platform to
receive the bundle. Then the boat shoved off,
and the white man, standing up, confronted
Arsat, who had come out through the low door
of his hut. He was a man young, powerful, with
broad chest and muscular arms. He had noth-
ing on but his sarong. His head was bare. His
big, soft eyes stared eagerly at the white man,
but his voice and demeanor were composed as
he asked, without any words of greeting:
“Have you medicine, Tuan?”7
“No,” said the visitor in a startled tone.
“No. Why? Is there sickness in the house?”
“Enter and see,” replied Arsat, in the same
calm manner, and turning short round, passed
again through the small doorway. The white
man, dropping his bundles, followed.
“Tuan, will she die?”
In the dim light of the dwelling he made
out on a couch of bamboos a woman stretched
on her back under a broad sheet of red cotton
cloth. She lay still, as if dead; but her big eyes,
wide open, glittered in the gloom, staring
upwards at the slender rafters, motionless and
unseeing. She was in a high fever, and evi-
dently unconscious. Her cheeks were sunk
slightly, her lips were partly open, and on the
young face there was the ominous and fixed
expression—the absorbed, contemplating
7. Tuan is a Malayan title of respect.
Vocabulary
curtly (kurtlē) adv. in a rudely brief or abrupt manner
audacious (
o dā shəs) adj. bold, daring, or unrestrained
9
Joseph Conrad 
expression of the unconscious who are going
to die. The two men stood looking down at
her in silence.
“Has she been long ill?” asked the traveler.
“I have not slept for five nights,” answered
the Malay, in a deliberate tone. “At first she
heard voices calling her from the water and
struggled against me who held her. But since
the sun of today rose she hears nothing—she
hears not me. She sees nothing. She sees not
me—me!”
He remained silent for a minute, then asked
softly:
“Tuan, will she die?”
“I fear so,” said the white man, sorrowfully.
He had known Arsat years ago, in a far country
in times of trouble and danger, when no friend-
ship is to be despised. And since his Malay friend
had come unexpectedly to dwell in the hut on
the lagoon with a strange woman, he had slept
many times there, in his journeys up and down
the river. He liked the man who knew how to
keep faith in council and how to fight without
fear by the side of his white friend. He liked
him—not so much perhaps as a man likes his
favorite dog—but still he liked him well enough
to help and ask no questions, to think sometimes
vaguely and hazily in the midst of his own pur-
suits, about the lonely man and the long-haired
woman with audacious face and triumphant
eyes, who lived together hidden by the forests—
alone and feared.
The white man came out of the hut in time
to see the enormous conflagration8 of sunset put
out by the swift and stealthy shadows that, rising
like a black and impalpable vapor above the
treetops, spread over the heaven, extinguishing
the crimson glow of floating clouds and the red
brilliance of departing daylight. In a few
moments all the stars came out above the
8. Conflagration (kon´flə rā shən) means “fire.”
intense blackness of the earth and the great
lagoon gleaming suddenly with reflected lights
resembled an oval patch of night sky flung down
into the hopeless and abysmal night of the
wilderness. The white man had some supper out
of the basket, then collecting a few sticks that
lay about the platform, made up a small fire, not
for warmth, but for the sake of smoke, which
would keep off the mosquitoes. He wrapped
himself in the blankets and sat with his back
against the reed wall of the house, smoking
thoughtfully.
The land and the water
slept invisible, unstirring
and mute.
Arsat came through the doorway with noise-
less steps and squatted down by the fire. The
white man moved his outstretched legs a little.
“She breathes,” said Arsat in a low voice,
anticipating the expected question. “She
breathes and burns as if with a great fire. She
speaks not; she hears not—and burns!”
He paused for a moment, then asked in a
quiet, incurious tone:
“Tuan . . . will she die?”
The white man moved his shoulders uneasily
and muttered in a hesitating manner:
“If such is her fate.”
“No, Tuan,” said Arsat, calmly. “If such is my
fate. I hear, I see, I wait. I remember. . . . Tuan,
do you remember the old days? Do you remem-
ber my brother?”
“Yes,” said the white man. The Malay rose
suddenly and went in. The other, sitting still
outside, could hear the voice in the hut. Arsat
Vocabulary
placid (plasid) adj. calm or peaceful; undisturbed
ignoble (i nō bəl) adj. without honor or worth; base
10
said: “Hear me! Speak!” His words were suc-
ceeded by a complete silence. “O Diamelen!” he
cried, suddenly. After that cry there was a deep
sigh. Arsat came out and sank down again in his
old place.
They sat in silence before the fire. There was
no sound within the house, there was no sound
near them; but far away on the lagoon they
could hear the voices of the boatmen ringing fit-
ful and distinct on the calm water. The fire in
the bows of the sampan shone faintly in the dis-
tance with a hazy red glow. Then it died out.
The voices ceased. The land and the water slept
invisible, unstirring and mute. It was as though
there had been nothing left in the world but the
glitter of stars streaming, ceaseless and vain,
through the black stillness of the night.
The white man gazed straight before him
into the darkness with wide-open eyes. The fear
and fascination, the inspiration and the wonder
of death—of death near, unavoidable, and
unseen—soothed the unrest of his race and
stirred the most indistinct, the most intimate of
his thoughts. The ever-ready suspicion of evil,
the gnawing suspicion that lurks in our hearts,
flowed out into the stillness round him—into
the stillness profound and dumb—and made
it appear untrustworthy and infamous, like
the placid and impenetrable mask of an
unjustifiable violence. In that fleeting and pow-
erful disturbance of his being the earth enfolded
in the starlight peace became a shadowy country
of inhuman strife, a battlefield of phantoms ter-
rible and charming, august9 or ignoble, strug-
gling ardently for the possession of our helpless
hearts. An unquiet and mysterious country of
inextinguishable desires and fears.
A plaintive murmur rose in the night; a mur-
mur saddening and startling, as if the great
9. August (
o ust) means “awesome.”

solitudes of surrounding woods had tried to whis-
per into his ear the wisdom of their immense and
lofty indifference. Sounds hesitating and vague
floated in the air round him, shaped themselves
slowly into words; and at last flowed on gently in
a murmuring stream of soft and monotonous
sentences. He stirred like a man waking up and
changed his position slightly. Arsat, motionless
and shadowy, sitting with bowed head under the
stars, was speaking in a low and dreamy tone:
“. . . for where can we lay down the heavi-
ness of our trouble but in a friend’s heart? A
man must speak of war and of love. You, Tuan,
know what war is, and you have seen me in
time of danger seek death as other men seek
life! A writing may be lost; a lie may be writ-
ten; but what the eye has seen is truth and
remains in the mind!”
“I remember,” said the white man, quietly.
Arsat went on with mournful composure:
“Therefore I shall speak to you of love. Speak
in the night. Speak before both night and love
are gone—and the eye of day looks upon my sor-
row and my shame; upon my blackened face;
upon my burnt-up heart.”
A sigh, short and faint, marked an almost
imperceptible pause, and then his words flowed
on, without a stir, without a gesture.
“After the time of trouble and war was over
and you went away from my country in the
pursuit of your desires, which we, men of the
islands, cannot understand, I and my brother
became again, as we had been before, the
sword bearers of the Ruler. You know we were
men of family, belonging to a ruling race, and
more fit than any to carry on our right shoul-
der the emblem of power. And in the time of
prosperity Si Dendring showed us favor, as we,
in time of sorrow, had showed to him the faith-
fulness of our courage. It was a time of peace.
A time of deer hunts and cock fights; of idle
talks and foolish squabbles between men
whose bellies are full and weapons are rusty.
But the sower watched the young rice shoots
grow up without fear, and the traders came and
11
Joseph Conrad

went, departed lean and returned fat into the
river of peace. They brought news, too.
Brought lies and truth mixed together, so that
no man knew when to rejoice and when to be
sorry. We heard from them about you also.
They had seen you here and had seen you
there. And I was glad to hear, for I remem-
bered the stirring times, and I always remem-
bered you, Tuan, till the time came when my
eyes could see nothing in the past, because
they had looked upon the one who is dying
there—in the house.”
He stopped to exclaim in an intense whis-
per, “O Mara bahia! O Calamity!” then went
on speaking a little louder:
“There’s no worse enemy and no better
friend than a brother, Tuan, for one brother
knows another, and in perfect knowledge is
strength for good or evil. I loved my brother. I
went to him and told him that I could see
nothing but one face, hear nothing but one
voice. He told me: ‘Open your heart so that
she can see what is in it—and wait. Patience is
wisdom. Inchi Midah may die or our Ruler may
throw off his fear of a woman!’ . . . I waited! . . .
You remember the lady with the veiled face,
Tuan, and the fear of our Ruler before her
cunning and temper. And if she wanted her ser-
vant, what could I do? But I fed the hunger of
my heart on short glances and stealthy words. I
loitered on the path to the bathhouses in the
daytime, and when the sun had fallen behind
the forest I crept along the jasmine hedges of the
women’s courtyard. Unseeing, we spoke to one
another through the scent of flowers, through
the veil of leaves, through the blades of long
grass that stood still before our lips; so great was
our prudence, so faint was the murmur of our
great longing. The time passed swiftly . . . and
there were whispers amongst women—and our
enemies watched—my brother was gloomy, and
I began to think of killing and of a fierce
death. . . . We are of a people who take what
they want—like you whites. There is a time
when a man should forget loyalty and respect.

The Palace of the Hyder Ali Khan, Rajah of Mysore, c. 1825. John Sell Cotman. Watercolor
and pencil on card, 32.4 x 41.2 cm. Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, Lancashire, UK. take you from those people. You
Viewing the art: How does this work evoke the majesty of the Ruler’s palace? How
might the narrator have felt opposing the powerful ruler?
Might and authority are given to rulers, but to
all men is given love and strength and courage.
My brother said, ‘You shall take her from their
midst. We are two who are like one.’ And I
answered, ‘Let it be soon, for I find no warmth in
sunlight that does not shine upon her.’ Our time
came when the Ruler and all the great people
went to the mouth of the river to fish by torch-
light. There were hundreds of boats, and on the
white sand, between the water and the forests,
dwellings of leaves were built for the households
of the Rajahs.10 The smoke of cooking fires was
like a blue mist of the evening, and many voices
rang in it joyfully. While they were making the
boats ready to beat up the fish, my brother came
to me and said, ‘Tonight!’ I looked to my
weapons, and when the time came our canoe
took its place in the circle of boats carrying the
torches. The lights blazed on the water, but
behind the boats there was darkness. When the
shouting began and the excitement made them
like mad we dropped out. The water swallowed
10. A Rajah is an Indian or Malay prince.
12
our fire, and we floated back to
the shore that was dark with
only here and there the glimmer
of embers. We could hear the
talk of slave girls amongst the
sheds. Then we found a place
deserted and silent. We waited
there. She came. She came run-
ning along the shore, rapid and
leaving no trace, like a leaf driv-
en by the wind into the sea. My
brother said gloomily, ‘Go and
take her; carry her into our
boat.’ I lifted her in my arms.
She panted. Her heart was beat-
ing against my breast. I said, ‘I
came to the cry of my heart, but
my arms take you into my boat
against the will of the great!’ ‘It
is right,’ said my brother. ‘We
are men who take what we want and can hold it
against many. We should have taken her in day-
light.’ I said, ‘Let us be off’; for since she was in
my boat I began to think of our Ruler’s many
men. ‘Yes. Let us be off,’ said my brother. ‘We are
cast out and this boat is our country now—and
the sea is our refuge.’ He lingered with his foot
on the shore, and I entreated him to hasten, for
I remembered the strokes of her heart against my
breast and thought that two men cannot with-
stand a hundred. We left, paddling downstream
close to the bank; and as we passed by the creek
where they were fishing, the great shouting had
ceased, but the murmur of voices was loud like
the humming of insects flying at noonday. The
boats floated, clustered together, in the red light
of torches, under a black roof of smoke; and men
talked of their sport. Men that boasted, and
praised, and jeered—men that would have been
our friends in the morning, but on that night
were already our enemies. We paddled swiftly
past. We had no more friends in the country of
our birth. She sat in the middle of the canoe
with covered face; silent as she is now; unseeing

as she is now—and I had no regret at what I was
leaving because I could hear her breathing close
to me—as I can hear her now.”
He paused, listened with his ear turned to
the doorway, then shook his head and went on:
“My brother wanted to shout the cry of chal-
lenge—one cry only—to let the people know we
were freeborn robbers who trusted our arms and
the great sea. And again I begged him in the
name of our love to be silent. Could I not hear
her breathing close to me? I knew the pursuit
would come quick enough. My brother loved
me. He dipped his paddle without a splash. He
only said, ‘There is half a man in you now—the
other half is in that woman. I can wait. When
you are a whole man again, you will come back
with me here to shout defiance. We are sons of
the same mother.’ I made no answer. All my
strength and all my spirit were in my hands that
held the paddle—for I longed to be with her in
a safe place beyond the reach of men’s anger and
of women’s spite. My love was so great, that I
thought it could guide me to a country where
death was unknown, if I could only escape from
Inchi Midah’s fury and from our Ruler’s sword.
We paddled with haste, breathing through our
teeth. The blades bit deep into the smooth
water. We passed out of the river; we flew in
clear channels amongst the shallows. We skirted
the black coast; we skirted the sand beaches
where the sea speaks in whispers to the land; and
the gleam of white sand flashed back past our
boat, so swiftly she ran upon the water. We
spoke not. Only once I said, ‘Sleep, Diamelen,
for soon you may want all your strength.’ I heard
the sweetness of her voice, but I never turned my
head. The sun rose and still we went on. Water
fell from my face like rain from a cloud. We flew
in the light and heat. I never looked back, but I
knew that my brother’s eyes, behind me, were
looking steadily ahead, for the boat went as
straight as a bushman’s dart, when it leaves
the end of the sumpitan.11 There was no better
11. Sumpitan is the blowgun used to project a poison dart.
13
Joseph Conrad

paddler, no better steersman than my brother.
Many times, together, we had won races in
that canoe. But we never had put out our
strength as we did then—then, when for the
last time we paddled together! There was no
braver or stronger man in our country than my
brother. I could not spare the strength to turn
my head and look at him, but every moment I
heard the hiss of his breath getting louder
behind me. Still he did not speak. The sun was
high. The heat clung to my back like a flame of
fire. My ribs were ready to burst, but I could no
longer get enough air into my chest. And then
I felt I must cry out with my last breath, ‘Let us
rest!’ . . . ‘Good!’ he answered; and his voice was
firm. He was strong. He was brave. He knew not
fear and no fatigue . . . My brother!”
A murmur powerful and gentle, a murmur
vast and faint; the murmur of trembling leaves,
of stirring boughs, ran through the tangled
depths of the forests, ran over the starry smooth-
ness of the lagoon, and the water between the
piles lapped the slimy timber once with a sud-
den splash. A breath of warm air touched the
two men’s faces and passed on with a mournful
sound—a breath loud and short like an uneasy
sigh of the dreaming earth.
Arsat went on in an even, low voice.
“We ran our canoe on the white beach of a
little bay close to a long tongue of land that
seemed to bar our road; a long wooded cape
going far into the sea. My brother knew that
place. Beyond the cape a river has its entrance,
and through the jungle of that land there is a
narrow path. We made a fire and cooked rice.
Then we lay down to sleep on the soft sand in
the shade of our canoe, while she watched. No
sooner had I closed my eyes than I heard her cry
of alarm. We leaped up. The sun was halfway
down the sky already, and coming in sight in the
opening of the bay we saw a prau12 manned by
many paddlers. We knew it at once; it was one
of our Rajah’s praus. They were watching the
12. A prau is a Malayan boat.
shore, and saw us. They beat the gong, and
turned the head of the prau into the bay. I felt
my heart become weak within my breast.
Diamelen sat on the sand and covered her face.
There was no escape by sea. My brother
laughed. He had the gun you had given him,
Tuan, before you went away, but there was only
a handful of powder. He spoke to me quickly:
‘Run with her along the path. I shall keep them
back, for they have no firearms, and landing in
the face of a man with a gun is certain death for
some. Run with her. On the other side of that
wood there is a fisherman’s house—and a
canoe. When I have fired all the shots I will fol-
low. I am a great runner, and before they can
come up we shall be gone. I will hold out as long
as I can, for she is but a woman—that can nei-
ther run nor fight, but she has your heart in her
weak hands.’ He dropped behind the canoe.
The prau was coming. She and I ran, and as we
rushed along the path I heard shots. My brother
fired—once—twice—and the booming of the
gong ceased. There was silence behind us. That
neck of land is narrow. Before I heard my
brother fire the third shot I saw the shelving
shore, and I saw the water again; the mouth of
a broad river. We crossed a grassy glade. We ran
down to the water. I saw a low hut above the
black mud, and a small canoe hauled up. I heard
another shot behind me. I thought, ‘That is his
last charge.’ We rushed down to the canoe; a
man came running from the hut, but I leaped on
him, and we rolled together in the mud. Then I
got up, and he lay still at my feet. I don’t know
whether I had killed him or not. I and Diamelen
pushed the canoe afloat. I heard yells behind
me, and I saw my brother run across the glade.
Many men were bounding after him. I took her
in my arms and threw her into the boat, then
leaped in myself. When I looked back I saw that
my brother had fallen. He fell and was up again,
but the men were closing round him. He
shouted, ‘I am coming!’ The men were close to
him. I looked. Many men. Then I looked at her.
Tuan, I pushed the canoe! I pushed it into deep
14
water. She was kneeling forward looking at me,
and I said, ‘Take your paddle,’ while I struck the
water with mine. Tuan, I heard him cry. I heard
him cry my name twice; and I heard voices
shouting, ‘Kill! Strike!’ I never turned back. I
heard him calling my name again with a great
shriek, as when life is going out together with
the voice—and I never turned my head. My
own name! . . . My brother! Three times he
called—but I was not afraid of life. Was she not
there in that canoe? And could I not with her
find a country where death is forgotten—where
death is unknown!”
The white man sat up. Arsat rose and stood,
an indistinct and silent figure above the dying
embers of the fire. Over the lagoon a mist drift-
ing and low had crept, erasing slowly the glit-
tering images of the stars. And now a great
expanse of white vapor covered the land: it
flowed cold and gray in the darkness, eddied in
noiseless whirls round the tree trunks and about
the platform of the house, which seemed to
float upon a restless and impalpable illusion of a
sea. Only far away the tops of the trees stood
outlined on the twinkle of heaven, like a
somber and forbidding shore—a coast decep-
tive, pitiless and black.
Arsat’s voice vibrated loudly in the profound
peace.
“I had her there! I had her! To get her I
would have faced all mankind. But I had her—
and—”
His words went out ringing into the empty
distances. He paused, and seemed to listen to
them dying away very far—beyond help and
beyond recall. Then he said quietly:
“Tuan, I loved my brother.”
A breath of wind made him shiver. High
above his head, high above the silent sea of mist
the drooping leaves of the palms rattled
together with a mournful and expiring sound.
The white man stretched his legs. His chin
rested on his chest, and he murmured sadly
without lifting his head:
“We all love our brothers.”

Arsat burst out with an intense whispering
violence:
“What did I care who died? I wanted peace
in my own heart.”
He seemed to hear a stir in the house—
listened—then stepped in noiselessly. The
white man stood up. A breeze was coming in fit-
ful puffs. The stars shone paler, as if they had
retreated into the frozen depths of immense
space. After a chill gust of wind there were a few
seconds of perfect calm and absolute silence.
Then from behind the black and wavy line of
the forests a column of golden light shot up into
the heavens and spread over the semicircle of
the eastern horizon. The sun had risen. The
mist lifted, broke into drifting patches, vanished
into thin flying wreaths; and the unveiled
lagoon lay, polished and black, in the heavy
shadows at the foot of the wall of trees. A white
eagle rose over it with a slanting and ponderous
flight, reached the clear sunshine and appeared
dazzlingly brilliant for a moment, then soaring
higher, became a dark and motionless speck
before it vanished into the blue as if it had left
the earth forever. The white man, standing gaz-
ing upwards before the doorway, heard in the
hut a confused and broken murmur of distracted
words ending with a loud groan. Suddenly Arsat
stumbled out with outstretched hands, shivered,
and stood still for some time with fixed eyes.
Then he said:
“She burns no more.”
Before his face the sun showed its edge above
the treetops rising steadily. The breeze fresh-
ened; a great brilliance burst upon the lagoon,
sparkled on the rippling water. The forests came
out of the clear shadows of the morning, became
distinct, as if they had rushed nearer—to stop
short in a great stir of leaves, of nodding boughs,
of swaying branches. In the merciless sunshine
the whisper of unconscious life grew louder,
speaking in an incomprehensible voice round

15
Joseph Conrad

the dumb darkness of that human sorrow.
Arsat’s eyes wandered slowly, then stared at the
rising sun.
“I can see nothing,” he said half aloud to
himself.
“There is nothing,” said the white man,
moving to the edge of the platform and waving
his hand to his boat. A shout came faintly over
the lagoon and the sampan began to glide
towards the abode of the friend of ghosts.
“If you want to come with me, I will wait
all the morning,” said the white man, looking
away upon the water.
“No, Tuan,” said Arsat, softly. “I shall not
eat or sleep in this house, but I must first see
my road. Now I can see nothing—see nothing!
There is no light and no peace in the world;
but there is death—death for many. We are
sons of the same mother—and I left him in the
midst of enemies; but I am going back now.”
He drew a long breath and went on in a
dreamy tone:
“In a little while I shall see clear enough to
strike—to strike. But she has died, and . . . now
. . . darkness.”
He flung his arms wide open, let them fall
along his body, then stood still with unmoved
face and stony eyes, staring at the sun. The
white man got down into his canoe. The pol-
ers ran smartly along the sides of the boat,
looking over their shoulders at the beginning
of a weary journey. High in the stern, his head
muffled up in white rags, the juragan sat
moody, letting his paddle trail in the water.
The white man, leaning with both arms over
the grass roof of the little cabin, looked back at
the shining ripple of the boat’s wake. Before
the sampan passed out of the lagoon into the
creek he lifted his eyes. Arsat had not moved.
He stood lonely in the searching sunshine; and
he looked beyond the great light of a cloudless
day into the darkness of a world of illusions.
 D. H. Lawrence 

here was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all
the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the
love turned to dust. She had bonny1 children, yet she felt they had been
thrust upon her, and she could not love them. They looked at her coldly, as
if they were finding fault with her. And hurriedly she felt she must cover up
some fault in herself. Yet what it was that she must cover up she never
knew. Nevertheless, when her children were present, she always felt the
centre of her heart go hard. This troubled her, and in her manner she
was all the more gentle and anxious for her children, as if she loved them
very much. Only she herself knew that at the centre of her heart was a
hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody. Everybody
else said of her: “She is such a good mother. She adores her children.”

1. Bonny means “good-looking; robust.”

16
Only she herself, and her children them-
selves, knew it was not so. They read it in
each other’s eyes.
There were a boy and two little girls. They
lived in a pleasant house, with a garden, and
they had discreet servants, and felt themselves
superior to anyone in the neighbourhood.
Although they lived in style, they felt
always an anxiety in the house. There was
never enough money. The mother had a small
income, and the father had a small income,
but not nearly enough for the social position
which they had to keep up. The father went
into town to some office. But though he had
good prospects, these prospects never materi-
alised. There was always the grinding sense of
the shortage of money, though the style was
always kept up.
At last the mother said: “I will see if I can’t
make something.” But she did not know where
to begin. She racked her brains, and tried this
thing and the other, but could not find any-
thing successful. The failure made deep lines
come into her face. Her children were growing
up, they would have to go to school. There
must be more money, there must be more
money. The father, who was always very hand-
some and expensive in his tastes, seemed as if
he never would be able to do anything worth
doing. And the mother, who had a great belief
in herself, did not succeed any better, and her
tastes were just as expensive.
17
And so the house came to be haunted by
the unspoken phrase: There must be more
money! There must be more money! The
children could hear it all the time, though
nobody said it aloud. They heard it at
Christmas, when the expensive and splendid
toys filled the nursery. Behind the shining
modern rocking-horse, behind the smart doll’s
house, a voice would start whispering: “There
must be more money! There must be more
money!” And the children would stop playing,
to listen for a moment. They would look into
each other’s eyes, to see if they had all heard.
And each one saw in the eyes of the other two
that they too had heard. “There must be more
money! There must be more money!”
It came whispering from the springs of the
still-swaying rocking-horse, and even the
horse, bending his wooden, champing head,
heard it. The big doll, sitting so pink and
smirking in her new pram,2 could hear it quite
plainly, and seemed to be smirking all the more
self-consciously because of it. The foolish
puppy, too, that took the place of the teddy
bear, he was looking so extraordinarily foolish
for no other reason but that he heard the secret
whisper all over the house: “There must be
more money!”
Yet nobody ever said it aloud. The whisper
was everywhere, and therefore no one spoke it.
2. A pram (short for perambulator) is a baby carriage.
Just as no one ever says: “We are breathing!” “Is luck money, mother?” he asked, rather
in spite of the fact that breath is coming and timidly.
going all the time. “No, Paul. Not quite. It’s what causes you
“Mother,” said the boy Paul one day, “why to have money.”
don’t we keep a car of our own? Why do we “Oh!” said Paul vaguely. “I thought when
always use uncle’s, or else a taxi?” Uncle Oscar said filthy lucker, it meant money.”
“Because we’re the poor members of the “Filthy lucre3 does mean money,” said the
family,” said the mother. mother. “But it’s lucre, not luck.”
“But why are we, mother?” “Oh!” said the boy. “Then what is luck,
“Well—I suppose,” she said slowly and mother?”
bitterly, “it’s because your father has no luck.” “It’s what causes you to have money. If
The boy was silent for some time. you’re lucky you have money. That’s why it’s
better to be born lucky than rich. If
you’re rich, you may lose your
money. But if you’re lucky, you will
always get more money.”
“Oh! Will you? And is father not
lucky?”
“Very unlucky, I should say,” she
said bitterly.
The boy watched her with
unsure eyes.
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Nobody ever
knows why one person is lucky and
another unlucky.”
“Don’t they? Nobody at all?
Does nobody know?”
“Perhaps God. But He never
tells.”
“He ought to, then. And aren’t
you lucky either, mother?”
“I can’t be, if I married an unlucky
husband.”
“But by yourself, aren’t you?”
“I used to think I was, before I
married. Now I think I am very
unlucky indeed.”
“Why?”
“Well—never mind! Perhaps I’m
not really,” she said.
Young Boy in White Reading Book, 1918. Martha Walter. Oil on canvas, 21 x 26 in.
David David Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. 3. Lucre (l¯¯¯
oo
kər) is Latin for “profit.” Here, it
Viewing the painting: How is this boy similar to your mental image of refers to money, especially that gained
Paul? How is he different? Explain. through greed or dishonesty.

18

The child looked at her to see if she meant
it. But he saw, by the lines of her mouth,
that she was only trying to hide something
from him.
“Well, anyhow,” he said stoutly, “I’m a
lucky person.”
“Why?” said his mother, with a sudden
laugh.
He stared at her. He didn’t even know why
he had said it.
“God told me,” he asserted, brazening4
it out.
“I hope He did, dear!” she said, again with
a laugh, but rather bitter.
“He did, mother!”
“Excellent!” said the mother, using one of
her husband’s exclamations.
The boy saw she did not believe him; or
rather, that she paid no attention to his asser-
tion. This angered him somewhere, and made
him want to compel her attention.
He went off by himself, vaguely, in a childish
way, seeking for the clue to “luck.” Absorbed,
taking no heed of other people, he went about
with a sort of stealth, seeking inwardly for
luck. He wanted luck, he wanted it, he wanted
it. When the two girls were playing dolls in the
nursery, he would sit on his big rocking-horse,
charging madly into space, with a frenzy that
made the little girls peer at him uneasily.
Wildly the horse careered,5 the waving dark
hair of the boy tossed, his eyes had a strange
glare in them. The little girls dared not speak
to him.
When he had ridden to the end of his mad
little journey, he climbed down and stood in
front of his rocking-horse, staring fixedly into its
lowered face. Its red mouth was slightly open, its
big eye was wide and glassy-bright.
4. Here, brazening means “stating confidently.”
5. Careered means “rushed forward.”
Vocabulary
stealth (stelth) n. secretive action or behavior
19
D. H. Lawrence

“Now!” he would silently command the
snorting steed. “Now, take me to where there is
luck! Now take me!”
And he would slash the horse on the neck
with the little whip he had asked Uncle Oscar
for. He knew the horse could take him to where
there was luck, if only he forced it. So he
would mount again and start on his furious
ride, hoping at last to get there. He knew he
could get there.
“You’ll break your horse, Paul!” said the
nurse.
“He’s always riding like that! I wish he’d
leave off!” said his elder sister Joan.
But he only glared down on them in silence.
Nurse gave him up. She could make nothing of
him. Anyhow, he was growing beyond her.
One day his mother and his Uncle Oscar
came in when he was on one of his furious rides.
He did not speak to them.
“Hallo, you young jockey! Riding a win-
ner?” said his uncle.
“Aren’t you growing too big for a rocking-
horse? You’re not a very little boy any longer, you
know,” said his mother.
But Paul only gave a blue glare from his big,
rather close-set eyes. He would speak to nobody
when he was in full tilt. His mother watched
him with an anxious expression on her face.
At last he suddenly stopped forcing his horse
into the mechanical gallop and slid down.
“Well, I got there!” he announced fiercely,
his blue eyes still flaring, and his sturdy long legs
straddling apart.
“Where did you get to?” asked his mother.
“Where I wanted to go,” he flared back
at her.
“That’s right, son!” said Uncle Oscar. “Don’t
you stop till you get there. What’s the horse’s
name?”
“He doesn’t have a name,” said the boy.
“Gets on without all right?” asked the uncle.
 “Well, he has different names. He was “Not a bit of it! I thought perhaps you might
called Sansovino last week.” give me a tip for the Lincoln.”
“Sansovino, eh? Won the Ascot. How did The car sped on into the country, going
you know this name?” down to Uncle Oscar’s place in Hampshire.
“He always talks about horse-races with “Honour bright?”8 said the nephew.
Bassett,” said Joan. “Honour bright, son!” said the uncle.
The uncle was delighted to find that his “Well, then, Daffodil.”
small nephew was posted with all the racing “Daffodil! I doubt it, sonny. What about
news. Bassett, the young gardener, who had Mirza?”
been wounded in the left foot in the war and “I only know the winner,” said the boy.
had got his present job through Oscar “That’s Daffodil.”
Cresswell, whose batman6 he had been, was a “Daffodil, eh?”
perfect blade of the “turf.”7 He lived in the rac- There was a pause. Daffodil was an
ing events, and the small boy lived with him. obscure horse comparatively.
Oscar Cresswell got it all from Bassett. “Uncle!”
“Master Paul comes and asks me, so I can’t “Yes, son?”
do more than tell him, sir,” said Bassett, his face “You won’t let it go any further, will you? I
terribly serious, as if he were speaking of religious promised Bassett.”
matters. “Bassett be damned, old man! What’s he got
“And does he ever put any- to do with it?”
thing on a horse he fancies?” “We’re partners. We’ve
“Well—I don’t want to been partners from the first.
give him away—he’s a young Uncle, he lent me my first five
sport, a fine sport, sir. Would shillings,9 which I lost. I
you mind asking him himself? promised him, honour bright,
He sort of takes a pleasure in it was only between me and
it, and perhaps he’d feel I was him; only you gave me that
giving him away, sir, if you ten-shilling note I started win-
don’t mind.” ning with, so I thought you
Bassett was serious as a were lucky. You won’t let it go
church. any further, will you?”
The uncle went back to his The boy gazed at his uncle
nephew and took him off for a from those big, hot, blue eyes,
ride in the car. set rather close together. The uncle stirred
“Say, Paul, old man, do you ever put any- and laughed uneasily.
thing on a horse?” the uncle asked. “Right you are, son! I’ll keep your tip pri-
The boy watched the handsome man closely. vate. Daffodil, eh? How much are you putting
“Why, do you think I oughtn’t to?” he on him?”
parried.
8. Honour bright is an expression used to declare that one is
6. A batman is a British army orderly, or personal attendant. speaking the truth (as in “on your honour”).
7. A blade of the “turf” is a horse-racing fan. 9. Shillings were British coins worth one twentieth of a pound.

Vocabulary
parry (par
ē) v. to respond, as to a question or argument, by warding off or diverting

20

“All except twenty pounds,”10 said the boy. “I
keep that in reserve.”
The uncle thought it a good joke.
“You keep twenty pounds in reserve, do
you, you young romancer? What are you bet-
ting, then?”
“I’m betting three hundred,” said the boy
gravely. “But it’s between you and me, Uncle
Oscar! Honour bright?”
The uncle burst into a roar of laughter.
“It’s between you and me all right, you young
Nat Gould,”11 he said, laughing. “But where’s
your three hundred?”
“Bassett keeps it for me. We’re partners.”
“You are, are you! And what is Bassett
putting on Daffodil?”
“He won’t go quite as high as I do, I expect.
Perhaps he’ll go a hundred and fifty.”
“What, pennies?” laughed the uncle.
“Pounds,” said the child, with a surprised
look at his uncle. “Bassett keeps a bigger reserve
than I do.”
Between wonder and amusement Uncle
Oscar was silent. He pursued the matter no fur-
ther, but he determined to take his nephew with
him to the Lincoln races.
“Now, son,” he said, “I’m putting twenty on
Mirza, and I’ll put five on for you on any horse
you fancy. What’s your pick?”
“Daffodil, uncle.”
“No, not the fiver on Daffodil!”
“I should if it was my own fiver,” said
the child.
“Good! Good! Right you are! A fiver for me
and a fiver for you on Daffodil.”
The child had never been to a race-meeting
before, and his eyes were blue fire. He pursed
his mouth tight and watched. A Frenchman
just in front had put his money on Lancelot.
Wild with excitement, he flayed his arms up
10. Pounds are currency used in Britain. Twenty pounds in the
mid-1920s would be worth about $1,000 today.
11. Nat Gould was a sporting journalist who often wrote about
horse racing.
21
D. H. Lawrence

and down, yelling “Lancelot! Lancelot!” in his
French accent.
Daffodil came in first, Lancelot second,
Mirza third. The child, flushed and with
eyes blazing, was curiously serene. His uncle
brought him four five-pound notes, four
to one.
“What am I to do with these?” he cried, wav-
ing them before the boy’s eyes.
“I suppose we’ll talk to Bassett,” said the boy.
“I expect I have fifteen hundred now; and
twenty in reserve; and this twenty.”
His uncle studied him for some moments.
“Look here, son!” he said. “You’re not
serious about Bassett and that fifteen hundred,
are you?”
“Yes, I am. But it’s between you and me,
uncle. Honour bright?”
“Honour bright all right, son! But I must talk
to Bassett.”
“If you’d like to be a partner, uncle, with
Bassett and me, we could all be partners.
Only, you’d have to promise, honour bright,
uncle, not to let it go beyond us three. Bassett
and I are lucky, and you must be lucky,
because it was your ten shillings I started win-
ning with. . . .”
Uncle Oscar took both Bassett and Paul into
Richmond Park for an afternoon, and there they
talked.
“It’s like this, you see, sir,” Bassett said.
“Master Paul would get me talking about rac-
ing events, spinning yarns, you know, sir. And
he was always keen on knowing if I’d made or
if I’d lost. It’s about a year since, now, that I
put five shillings on Blush of Dawn for him:
and we lost. Then the luck turned, with that
ten shillings he had from you: that we put on
Singhalese. And since that time, it’s been
pretty steady, all things considering. What do
you say, Master Paul?”
“We’re all right when we’re sure,” said
Paul. “It’s when we’re not quite sure that we
go down.”
“Oh, but we’re careful then,” said Bassett.
 “But when are you sure?” smiled Uncle
Oscar.
“It’s Master Paul, sir,” said Bassett in a secret,
religious voice. “It’s as if he had it from heaven.
Like Daffodil, now, for the Lincoln. That was as
sure as eggs.”
“Did you put anything on Daffodil?” asked
Oscar Cresswell.
“Yes, sir. I made my bit.”
“And my nephew?”
Bassett was obstinately silent, looking at
Paul.
“I made twelve hundred, didn’t I, Bassett? I
told uncle I was putting three hundred on
Daffodil.”
“That’s right,” said Bassett, nodding.
“But where’s the money?” asked the uncle.
“I keep it safe locked up, sir. Master Paul he
can have it any minute he likes to ask
for it.”
“What, fifteen hundred pounds?”
“And twenty! And forty, that is, with the
twenty he made on the course.”
“It’s amazing!” said the uncle.
“If Master Paul offers you to be partners, sir,
I would, if I were you: if you’ll excuse me,” said
Bassett.
Oscar Cresswell thought about it.
“I’ll see the money,” he said.
They drove home again, and, sure enough,
Bassett came round to the garden-house with
fifteen hundred pounds in notes. The twenty
pounds reserve was left with Joe Glee, in the
Turf Commission deposit.
“You see, it’s all right, uncle, when I’m sure!
Then we go strong, for all we’re worth. Don’t we,
Bassett?”
“We do that, Master Paul.”
“And when are you sure?” said the uncle,
laughing.
Vocabulary
obstinately (ob
stə nit lē) adv. in a manner not yielding to argument, persuasion, or reason;
inflexibly
reiterate (rē it
ə rāt) v. to say or do again; to repeat
22
“Oh, well, sometimes I’m absolutely sure,
like about Daffodil,” said the boy; “and some-
times I have an idea; and sometimes I haven’t
even an idea, have I, Bassett? Then we’re care-
ful, because we mostly go down.”
“You do, do you! And when you’re sure,
like about Daffodil, what makes you sure,
sonny?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know,” said the boy
uneasily. “I’m sure, you know, uncle; that’s all.”
“It’s as if he had it from heaven, sir,” Bassett
reiterated.
“I should say so!” said the uncle.
But he became a partner. And when the
Leger was coming on Paul was “sure” about
Lively Spark, which was a quite inconsiderable
horse. The boy insisted on putting a thousand
on the horse, Bassett went for five hundred,
and Oscar Cresswell two hundred. Lively
Spark came in first, and the betting had been
ten to one against him. Paul had made ten
thousand.
“You see,” he said, “I was absolutely sure
of him.”
Even Oscar Cresswell had cleared two
thousand.
“Look here, son,” he said, “this sort of thing
makes me nervous.”
“It needn’t, uncle! Perhaps I shan’t be sure
again for a long time.”
“But what are you going to do with your
money?” asked the uncle.
“Of course,” said the boy, “I started it for
mother. She said she had no luck, because
father is unlucky, so I thought if I was lucky, it
might stop whispering.”
“What might stop whispering?”
“Our house. I hate our house for
whispering.”
“What does it whisper?”
5 O’Clock Cowboy. P. J. Crook (b. 1945). Acrylic on wood, 43 x 53 cm. Private collection.
Viewing the art: How would you describe the mood of this work? How does it compare with
the mood of the story?

“Why—why”—the boy fidgeted—“why, I The boy watched him with big blue eyes,
don’t know. But it’s always short of money, you that had an uncanny cold fire in them, and he
know, uncle.” said never a word.
“I know it, son, I know it.” “Well, then!” said the uncle. “What are we
“You know people send mother writs,12 don’t doing?”
you, uncle?” “I shouldn’t like mother to know I was lucky,”
“I’m afraid I do,” said the uncle. said the boy.
“And then the house whispers, like people “Why not, son?”
laughing at you behind your back. It’s awful, that “She’d stop me.”
is! I thought if I was lucky——” “I don’t think she would.”
“You might stop it,” added the uncle. “Oh!”—and the boy writhed in an odd
way—“I don’t want her to know, uncle.”
12. Here, writs are legal notices demanding payment for out- “All right, son! We’ll manage it without her
standing bills. knowing.”
23
 They managed it very easily. Paul, at the
other’s suggestion, handed over five thousand
pounds to his uncle, who deposited it with the
family lawyer, who was then to inform Paul’s
mother that a relative had put five thousand
pounds into his hands, which sum was to be paid
out a thousand pounds at a time, on the mother’s
birthday, for the next five years.
“So she’ll have a birthday present of a thou-
sand pounds for five successive years,” said
Uncle Oscar. “I hope it won’t make it all the
harder for her later.”
Paul’s mother had her birthday in November.
The house had been “whispering” worse than
ever lately, and, even in spite of his luck, Paul
could not bear up against it. He was very anxious
to see the effect of the birthday letter, telling his
mother about the thousand pounds.
When there were no visitors, Paul now took
his meals with his parents, as he was beyond the
nursery control. His mother went into town
nearly every day. She had discovered that she
had an odd knack of sketching furs and dress
materials, so she worked secretly in the studio of
a friend who was the chief “artist” for the lead-
ing drapers.13 She drew the figures of ladies in
furs and ladies in silk and sequins for the news-
paper advertisements. This young woman artist
earned several thousand pounds a year, but
Paul’s mother only made several hundreds, and
she was again dissatisfied. She so wanted to be
first in something, and she did not succeed, even
in making sketches for drapery advertisements.
She was down to breakfast on the morning
of her birthday. Paul watched her face as she
read her letters. He knew the lawyer’s letter.
As his mother read it, her face hardened and
became more expressionless. Then a cold,
determined look came on her mouth. She hid
the letter under a pile of others, and said not a
word about it.
“Didn’t you have anything nice in the post
for your birthday, mother?” said Paul.
13. Drapers are dealers in cloth and other dry goods.
24
“Quite moderately nice,” she said, her voice
cold and absent.
She went away to town without saying more.
But in the afternoon Uncle Oscar appeared.
He said Paul’s mother had had a long interview
with the lawyer, asking if the whole five thou-
sand could not be advanced at once, as she was
in debt.
“What do you think, uncle?” said the boy.
“I leave it to you, son.”
“Oh, let her have it, then! We can get some
more with the other,” said the boy.
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,
laddie!” said Uncle Oscar.
“But I’m sure to know for the Grand
National; or the Lincolnshire; or else the Derby.
I’m sure to know for one of them,” said Paul.
So Uncle Oscar signed the agreement, and
Paul’s mother touched the whole five thou-
sand. Then something very curious happened.
The voices in the house suddenly went mad,
like a chorus of frogs on a spring evening.
There were certain new furnishings, and Paul
had a tutor. He was really going to Eton,14 his
father’s school, in the following autumn. There
were flowers in the winter, and a blossoming of
the luxury Paul’s mother had been used to.
And yet the voices in the house, behind the
sprays of mimosa and almond-blossom, and
from under the piles of iridescent cushions,
simply trilled and screamed in a sort of ecstasy:
“There must be more money! Oh-h-h; there
must be more money. Oh, now, now-w! Now-
w-w—there must be more money!—more than
ever! More than ever!”
It frightened Paul terribly. He studied away
at his Latin and Greek with his tutor. But his
intense hours were spent with Bassett. The
Grand National had gone by: he had not
“known,” and had lost a hundred pounds.
Summer was at hand. He was in agony for the
Lincoln. But even for the Lincoln he didn’t
“know,” and he lost fifty pounds. He became
14. Eton is a prestigious private school in England.
 D. H. Lawrence

wild-eyed and strange, as if something were “Yes,” he said, gazing at her.
going to explode in him. “Why, you curious child, what makes you
“Let it alone, son! Don’t you bother about care about this house so much, suddenly? I
it!” urged Uncle Oscar. But it was as if the boy never knew you loved it.”
couldn’t really hear what his uncle was He gazed at her without speaking. He had a
saying. secret within a secret, something he had not
“I’ve got to know for the Derby! I’ve got divulged, even to Bassett or to his Uncle Oscar.
to know for the Derby!” the child reiterated, But his mother, after standing undecided
his big blue eyes blazing with a sort of madness. and a little bit sullen for some moments, said:
His mother noticed how overwrought “Very well, then! Don’t go to the seaside
he was. till after the Derby, if you
“You’d better go to the sea- don’t wish it. But promise me
side. Wouldn’t you like to go you won’t let your nerves go
now to the seaside, instead of to pieces. Promise you won’t
waiting? I think you’d better,” think so much about horse-
she said, looking down at him racing and events, as you call
anxiously, her heart curiously them!”
heavy because of him. “Oh no,” said the boy casu-
But the child lifted his ally. “I won’t think much about
uncanny blue eyes. them, mother. You needn’t
“I couldn’t possibly go worry. I wouldn’t worry, mother,
before the Derby, mother!” he if I were you.”
said. “I couldn’t possibly!” “If you were me and I were
“Why not?” she said, her you,” said his mother, “I won-
voice becoming heavy when she was opposed. der what we should do!”
“Why not? You can still go from the seaside to “But you know you needn’t worry, mother,
see the Derby with your Uncle Oscar, if that’s don’t you?” the boy repeated.
what you wish. No need for you to wait here. “I should be awfully glad to know it,” she
Besides, I think you care too much about these said wearily.
races. It’s a bad sign. My family has been a “Oh, well, you can, you know. I mean, you
gambling family, and you won’t know till you ought to know you needn’t worry,” he insisted.
grow up how much damage it has done. But it “Ought I? Then I’ll see about it,” she said.
has done damage. I shall have to send Bassett Paul’s secret of secrets was his wooden
away, and ask Uncle Oscar not to talk racing horse, that which had no name. Since he was
to you, unless you promise to be reasonable emancipated from a nurse and a nursery-
about it: go away to the seaside and forget it. governess, he had had his rocking-horse
You’re all nerves!” removed to his own bedroom at the top of
“I’ll do what you like, mother, so long as the house.
you don’t send me away till after the Derby,” “Surely you’re too big for a rocking-horse!”
the boy said. his mother had remonstrated.15
“Send you away from where? Just from this
house?” 15. Remonstrated means “objected.”

Vocabulary
emancipate (i man
sə pāt´) v. to free; to liberate

25
 “Well, you see, mother, till I can have a real
horse, I like to have some sort of animal
about,” had been his quaint answer.
“Do you feel he keeps you company?” she
laughed.
“Oh yes! He’s very good, he always keeps
me company, when I’m there,” said Paul.
So the horse, rather shabby, stood in an
arrested prance in the boy’s bedroom.
The Derby was drawing near, and the boy
grew more and more tense. He hardly heard
what was spoken to him, he was very frail, and
his eyes were really uncanny. His mother had
sudden strange seizures of uneasiness about
him. Sometimes, for half an hour, she would
feel a sudden anxiety about him that was
almost anguish. She wanted to rush to him at
once, and know he was safe.
Two nights before the Derby, she was at a
big party in town, when one of her rushes of
anxiety about her boy, her first-born, gripped
her heart till she could hardly speak. She
fought with the feeling, might and main, for
she believed in common sense. But it was too
strong. She had to leave the dance and go down-
stairs to telephone to the country. The children’s
nursery-governess was terribly surprised and star-
tled at being rung up in the night.
“Are the children all right, Miss Wilmot?”
“Oh yes, they are quite all right.”
“Master Paul? Is he all right?”
“He went to bed as right as a trivet. Shall I
run up and look at him?”
“No,” said Paul’s mother reluctantly. “No!
Don’t trouble. It’s all right. Don’t sit up. We
shall be home fairly soon.” She did not want
her son’s privacy intruded upon.
“Very good,” said the governess.
It was about one o’clock when Paul’s
mother and father drove up to their house.
All was still. Paul’s mother went to her room
and slipped off her white fur cloak. She had
told her maid not to wait up for her. She
heard her husband downstairs, mixing a
whisky and soda.
26
And then, because of the strange anxiety
at her heart, she stole upstairs to her son’s
room. Noiselessly she went along the upper
corridor. Was there a faint noise? What
was it?
She stood, with arrested muscles, outside
his door, listening. There was a strange, heavy,
and yet not loud noise. Her heart stood still. It
was a soundless noise, yet rushing and power-
ful. Something huge, in violent, hushed
motion. What was it? What in God’s name
was it? She ought to know. She felt that she
knew the noise. She knew what it was.
Yet she could not place it. She couldn’t say
what it was. And on and on it went, like a
madness.
Softly, frozen with anxiety and fear, she
turned the door handle.
The room was dark. Yet in the space near
the window, she heard and saw something
plunging to and fro. She gazed in fear and
amazement.
Then suddenly she switched on the light,
and saw her son, in his green pyjamas, madly
surging on the rocking-horse. The blaze of
light suddenly lit him up, as he urged the
wooden horse, and lit her up, as she stood,
blonde, in her dress of pale green and crystal,
in the doorway.
“Paul!” she cried. “Whatever are you
doing?”
“It’s Malabar!” he screamed in a powerful,
strange voice. “It’s Malabar!”
His eyes blazed at her for one strange and
senseless second, as he ceased urging his
wooden horse. Then he fell with a crash to
the ground, and she, all her tormented moth-
erhood flooding upon her, rushed to gather
him up.
But he was unconscious, and unconscious
he remained, with some brain-fever. He talked
and tossed, and his mother sat stonily by his
side.
“Malabar! It’s Malabar! Bassett, Bassett, I
know! It’s Malabar!”

So the child cried, trying to get up and
urge the rocking-horse that gave him his
inspiration.
“What does he mean by Malabar?” asked
the heart-frozen mother.
“I don’t know,” said the father stonily.
“What does he mean by Malabar?” she
asked her brother Oscar.
“It’s one of the horses running for the
Derby,” was the answer.
And, in spite of himself, Oscar Cresswell
spoke to Bassett, and himself put a thousand
on Malabar: at fourteen to one.
The third day of the illness was critical:
they were waiting for a change. The boy, with
his rather long, curly hair, was tossing cease-
lessly on the pillow. He neither slept nor
regained consciousness, and his eyes were like
blue stones. His mother sat, feeling her heart
had gone, turned actually into a stone.
In the evening, Oscar Cresswell did not
come, but Bassett sent a message, saying
could he come up for one moment, just one
moment? Paul’s mother was very angry at the
intrusion, but on second thoughts she agreed.
The boy was the same. Perhaps Bassett might
bring him to consciousness.
The gardener, a shortish fellow with a lit-
tle brown moustache and sharp little brown
eyes, tiptoed into the room, touched his
imaginary cap to Paul’s mother, and stole to
the bedside, staring with glittering, smallish
eyes at the tossing, dying child.
“Master Paul!” he whispered. “Master Paul!
Malabar came in first all right, a clean win. I
did as you told me. You’ve made over seventy
27
D. H. Lawrence 
thousand pounds, you have; you’ve got over
eighty thousand. Malabar came in all right,
Master Paul.”
“Malabar! Malabar! Did I say Malabar,
mother? Did I say Malabar? Do you think I’m
lucky, mother? I knew Malabar, didn’t I? Over
eighty thousand pounds! I call that lucky, don’t
you, mother? Over eighty thousand pounds! I
knew, didn’t I know I knew? Malabar came in all
right. If I ride my horse till I’m sure, then I tell
you, Bassett, you can go as high as you like. Did
you go for all you were worth, Bassett?”
“I went a thousand on it, Master Paul.”
“I never told you, mother, that if I can
ride my horse, and get there, then
I’m absolutely sure—oh,
absolutely! Mother, did I
ever tell you? I am lucky!”
“No, you never did,”
said his mother.
But the boy died in
the night.
And even as he lay
dead, his mother heard
her brother’s voice saying
to her: “My God, Hester, you’re
eighty-odd thousand to the good,
and a poor devil of a son to the bad.
But, poor devil, poor devil, he’s best
gone out of a life where he rides his
rocking-horse to find a winner.”
 James Joyce 

A Glasgow Close. Joan Eardley (1921–1963). Oil on canvas, 24 x 20 in. Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow,
Scotland.

28
 orth Richmond Street, being blind,1
was a quiet street except at the hour
when the Christian Brothers’
School set the boys free. An uninhabited
house of two stories stood at the blind end,
detached from its neighbors in a square
ground. The other houses of the street, con-
scious of decent lives within them, gazed at
one another with brown imperturbable faces.
The former tenant of our house, a priest, had
died in the back drawing room. Air, musty
from having been long enclosed, hung in all
the rooms, and the waste room behind the
kitchen was littered with old useless papers.
Among these I found a few paper-covered
books, the pages of which were curled and
damp: The Abbot, by Walter Scott, The
Devout Communicant and The Memoirs of
Vidocq.2 I liked the last best because its leaves
were yellow. The wild garden behind the
house contained a central apple tree and a
few straggling bushes under one of which I
found the late tenant’s rusty bicycle pump.
He had been a very charitable priest; in his
will he had left all his money to institutions
and the furniture of his house to his sister.
When the short days of winter came dusk
fell before we had well eaten our dinners.
When we met in the street the houses had
grown somber. The space of sky above us
was the color of ever-changing violet and
towards it the lamps of the street lifted their
feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we
played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts
echoed in the silent street. The career of our
play brought us through the dark muddy
lanes behind the houses where we ran the
1. Here, blind means “dead-end.”
2. The Abbot is a historical novel; The Devout Communicant is a
religious manual; The Memoirs of Vidocq is the story of a
French soldier.
Vocabulary
imperturbable (im´per tur
bə bəl) adj. not easily excited or disturbed; calm
diverge (di vurj
) v. to move in different directions from a common point; to branch out
29
gantlet 3 of the rough tribes from the cottages,
to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens
where odors arose from the ashpits, to the dark
odorous stables where a coachman smoothed
and combed the horse or shook music from the
buckled harness. When we returned to the
street, light from the kitchen windows had filled
the areas. If my uncle was seen turning the cor-
ner we hid in the shadow until we had seen him
safely housed. Or if Mangan’s sister came out on
the doorstep to call her brother in to his tea we
watched her from our shadow peer up and down
the street. We waited to see whether she would
remain or go in and, if she remained, we left our
shadow and walked up to Mangan’s steps
resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure
defined by the light from the half-opened door.
Her brother always teased her before he obeyed
and I stood by the railings looking at her. Her
dress swung as she moved her body and the soft
rope of her hair tossed from side to side.
Every morning I lay on the floor in the front
parlor watching her door. The blind was pulled
down to within an inch of the sash so that I
could not be seen. When she came out on the
doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, seized
my books and followed her. I kept her brown fig-
ure always in my eye and, when we came near
the point at which our ways diverged, I quick-
ened my pace and passed her. This happened
morning after morning. I had never spoken to
her, except for a few casual words, and yet her
name was like a summons to all my foolish
blood.
Her image accompanied me even in places
the most hostile to romance. On Saturday
evenings when my aunt went marketing I had
3. Gantlet [or gauntlet] refers to an outdated punishment in
which the offender was made to run between two rows of
men who struck at him with switches or weapons as he
passed. Here, it means a series of challenges.
to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked
through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken
men and bargaining women, amid the curses
of laborers, the shrill litanies4 of shopboys
who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs’
cheeks, the nasal chanting of street singers,
who sang a come-you-all about O’Donovan
Rossa,5 or a ballad about the troubles in our
native land. These noises converged in a sin-
gle sensation of life for me: I imagined that I
bore my chalice safely through a throng of
foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments
in strange prayers and praises which I myself
did not understand. My eyes were often full of
tears (I could not tell why) and at times a
flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out
into my bosom. I thought little of the future.
I did not know whether I would ever speak to
her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell
her of my confused adoration. But my body
was like a harp and her words and gestures
were like fingers running upon the wires.
One evening I went into the back drawing
room in which the priest had died. It was a
dark rainy evening and there was no sound in
the house. Through one of the broken panes
I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the
fine incessant needles of water playing in the
sodden beds. Some distant lamp or lighted
window gleamed below me. I was thankful
that I could see so little. All my senses
seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feel-
ing that I was about to slip from them, I
pressed the palms of my hands together until
they trembled, murmuring: O love! O love!
many times.
4. As it is used here, litany is a repetitive announcement to
attract customers.
5. A come-you-all is a ballad; O’Donovan Rossa was a
nineteenth-century Irish nationalist.
Vocabulary
converge (kən vurj
) v. to come together in a common interest or conclusion; to center
impinge (im pinj
) v. to strike or dash; to collide
annihilate (ə n¯
ə lāt) v. to reduce to nothing; to obliterate
30
At last she spoke to me. When she
addressed the first words to me I was so
confused that I did not know what to answer.
She asked me was I going to Araby.6 I forget
whether I answered yes or no. It would be a
splendid bazaar, she said; she would love
to go.
—And why can’t you? I asked.
While she spoke she turned a silver
bracelet round and round her wrist. She could
not go, she said, because there would be a
retreat7 that week in her convent.8 Her
brother and two other boys were fighting for
their caps and I was alone at the railings. She
held one of the spikes, bowing her head
towards me. The light from the lamp opposite
our door caught the white curve of her neck,
lit up her hair that rested there and, falling,
lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over
one side of her dress and caught the white
border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood
at ease.
—It’s well for you, she said.
—If I go, I said, I will bring you something.
What innumerable follies laid waste my
waking and sleeping thoughts after that
evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious
intervening days. I chafed against the work of
school. At night in my bedroom and by day in
the classroom her image came between me
and the page I strove to read. The syllables of
the word Araby were called to me through the
silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast
an Eastern enchantment over me. I asked for
leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night.
My aunt was surprised and hoped it was not
6. Araby was a bazaar held in 1894 in Dublin.
7. A retreat is a time of group withdrawal for prayer and
meditation.
8. Here, a convent is a school run by an order of Catholic nuns.

some Freemason9 affair. I answered few ques-
tions in class. I watched my master’s face pass
from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was
not beginning to idle. I could not call my
wandering thoughts together. I had hardly
any patience with the serious work of life
which, now that it stood between me and my
desire, seemed to me child’s play, ugly monot-
onous child’s play.
On Saturday morning I reminded my
uncle that I wished to go to the bazaar in the
evening. He was fussing at the hall stand,
looking for the hat brush, and answered me
curtly:
—Yes, boy, I know.
As he was in the hall I could not go into
the front parlor and lie at the window. I left
the house in bad humor and walked slowly
towards the school. The air was pitilessly raw
and already my heart misgave me.
When I came home to dinner my uncle
had not yet been home. Still it was early. I sat
staring at the clock for some time and, when
its ticking began to irritate me, I left the
room. I mounted the staircase and gained the
upper part of the house. The high cold empty
gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from
room to room singing. From the front window
I saw my companions playing below in the
street. Their cries reached me weakened and
indistinct and, leaning my forehead against
the cool glass, I looked over at the dark house
where she lived. I may have stood there for an
hour, seeing nothing but the brown-clad
figure cast by my imagination, touched dis-
creetly by the lamplight at the curved neck,
at the hand upon the railings and at the
border below the dress.
9. The Freemasons are part of a secret fraternity who were
known to be anti-Catholic.
Vocabulary
amiability (ā´ mē ə bil
ə tē) n. kindliness, friendliness
garrulous (ar
ə ləs) adj. given to too much talking, especially about unimportant matters
31
James Joyce 
When I came downstairs again I found
Mrs. Mercer sitting at the fire. She was an old
garrulous woman, a pawnbroker’s widow, who
collected used stamps for some pious purpose.
I had to endure the gossip of the tea table.
The meal was prolonged beyond an hour and
still my uncle did not come. Mrs. Mercer
stood up to go: she was sorry she couldn’t wait
any longer, but it was after eight o’clock and
she did not like to be out late, as the night air
was bad for her. When she had gone I began
to walk up and down the room, clenching my
fists. My aunt said:
—I’m afraid you may put off your bazaar
for this night of Our Lord.
At nine o’clock I heard my uncle’s
latchkey in the hall door. I heard him talking
to himself and heard the hall stand rocking
when it had received the weight of his over-
coat. I could interpret these signs. When he
was midway through his dinner I asked him to
give me the money to go to the bazaar. He
had forgotten.
—The people are in bed and after their
first sleep now, he said.
I did not smile. My aunt said to him
energetically:
—Can’t you give him the money and
let him go? You’ve kept him late enough
as it is.
My uncle said he was very sorry he had
forgotten. He said he believed in the old
saying: All work and no play makes Jack a dull
boy. He asked me where I was going and,
when I had told him a second time he asked
me did I know The Arab’s Farewell to His
Steed.10 When I left the kitchen he was about
to recite the opening lines of the piece to
my aunt.
10. [The . . . Steed] is a sentimental poem by Caroline Norton.
La Gare, 1991. P. J. Crook. Acrylic on canvas and wood, 116.8 x 91.4 cm. Private collection.
Viewing the art: How would you describe the atmosphere of this work? What scene does it remind you
of in the story? Why?

32

I held a florin11 tightly in my hand as I
strode down Buckingham Street towards the
station. The sight of the streets thronged with
buyers and glaring with gas recalled to me the
purpose of my journey. I took my seat in a
third-class carriage of a deserted train. After
an intolerable delay the train moved out of
the station slowly. It crept onward among
ruinous houses and over the twinkling river.
At Westland Row Station a crowd of people
pressed to the carriage doors; but the porters
moved them back, saying that it was a special
train for the bazaar. I remained alone in the
bare carriage. In a few minutes the train drew
up beside an improvised wooden platform. I
passed out on to the road and saw by the
lighted dial of a clock that it was ten minutes
to ten. In front of me was a large building
which displayed the magical name.
I could not find any sixpenny entrance
and, fearing that the bazaar would be closed,
I passed in quickly through a turnstile, hand-
ing a shilling to a weary-looking man. I found
myself in a big hall girdled at half its height
by a gallery. Nearly all the stalls were closed
and the greater part of the hall was in dark-
ness. I recognized a silence like that which
pervades a church after a service. I walked
into the center of the bazaar timidly. A few
people were gathered about the stalls which
were still open. Before a curtain, over which
the words Café Chantant12 were written in col-
ored lamps, two men were counting money
on a salver.13 I listened to the fall of the coins.
11. A florin was a coin worth two shillings, which, at the time,
equaled about fifty cents.
12. Café Chantant was a popular cafe that provided musical
entertainment.
13. A salver is a tray commonly used to serve food and drinks.
33
James Joyce 
Remembering with difficulty why I had
come I went over to one of the stalls and
examined porcelain vases and flowered tea
sets. At the door of the stall a young lady was
talking and laughing with two young gentle-
men. I remarked their English accents and lis-
tened vaguely to their conversation.
—O, I never said such a thing!
—O, but you did!
—O, but I didn’t!
—Didn’t she say that?
—Yes. I heard her.
—O, there’s a . . . fib!
Observing me the young lady came
over and asked me did I wish to buy anything.
The tone of her voice was not encouraging;
she seemed to have spoken to me out of a
sense of duty. I looked humbly at the great
jars that stood like eastern guards at either
side of the dark entrance to the stall and
murmured:
—No, thank you.
The young lady changed the position of
one of the vases and went back to the two
young men. They began to talk of the same
subject. Once or twice the young lady glanced
at me over her shoulder.
I lingered before her stall, though I knew
my stay was useless, to make my interest in
her wares seem the more real. Then I turned
away slowly and walked down the middle of
the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall
against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a
voice call from one end of the gallery that the
light was out. The upper part of the hall was
now completely dark.
Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself
as a creature driven and derided by vanity;
and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.
 Frank O’Connor 
could never see precisely what was sup-
posed to be exaggerated in the plots of
novelists like Dickens. To this day I can
still read about some mysterious street
urchin,1 brought up to poverty and vice by
a ragpicker, who turns out to be the miss-
ing heir to an earldom, and see nothing
peculiar about it. To me, it all seems the
most natural thing in the world.
Having always been Mother’s pet, I was
comparatively grown-up when the truth
about my own birth broke on me first. In
fact, I was already at work as a messenger
boy on the railway. Naturally, I had played
with the idea as I had played with scores of
other ideas, but suddenly, almost in a day,
every other possibility disappeared, and
I knew I had nothing whatever in com-
mon with the two commonplace creatures
with whom my fate had become so
strangely linked.

1. Here, an urchin is a mischievous youngster.

Mr. McCann, near Ballycastle, County Antrim, Ireland, 1920s.

34
 It wasn’t only their poverty that repelled
me, though that was bad enough, or the tiny
terrace house we lived in, with its twelve-foot
square of garden in front, its crumbling
stumps of gateposts and low wall that had lost
its railing. It was their utter commonness,
their squabbles about money, their low
friends and fatuous conversations. You could
see that no breath of fineness had ever
touched them. They seemed like people who
had been crippled from birth and never
known what it was to walk or run or dance.
Though I might be—for the moment, at
least—only a messenger, I had those long
spells when by some sort of instinct I knew
who I really was, could stand aside and watch
myself come up the road after my day’s work
with relaxed and measured steps, turning my
head slowly to greet some neighbor and rais-
ing my cap with a grace and charm that came
of centuries of breeding. Not only could I see
myself like that; there were even times when
I could hear an interior voice that preceded
and dictated each movement as though it
were a fragment of a storybook: “He raised his
cap gracefully while his face broke into a
thoughtful smile.”
And then, as I turned the corner, I would
see Father at the gate in his house clothes, a
ragged trousers and vest, an old cap that came
down over his eyes, and boots cut into some-
thing that resembled sandals and that he
insisted on calling his “slippers.” Father was a
creature of habit. No sooner was he out of his
working clothes than he was peppering 2 for
his evening paper, and if the newsboy were
five minutes late, Father muttered: “I don’t
know what’s coming over that boy at all!” and
drifted down to the main road to listen for
2. Here, peppering means “impatient.”
Vocabulary
fatuous (fach
¯¯¯
oo əs) adj. stupid; foolish; inane
illumination (i l¯¯¯
oo´mə nā
shən) n. enlightenment; clarification
35
him. When the newsboy did at last appear,
Father would grab the paper from his hand
and almost run home, putting on his specta-
cles awkwardly as he ran and triumphantly
surveying the promised treat of the headlines.
And suddenly everything would go black
on me, and I would take the chair by the open
back door while Father, sitting at the other
end, uttered little exclamations of joy or rage
and Mother asked anxiously how I had got on
during the day. Most of the time I could reply
only in monosyllables. How could I tell her
that nothing had happened at work that was
not as common as the things that happened
at home: nothing but those moments of
blinding illumination when I was alone in the
station yard on a spring morning with sun-
light striking the cliffs above the tunnel, and,
picking my way between the rails and the
trucks, I realized that it was not for long, that
I was a duke or earl, lost, stolen, or strayed
from my proper home, and that I had only to
be discovered for everything to fall into its
place? Illumination came only when I had
escaped; most often when I crossed the yard
on my way from work and dawdled in the pas-
senger station before the bookstall, or
watched a passenger train go out on its way to
Queenstown3 or Dublin and realized that one
day some train like that would take me back
to my true home and patrimony.4
These gloomy silences used to make Father
mad. He was a talkative man, and every little
incident of his day turned into narrative and
drama for him. He seemed forever to be meet-
ing old comrades of his army days whom he had
not met for fifteen years, and astounding
3. Queenstown is a seaport in southern Ireland.
4. Patrimony means one’s heritage, or the things a person
inherits from his or her father.

changes had always taken place in them in the
meantime. When one of his old friends called, or
even when some woman from across the square
dropped in for a cup of tea, he would leave
everything, even his newspaper, to talk. His cor-
ner by the window permitted him no room for
drama, he would stamp about the tiny kitchen,
pausing at the back door to glance up at the sky
or by the other door into the little hallway to see
who was passing outside in the square. It irri-
tated him when I got up in the middle of all this,
took my cap, and went quietly out. It irritated
him even more if I read while he and the others
talked, and, when some question was addressed
to me, put down my book and gazed at him
blankly. He was so coarse in grain that he
regarded it as insolence.5 He had no experience
of dukes, and had never heard that interior voice
which dictated my movements and words.
“Slowly the lad lowered the book in which he
had been immersed and gazed wonderingly at
the man who called himself his father.”
One evening I was coming home from
work when a girl spoke to me. She was a girl
called Nancy Harding whose elder brother I
knew slightly. I had never spoken to her—
indeed, there were not many girls I did speak
to. I was too conscious of the fact that, though
my jacket was good enough, my trousers were
an old blue pair of Father’s, cut down and with
a big patch in the seat. But Nancy, emerging
from a house near the quarry, hailed me as if
we were old friends and walked with me up the
road. She was slim and dark-haired with an
eager and inconsequent6 manner, and her chat-
ter bewildered and charmed me. My own con-
versation was of a rather portentous7 sort.
5. Here, insolence means “arrogance.”
6. As it is used here, inconsequent means “lighthearted” or
“trivial.”
7. Here, portentous means “momentous” or “pompous.”
Vocabulary
exploitation (eks´ploi tā
shən) n. unfair use for selfish profit or advantage
36
Frank O’Connor 
“I was down with Madge Regan, getting the
answers for my homework,” she explained. “I
don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I can’t
do those blooming old sums. Where were you?”
“Oh, I was at work,” I answered.
“At work?” she exclaimed in astonishment.
“Till this hour?”
“I have to work from eight to seven,” I said
modestly.
“But aren’t they terrible hours?” she said.
“Ah, I’m only filling in time,” I explained
lightly. “I don’t expect to be there long.”
This was prophetic, because I was sacked a
couple of months later, but at the same time I
just wanted to make it clear if there was any
exploitation being done, it was I and not the
railway company that was doing it. We walked
slowly, and she stood under the gas lamp at the
end of the square with me. Darkness or day, it
was funny how people made a rendezvous8 of
gas lamps. They were our playrooms when we
were kids and our clubs as we became older.
And then, for the first time, I heard the words
running through my head as though they were
dictating to someone else behind myself.
“Pleased with his quiet conversation and well-
bred voice, she wondered if he could really be
the son of the Delaneys at all.” Up to this, the
voice had paid no attention to other people;
now that it had begun to expand its activities it
took on a new reality, and I longed to repeat
the experience.
I had several opportunities, because we met
like that a couple of times when I was coming
home from work. I was not observant, and it
wasn’t until years after that it struck me that she
might have been waiting for me at the same
house at the same time. And one evening, when
we were standing under our gas lamp, I talked a
little too enthusiastically about some storybook,
8. A rendezvous is a meeting place.
and Nancy asked for the loan of it. I was pleased
with her attention but alarmed at the thought of
her seeing where I lived.
“I’ll bring it with me tomorrow,” I said.
“Ah, come on and get it for me now,” she
said coaxingly, and I glanced over my shoulder
and saw Father at the gate, his head cocked, lis-
tening for the newsboy. I felt suddenly sick. I
knew such a nice girl couldn’t possibly want to
meet Father, but I didn’t see how I was to get the
book without introducing them. We went up
the little uneven avenue together.
“This is Nancy Harding, Dad,” I said in an
offhand tone. “I just want to get a book for her.”
“Oh, come in, girl, come in,” he said, smiling
amiably. “Sit down, can’t you, while you’re wait-
ing?” Father’s sociability almost caused him to
forget the newsboy. “Min,” he called to Mother,
“you keep an eye on the paper,” and he set a
chair in the middle of the kitchen floor. As I
searched in the front room for the book, which
in my desperation I could not find, I heard
Mother go for the paper and Father talking away
like mad to Nancy, and when I went into the
kitchen, there he was in his favorite chair, the
paper lying unopened on the table beside him
while he told an endless, pointless story about
old times in the neighborhood. Father had been
born in the neighborhood, which he seemed to
think a matter for pride, but if there was one of
Father’s favorite subjects I could not stand, it was
the still wilder and more sordid life people had
lived there when he was growing up. This story
was about a wake—all his juiciest stories were
about wakes—and a tired woman getting jealous
of the corpse in the bed. He was so pleased with
Nancy’s attention that he was dramatizing even
more than usual, and I stood silent in the
kitchen door for several minutes with a ducal air
of scorn before he even noticed me. As I saw
Nancy to the road I felt humiliated to the depths
of my being. I noticed that the hallway was
Vocabulary
mortified (mor
tə f¯d´) adj. shamed; humiliated; embarrassed
37
streaming with damp, that our gate was only a
pair of brick stumps from which the cement had
fallen away, and that the square, which had
never been adopted by the council, was full of
washing. There were two washer-women on the
terrace, each with a line of her own.
But that wasn’t the worst. One evening
when I came home, Mother said joyously:
“Oh, your dad ran into that nice little
Harding girl on his way home.”
“Oh, did he?” I asked indifferently, though
feeling I had been kicked hard in the stomach.
“Oh, my goodness!” Father exclaimed, let-
ting down his paper for a moment and crowing.
“The way that one talks! Spatter! spatter! spat-
ter! And, by the way,” he added, looking at me
over his glasses, “her Aunt Lil used to be a great
friend of your mother’s at one time. Her mother
was a Clancy. I knew there was something famil-
iar about her face.”
“I’d never have recognized it,” Mother said
gravely. “Such a quiet little woman as Miss
Clancy used to be.”
“Oh, begor,9 there’s nothing quiet about
that niece,” chortled10 Father, but he did not
sound disapproving. Father liked young people
with something to say for themselves—not
like me.
I was mortified. It was bad enough not see-
ing Nancy myself, but to have her meet Father
like that, in his working clothes coming from
the manure factory down the glen, and hear
him—as I had no doubt she did hear him—
talk in his ignorant way about me was too
much. I could not help contrasting Father with
Mr. Harding, whom I occasionally met coming
from work and whom I looked at with a respect
that bordered on reverence. He was a small man
with a face like a clenched fist, always very
9. Oh, begor is a mild, Irish oath meaning, “Oh, by God.”
10. Chortle means “to chuckle.”

neatly dressed, and he usually carried his news-
paper rolled up like a baton and sometimes hit
his thigh with it as he strode briskly home.
One evening when I glanced shyly at him,
he nodded in his brusque11 way. Everything
about him was brusque, keen, and soldierly, and
when I saw that he recognized me, I swung into
step beside him. He was like a military proces-
sion with a brass band, the way he always set
the pace for anyone who accompanied him.
“Where are you working now?” he asked
sharply with a side glance at me.
11. Brusque means “abrupt.”
Caeharris Post Office, Dowlais, 1935. Cedric Morris. Oil on canvas, 24¹⁄₂ x 30 in. Cyfarthfa Castle Art Gallery and Museum,
Merthyr Tydfil, UK.
Viewing the painting: What does the setting of this painting tell you about the area? What might the setting
have in common with the narrator’s town?
38
Frank O’Connor 
“Oh, on the railway still,” I said. “Just for a
few months, anyway.”
“And what are you doing there?”
“Oh, just helping in the office,” I replied
lightly. I knew this was not exactly true, but I
hated to tell anybody that I was only a mes-
senger boy. “Of course, I study in my spare
time,” I added hastily. It was remarkable how
the speeding up of my pace seemed to speed up
my romancing as well. There was something
breathless about the man that left me breath-
less, too. “I thought of taking the Indian Civil
Service exam or something of the sort. There’s
no future in railways.”
Portrait of Effie. Norman
Hepple (1908–94). Oil on
canvas, 60.9 x 50.8 cm. Manya
Igel Fine Arts, London.
Viewing the painting: How
would you describe the girl in
the painting? What might she
have in common with Nancy?

“Isn’t there?” he asked with some surprise.
“Not really,” I answered indifferently. “An-
other few years and it will all be trucks. I really
do it only as a stopgap. I wouldn’t like to take
any permanent job unless I could travel. Outside
Ireland, I mean. You see, languages are my major
interest.”
“Are they?” he asked in the same tone. “How
many do you know?”
“Oh, only French and German at the
moment—I mean, enough to get round with,” I
said. The pace was telling on me. I felt I wasn’t
making the right impression. Maybe to be a
39
proper linguist you needed to know a dozen lan-
guages. I mended my hand as best I could. “I’m
going to do Italian and Spanish this winter if I
get time. You can’t get anywhere in the modern
world without Spanish. After English it’s the
most spoken of them all.”
“Go on!” he said.
I wasn’t altogether pleased with the results of
this conversation. The moment I had left him, I
slowed down to a gentle stroll, and this made me
realize that the quick march had committed me
farther than I liked to go. All I really knew of for-
eign languages was a few odd words and phrases,

like echoes of some dream of my lost fatherland,
which I learned and repeated to myself with a
strange, dreamy pleasure. It was not prudent to
pretend that I knew the languages thoroughly.
After all, Mr. Harding had three daughters, all
well educated. People were always being asked
to his house, and I had even been encouraging
myself with the prospect of being asked as well.
But now, if I were invited, it would be mainly
because of my supposed knowledge of foreign
languages, and when Nancy or one of her sisters
burst into fluent French or German, my few
poetic phrases would not be much help. I
needed something more practical, something to
do with railways, for preference. I had an old
French phrase book, which I had borrowed from
somebody, and I determined to learn as much as
I could of this by heart.
I worked hard, spurred on by an unexpected
meeting with Nancy’s eldest sister, Rita, who
suddenly stopped and spoke to me on the road,
though to my astonishment and relief she
spoke in English.
Then, one evening when I was on my usual
walk, which in those days nearly always
brought me somewhere near Nancy’s house, I
ran into her going in, and we stood at the street
corner near her home. I was pleased with this
because Rita came out soon afterwards and said
in a conspiratorial tone: “Why don’t ye grab
the sofa before Kitty gets it?” which made
Nancy blush, and then her father passed and
nodded to us. I waved back to him, but Nancy
had turned her back as he appeared so that she
did not see him. I drew her attention to him
striding down the road, but somehow this only
put her in mind of my father.
“I saw him again the other day,” she said
with a smile that hurt me.
“Did you?” I asked with a sniff. “What was
he talking about? His soldiering days?”
Vocabulary
conspiratorial (kən spir´ə tor
ē əl) adj. suggesting an agreement between two parties to act
together to effect something
40
Frank O’Connor 
“No,” she said with interest. “Does he talk
about them?”
“Does he ever talk about anything else?” I
replied wearily. “I have that last war off by heart.
It seems to have been the only thing that ever
happened to him.”
“He knows a terrible lot, though, doesn’t
he?” she asked.
“He’s concealed it pretty well,” I replied.
“The man is an out-and-out failure, and he’s
managed to turn Mother into one as well.
I suppose she had whatever brains there were
between them—which wasn’t much, I’m
afraid.”
“Go on!” said Nancy with a bewildered air.
“Then why did she marry him?”
“‘Echo answers why,’”12 I said with a laugh at
being able to get in a phrase that had delighted
me in some storybook. “Oh, I suppose it was the
usual thing.”
Nancy blushed again and made to leave.
“Well, it’s well to be you,” she said, “knowing
what’s wrong with him. God alone knows what’s
wrong with mine.”
I was sorry she had to go in such a hurry, but
pleased with the impression of culture and
sophistication I had managed to convey, and I
looked forward to showing off a bit more when
I went to one of their Sunday evening parties.
With that, and some really practical French,
I could probably get anywhere.
At the same time it struck me that they
were very slow about asking me, and my
evening walks past their house took on a sort
of stubborn defiance. At least, I wouldn’t let
them ignore me. It wasn’t until weeks later
that the bitter truth dawned on me—that I
12. Echo answers why refers to the mythological nymph Echo
who could speak only by repeating the last syllable spoken
to her.
Another random document with
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 Magnesium sulfate 34.00 “
Sodium chlorid 2.50 “
Water 11.60 “
The percentage of potash corresponding to the above composition is 27.2. This substance being so
rich in potash, and practically free of chlorids, is well suited to transportation to great distances and for
general use in the field. Since, however, a considerable expense attends the manufacture of the artificial
schönit, the advantages above named give it very little, if any, advantage in competition with the other
potash salts as they come from the mines. It has, however, an especial value for the fertilization of
tobacco and vineyards.
245. Potassium Sulfate.—Several grades of potassium sulfate are found in the market for fertilizing
purposes, some of them quite pure, containing over ninety-seven per cent of the pure sulfate. The
following data show the composition of a high grade and low grade potassium sulfate of commerce:
High grade. Low grade.
Potassium sulfate 97.20 per cent. 90.60 per cent.
Potassium chlorid 0.30 “ 1.60 “
Magnesium sulfate 0.70 “ 2.70 “
Magnesium chlorid 0.40 “ 1.00 “
Sodium chlorid 0.20 “ 1.20 “
Insoluble 0.20 “ 0.30 “
Water 0.70 “ 2.20 “
Naturally, high grade sulfates of this kind can only be prepared in chemical factories built especially
for the work. The result is that the potash per unit is raised greatly in price. When, however, the
fertilizers are to be transported to a great distance, the saving in freight often more than compensates
for the higher price of the potash. It therefore happens that there are many places in this country where
the actual price of potash per pound is less in high grade sulfates than in kainit or carnallit. When, in
addition to this, the especial fitness of the high grade sulfates for certain forms of fertilization, especially
tobacco growing, is considered, it is seen that at this distance from the mines these high grade salts are
of no inconsiderable importance. The percentage of potash in the high grade sulfates often exceeds fifty.
246. Potassium Magnesium Carbonate.—This salt has lately been manufactured and used to a
considerable extent, especially for tobacco fertilizing. As furnished to the trade it has the following
average composition:
Potassium carbonate 35 to 40 per cent.
Magnesium carbonate 33 to 36 “
Water of crystallization 25 “
Potassium chlorid, potassium sulfate,
and insoluble 2 to 3 “
The content of potash, as is seen from the above formula, amounts to from seventeen to eighteen
per cent. The compound is completely dry, is not hygroscopic, and is, therefore, always ready for
distribution. It is especially to be recommended for all those intensive cultures where it is feared that
chlorids and sulfates will prove injurious, especially in the cultivation of tobacco.
247. Potash in Factory Residues.—The residues from the potash factories in Stassfurt and vicinity
contain considerable quantities of potash and attempts have been made to recover this waste and put it
into form for fertilizing uses. The waste waters of the factories are sometimes collected and evaporated,
and the residue incinerated. The content of potash in these residues is extremely variable, usually quite
low, and they, therefore, cannot be recommended for fertilizing purposes, especially if they are to be
transported to any distance.
 248. Quantity of Potash Salts Used.—The total quantity of potash delivered to consumers from the
Stassfurt mines in 1891, the last year for which complete statistics are at hand was 413,508 tons of
kainit and sylvinit, 39,444 tons of carnallit, 18,078 tons of sulfate, and 12,453 tons of the potassium
magnesium sulfate. Of the above quantities, 115,245 tons of kainit were shipped to North America, and
of the high grade sulfate mentioned, 13,322 tons were sent to other countries, and of the potassium
magnesium sulfate, 11,081 tons were exported.

METHODS OF ANALYSIS.
249. Classification of Methods.—To detect the presence of potash in a mixture the aid of the
spectroscope may be invoked. In the scale of the spectrum divided into 170 parts, on which the sodium
line falls at 50, potassium gives three faint rather broad bands, two red, falling at 17 and 27, and one
plum-colored band, near the extreme right of the spectrum, at 153. Potassium, however, does not give
brilliant and well-marked spectral bands, such as are afforded by its associates rubidium, caesium,
sodium, and lithium. A convenient qualitative test which, for practical purposes will be quite sufficient,
may be secured by dipping a platinum loop into a strong acid solution of the supposed potash
compound, and viewing through a piece of cobalt glass, the coloration produced thereby when held in
the flame of a bunsen. The red-purple tint thereby produced should be compared with that coming from
a pure potash salt similarly treated. If a fertilizer sample give no indication of potash when treated as
above it may be safely concluded that it does not contain any weighable quantity of potash.
For the estimation of the percentage of potash present in a given sample it may be safely assumed
that all of value in agriculture will be given up to an aqueous or slightly acid solution if organic matter
have been destroyed as indicated in a previous paragraph. In the case of minerals insoluble in a dilute
acid the potash may be determined by some one of the processes given in the first volume.[200] The
potash having been obtained in an aqueous or slightly acid (hydrochloric) solution, it may be determined
either by precipitation as potassium platinochlorid or as potassium perchlorate. The former method is
the one which has been almost exclusively used by analysis in the past, but the latter one is coming into
prominence and by reason of the greater economy attending its practice and the excellent results
obtained by some analysts, demands a generous consideration.
250. The Platinic Chlorid Method.—The principle of this method rests on the great insolubility of
the potassium platinochlorid in strong alcohol and the easy solubility of some of its commonly attending
salts; viz., sodium, etc., in the same reagent. Before the precipitation of the potash it is necessary to
remove the bases of the earths, sulfates, etc. Barium chlorid and hydroxid, ammonium oxalate or
carbonate, sulfuric acid, etc., are used in conjunction or successively to effect these purposes in the
manner hereinafter described. The filtrate and washings containing the potash are evaporated to
dryness and gently ignited to expel excess of ammonium salts and in the residue taken up with water
and acidulated with hydrochloric acid, the potash is precipitated with platinic chlorid solution. The best
methods of executing the analysis follow.
251. The Official Agricultural Method.—This method is based on the processes at first proposed
by Lindo[201] and Gladding,[202] and is given below as adapted to mixed fertilizers and mineral potash
salts.[203]
(1) In Superphosphates.—Boil ten grams with 300 cubic centimeters of water thirty minutes. To the
hot solution add ammonia in slight excess, and then a sufficient quantity of ammonium oxalate to
precipitate all the lime present; cool and make up to half a liter, mix thoroughly, and filter through a dry
filter; evaporate fifty cubic centimeters, corresponding to one gram, nearly to dryness, add one cubic
centimeter of dilute sulfuric acid (1 to 1), evaporate to dryness and ignite to whiteness. As all the potash
is in form of sulfate, no loss need be apprehended by volatilization of potash, and a full red heat must be
maintained until the residue is perfectly white. This residue is dissolved in hot water, plus a few drops of
hydrochloric acid, and a slight excess of platinum solution is added. This solution is then evaporated to
a thick paste in a small dish, and eighty per cent alcohol added. In evaporating, special precaution
should be taken to prevent absorption of ammonia. The precipitate is washed thoroughly with alcohol by
decantation and on the filter, as usual. The washing should be continued even after the filtrate is
colorless. Ten cubic centimeters of the ammonium chlorid solution, prepared as hereinafter directed, are
run through the filter, or the washing may be performed in the dish. The ten cubic centimeters will
contain the bulk of the impurities, and are thrown away. Fresh portions of ten cubic centimeters of the
ammonium chlorid are run through the filter several times (5 or 6). The filter is then washed thoroughly
with pure alcohol, dried, and weighed as usual. Care should be taken that the precipitate is perfectly
soluble in water. The platinum solution used contains one gram of metallic platinum in every ten cubic
centimeters. To prepare the washing solution of ammonium chlorid, place in a bottle 500 cubic
centimeters of water and 100 grams of ammonium chlorid and shake till dissolved. Now pulverize five or
ten grains of potassium platinochlorid, put in the bottle and shake at intervals for six or eight hours; let
settle over night, then filter off the liquid into a second bottle. The first bottle is then ready for preparation
of a fresh supply when needed.
(2) Potassium Chlorids.—In the analysis of these salts an aliquot portion of the solution, containing a
half gram, is evaporated with forty cubic centimeters of the platinum solution and a few drops of
hydrochloric acid, and washed as before.
(3) Potassium Sulfate, Kainit, Etc.—In the analysis of kainit, dissolve ten grams of the pulverized salt
in 300 cubic centimeters of boiling water, add ammonia to slight excess, then a sufficient quantity of
ammonium oxalate to throw down all lime present; cool and make up to half a liter, mix thoroughly, and
filter on a dry filter; from twenty-five cubic centimeters, corresponding to a half gram, proceed to remove
the ammonia, as in the analysis of superphosphates; dissolve the residue in hot water, plus a few drops
of hydrochloric acid, and add fifteen cubic centimeters of platinum solution. In the analysis of high-grade
sulfate and of double-manure salt (potassium sulfate, magnesium sulfate, containing about twenty-
seven per cent of potassium oxid), make up the solution as above, but omit the precipitation,
evaporation, etc.; to an aliquot part equal to a half gram add fifteen cubic centimeters of platinum
solution. In all cases special care must be taken in the washing with alcohol to remove all the double
platinum sodium chlorid which may be present. The washing should be continued some time after the
filtrate is colorless. Twenty-five cubic centimeters of the ammonium chlorid solution are employed
instead of ten cubic centimeters, and the twenty-five cubic centimeters poured through at least six times
to remove all sulfates and chlorids. Wash finally with alcohol; dry and weigh as usual.
252. Alternate Method for Potash.—Boil ten grams of the prepared sample for thirty minutes with
300 cubic centimeters of water, and, after cooling and without filtering, make up to one liter and filter
through a dry filter. If the sample have ten per cent of potassium oxid, use fifty cubic centimeters of the
filtrate; if less than ten per cent of potassium oxid (ordinary potash fertilizers), use 100 cubic centimeters
of the filtrate. In each case make the volume up to 150 cubic centimeters, heat to 100°, and add, drop
by drop with constant stirring, a slight excess of barium chlorid, and, without filtering, in the same
manner add barium hydrate in slight excess. Filter while hot and wash until the precipitate is free of
chlorids. Add to the filtrate one cubic centimeter of strong ammonium hydrate, and then a saturated
solution of ammonium carbonate, until the excess of barium is precipitated. Heat and add, in fine
powder, a half gram of pure oxalic acid or 0.75 gram of ammonium oxalate. Filter, wash free of chlorids,
evaporate the filtrate to dryness in a platinum dish, and ignite carefully over the free flame, below red
heat, until all volatile matter is driven off.
The residue is digested with hot water, filtered through a small filter, and washed with successive
small portions of water until the filtrate amounts to thirty cubic centimeters or more. To this filtrate, add
two drops of hydrochloric acid, in a porcelain dish, and from five to ten cubic centimeters of a solution of
ten grams of platinic chlorid in 100 cubic centimeters of water. The mixture is evaporated on a water-
bath to a thick sirup, as above, treated with alcohol of eighty per cent strength, washed by decantation,
collected in a gooch or other form of filter, washed with strong alcohol, afterwards with five cubic
centimeters of ether, dried for thirty minutes at 100°, and weighed.
It is desirable, if there be an appearance of foreign matter in the double salt, that it should be
washed, according to the previous method, with ten cubic centimeters of the half-concentrated solution
of ammonium chlorid, which has been saturated by shaking with potassium platinochlorid.
253. Method of Solution for Organic Compounds.—In case the potash is contained in organic
compounds, like tobacco stems, cottonseed hulls, etc., weigh ten grams, saturate with strong sulfuric
acid, and ignite in a muffle to destroy organic matter. Add a little strong hydrochloric acid to moisten the
mass and warm slightly so as to loosen it in the dish. Proceed then as in the lindo-gladding or alternate
method.
254. Factors.—The use of the factors 0.3056 for converting potassium platinochlorid to potassium
chlorid and 0.19308 for converting it to potassium oxid is advised. The latter number is almost identical
with that used by the Halle and Stassfurt chemists viz., 0.1927 and 0.1928 respectively.
255. Methods Used at the Halle Station.—(1) In Kainits and other Mineral Salts of Potash.[204]—
Five grams of the prepared sample are boiled for half an hour in a half liter flask with from twenty to
thirty cubic centimeters of concentrated hydrochloric acid and 100 cubic centimeters of water, and
afterwards as much water added as is necessary to fill the flask about three quarters full, and the
sulfuric acid is then precipitated with barium chlorid. To avoid an excess of barium chlorid the solution
used is of known strength and is added first in such quantity as would precipitate the sulfuric acid from a
kainit of low sulfuric acid content. The mixture is then boiled, allowed to settle and tried with a dropping
tube containing barium chlorid. If a further precipitate be given a few drops more of barium chlorid
solution are added, again boiled and allowed to settle. This is continued until barium chlorid gives no
precipitation. After the barium chlorid gives no more precipitate a drop of dilute sulfuric acid is added to
test for excess of barium. The operation is continued with the sulfuric acid until it no longer gives a
precipitate of barium sulfate. By the alternate use of the barium chlorid and sulfuric acid the exact
neutral point can soon be secured. When this point is reached the liquid is allowed to cool, the flask is
filled to the mark, its contents filtered, and of the filtrate fifty cubic centimeters, equal to half a gram of
the substance, taken for further estimation.
This quantity is evaporated on a water-bath to a sirupy consistence in a porcelain dish with ten cubic
centimeters of platinic chlorid. The platinic chlorid solution should contain one gram of platinum in each
ten cubic centimeters. The residue is treated with eighty per cent alcohol and, with stirring, allowed to
stand for an hour. The precipitate is then collected on a gooch, either of platinum or porcelain, washed
about eight times with eighty per cent alcohol and the potassium platinochlorid dried for two hours at
100°. After weighing the precipitate is dissolved in hot water and the residue washed under pressure,
first with hot water and then with alcohol. The crucible with the asbestos felt is dried at 100° and
weighed. Any impurities which the double salt may have carried down with it are left on the filter and the
weight of the original precipitate can thus be corrected. The weight of potassium platinochlorid is
multiplied by 0.1927 and the product corresponds to the weight of K₂O in the sample taken.
(2) Estimation of Potash in Guanos and Other Fertilizers containing Organic Substances.—Ten
grams of the substances are carefully incinerated at a low temperature in a platinum dish. After ignition
the contents of the dish are placed in a half liter flask and boiled for an hour with hydrochloric acid and a
few drops of nitric acid. The sulfuric acid can then be precipitated directly with barium chlorid, or better,
allow the flask to cool, fill to the mark, filter and treat an aliquot part of the filtrate with barium chlorid as
described above. The filtrate from the separated sulfate of barium is neutralized with ammonia and all
the bases, with the exception of magnesia and the alkalies, precipitated with ammonium carbonate; boil,
fill to the mark and filter. Of this filtrate evaporate from 100 to 200 cubic centimeters in a platinum dish.
After evaporation the ammonium salts are driven off by careful ignition, the residue taken up with hot
water and filtered through as small a filter as possible into a porcelain dish; the magnesia remaining in
the precipitate. The filtrate is acidified with a few drops of hydrochloric acid, ten cubic centimeters of
platinic chlorid added and the further determination conducted as with kainit.
256. Dutch Method.—The process used at the Royal Agricultural Station of Holland is almost
identical with that employed at Halle.[205]
A. Method for Stassfurt and other Potash Salts.—The necessary reagents are:
1. A dilute solution of barium chlorid:
2. A solution of platinic chlorid containing one gram of platinum in ten cubic centimeters: It must be
wholly free from platinous chlorid and nitric acid, and partially freed from an excess of hydrochloric acid
by repeated evaporations with water.
3. Alcohol of eighty per cent strength by the volume:
 The methods of bringing the potash into solution and of precipitating the sulfuric acid are the same
as for the Halle process described above.
Add then twenty cubic centimeters of the platinum solution and evaporate the mixture nearly to
dryness. Add a sufficient quantity of eighty per cent alcohol and stir for some time. Allow to stand and
then filter through a gooch dried at 120°. Finally wash with eighty per cent alcohol, dry at 120°, and
weigh.
B. Method for Potash Superphosphate and other mixed Fertilizers.—The reagents necessary are the
same as under A, and, in addition, a saturated solution of barium hydrate and a solution of ammonium
carbonate mixed with ammonia.
Boil twenty grams of the substance with water for half an hour, cool, make up to half a liter and filter.
Boil fifty cubic centimeters of the filtrate, and add barium chlorid till no more precipitate forms. Mix with
baryta water to strong alkaline reaction, cool, make up to 100 cubic centimeters and filter. Raise fifty
cubic centimeters of the filtrate to the boiling temperature and add ammonium carbonate solution till no
more precipitate forms: Cool, make up to 100 cubic centimeters and filter. Transfer fifty cubic
centimeters of the filtrate to a platinum dish, evaporate and heat the residue, avoiding too high a
temperature, till the ammonia salts are expelled. Dissolve the residue in water, filter, and treat the filtrate
as described under A.
257. Swedish Methods.—The Swedish chemists determine the potash in mineral salts by the
platinum chlorid process, but with certain variations from the processes already given. The manipulation
is conducted as follows:[206]
Weigh one gram of the sample to be examined and pour about 300 cubic centimeters of hot water
over it in a beaker and filter after complete solution; add one cubic centimeter of hydrochloric acid, heat
nearly to boiling, add dilute barium chlorid solution from a pipette or burette in a very fine stream stirring,
slowly and carefully, till all sulfuric acid is completely precipitated, and only a trace of the precipitant is in
excess. If the precipitation be conducted in the way given the barium sulfate will come down in
crystalline condition, and settle rapidly within a few minutes, and almost immediately after the
precipitation is finished may be filtered clear. The filtrate and washings from the barium sulfate are
brought into a liter flask; fill this to the mark, take out fifty cubic centimeters with a pipette, evaporate the
greater portion on a water-bath in a porcelain dish, transfer the residue by means of ammonia-free water
to a beaker of fifty cubic centimeters capacity, add ten cubic centimeters of platinic chlorid solution, stir
well with a glass rod, evaporate on a water-bath to a sirupy condition, allow to cool, and if the residue be
too dry, add a few drops of water to allow the sodium platinochlorid to take up crystal water with
certainty, stir well, add alcohol after a few minutes, mix carefully, leave the mixture standing for a while
in the beaker covered with a watch glass, stirring occasionally; finally decant the solution, which must be
of a dark yellow color, through a very small filter, wash the precipitate in the beaker repeatedly with small
quantities of alcohol and decant; then transfer the precipitate to the filter, wash with alcohol, dry the filter
and the precipitate at a gentle heat till all alcohol has evaporated, carefully transfer the contents of the
filter to a watch glass placed on white glazed paper; dissolve the potassium platinochlorid still remaining
on the filter in small quantities of boiling water, evaporate the filtrate on a water-bath in an accurately
weighed platinum dish to dryness and transfer the same to the main portion of the chlorid from the
watch glass. In order to obtain the salt free of the corresponding combinations of sodium, barium,
calcium, and magnesium, which salts, although soluble in alcohol, may make the salt impure, before
weighing, treat the precipitate twice with small quantities of cold water which will dissolve these
impurities; evaporate the solution after addition of one cubic centimeter of platinic chlorid nearly to
dryness on a water-bath, treat the residue in the same way as given before, add the small quantity of
potassium platinochlorid which is hereby obtained together with the main portion to the platinum dish,
dry at 130°, and weigh. Only after having been treated in this way may the precipitated potassium
platinochlorid be considered absolutely pure. The Stassfurt salts contain magnesia, often in large
quantities and as a consequence the potassium platinochlorid precipitated directly is likely to be
contaminated therewith.
258. Methods for the Analysis of Carnallit, Kainit, Sylvinit, and Kieserit.—The chemists of the
German Potash Syndicate use the following methods in the analysis of the raw products mentioned
above.[207]
 (1) Preparation of the Sample.—It is advisable to take from a large well mixed mass at least half a
kilogram for the analytical sample and this should be ground to a fine powder in a mill or mortar.
(2) Estimation of the Potash by the Precipitation Method.—In a half liter flask are placed 35.70 grams
of kainit or sylvinit, or 30.56 grams of carnallit or bergkieserit, which are boiled with 350 cubic
centimeters of water after the addition of ten cubic centimeters of hydrochloric acid. After cooling the
flask is filled to the mark with water, well shaken, and its contents filtered. Fifty cubic centimeters of the
filtrate are treated in a 200 cubic centimeter flask with a solution of barium chlorid, the flask filled to the
mark, well shaken, and its contents filtered. Twenty cubic centimeters of the filtrate, corresponding to
0.3570 or 0.3056 gram of the substance, are treated with five cubic centimeters of platinic chlorid
solution and the potassium estimated according to the usual methods.
(3) Estimation of Potash (K₂O) in Raw Potash Salts.—(a) For the determination of potash alone in
carnallit, kainit, and sylvinit one hundred grams of the well-mixed sample are put into a graduated flask
holding one liter and dissolved by boiling with half a liter of water, acidulated with ten cubic centimeters
of hydrochloric. The purpose of adding hydrochloric acid is to bring any polyhalit that might be present in
the salts into solution and which it is difficult to dissolve in pure water. After dissolving and cooling the
flask is filled up to the mark. The solution, after mixing, is filtered through a dry filter and 100 cubic
centimeters of the filtrate, corresponding to ten grams substance, are put into a half liter flask by means
of a pipette. After the addition of 200-300 cubic centimeters of water the solution is heated to boiling and
the sulfuric acid accurately precipitated with normal barium chlorid solution, containing 104 grams of the
dry salt in one liter. The volume of the precipitate is calculated from the amount of barium solution used
and from the specific gravity of the barium sulfate. After cooling, the flask is filled up with water as far
above the mark as equals the volume of the calculated barium precipitate, and, after thorough mixing,
the solution is filtered again through a dry filter. Fifty cubic centimeters of this filtrate, corresponding to
one gram substance, are evaporated upon the water-bath with a sufficient amount of platinic chlorid.
The residue of potassium platinochlorid is washed with ninety per cent alcohol, dried at 120°, and
weighed.
(b) If it be desired to determine separately the quantity of potash present in the form of sulfate and in
the form of chlorid, as for example in kainit and in sulfate of potash, or if it is to be determined whether
potassium sulfate is in combination with a proportionate amount of magnesium chlorid, as in kainit, or in
combination with magnesium sulfate alone, as in schönit, it then becomes necessary to determine
besides potash the percentages of chlorin, sulfuric acid, lime, magnesia, the total alkalies, water, and
the residue insoluble in water. For this purpose 100 grams of the sample are dissolved, the solution is
filtered, the filter washed, and the filtrate made up to one liter; a part of the liquid is taken for the
determination of sulfuric acid; by precipitating with barium chlorid, and another part for the determination
of lime and magnesia. For the determination of the alkali chlorids, 100 cubic centimeters of the solution,
corresponding to ten grams substance, are acidulated with hydrochloric, and, after heating to boiling,
the sulfuric acid is completely precipitated with barium chlorid, with the precaution of using not more of
the barium solution than is necessary for the complete precipitation. Fifty cubic centimeters of the
filtered solution, corresponding to one gram substance, are evaporated to dryness in order to drive off
the hydrochloric acid. Magnesium chlorid is decomposed by igniting with oxalic acid or with mercuric
oxid. After ignition, the residue is moistened with a little ammonium carbonate for the purpose of
converting the calcium oxid that may have been formed into calcium carbonate. The alkali chlorids,
which are entirely free of lime and magnesia, are weighed, and potassium chlorid is determined by
means of platinic chlorid. The amount of sodium chlorid is obtained by deducting potassium chlorid from
the mixed chlorids. For the water determination five grams of the sample are ignited and the loss of
weight is determined. The ignited mass is dissolved in water, and for the purpose of determining the
quantity of magnesium chlorid that may have been decomposed by the ignition the percentage of chlorin
is determined by titration. The difference in the contents of chlorin before and after ignition is subtracted
from the loss in weight, after allowance has been made for the absorption of oxygen and for the loss of
hydrogen. The rest is water. The results obtained are calculated in the following manner: From the total
amount of the sulfuric acid found, that portion is deducted which is combined with calcium as calcium
sulfate; the rest of the sulfuric acid is divided into two equal parts for the purpose of calculating the
contents of potassium sulfate and magnesium sulfate, according to the molecular proportion in which
these salts are present in kainit and in schönit. If there be an excess of potash left uncombined with
sulfuric acid, then it is in the form of potassium chlorid; likewise the amount of magnesia, uncombined
with sulfuric acid, is to be reckoned as magnesium chlorid. The result of this calculation will tell how
much potash is in the form of kainit (K₂SO₄, MgSO₄, MgCl₂ with 6H₂O) and how much of it is in the
form of schönit (K₂SO₄, MgSO₄, with 6H₂O) and how much in the form of potassium chlorid. The
sodium is reckoned as sodium chlorid.
(c) In calculating the contents of potash, of potassium chlorid, and of potassium sulfate from the
weighed potassium platinochlorid, the factors 0.1928, 0.3056, and 0.3566 are used, assuming that the
atomic weight of platinum is 197.18.
(d) The two methods which have been described under a and b, and which are in common use in the
Stassfurt potash industry, i. e., the so-called precipitation method, and the oxalic acid method, give
almost identical results. The first method, however, deserves preference on account of greater simplicity
in cases where potash alone is to be determined. Finkner’s method likewise gives results which agree
well with the results obtained by the customary methods. It consists in evaporating the salt solution with
a sufficient quantity of platinic chlorid without previously removing the sulfuric acid, reducing the
potassium platinochlorid, and weighing the metallic platinum.
The following are the results of comparative analyses:
1. After the precipitation method 22.02 per cent KCl
2. After the oxalic acid method 22.03 per cent KCl
3. After Finkner’s method 22.01 per cent KCl
In another sample of carnallit the following results were obtained:
1. After the precipitation method 17.88 per cent KCl
2. After the oxalic acid method 17.88 per cent KCl
In a third sample of carnallit the content of potassium chlorid was as follows:
1. After the precipitation method 18.44 per cent KCl
2. After the oxalic acid method 18.38 per cent KCl
The Anhalt chemists object to precipitating the sulfuric acid and alkaline earths with barium oxid and
ammonium carbonate, and afterwards the potash with platinic chlorid. The results obtained with this
method are, according to them, very inaccurate, and always too low. This is explained by the fact that it
is impossible to precipitate sulfuric acid without at the same time precipitating some of the potash,
unless it be in an acid solution.
A separation of the alkaline earths, if potash alone is to be determined, is superfluous, for the reason
that calcium and magnesium platinochlorid are soluble in ninety per cent alcohol, even with more facility
than sodium platinochlorid.
259. Methods for Concentrated Potash Salts.—In the preceding paragraphs have been given the
methods used by the Stassfurt syndicate for the estimation of potash in the raw salts as they come from
the mines. Following are the methods used by the same syndicate for the concentrated approximately
pure compounds and the other salts which accompany them.
Potassium Chlorid.—The following process is used for the estimation of potassium and other
constituents of the high grade chlorids of commerce. In a half liter flask are placed 7.6405 grams of the
finely powdered sample, which is dissolved and made up to the mark. With salts which contain more
than half a per cent of sulfuric acid the preliminary conversion of the sulfates into the corresponding
chlorin compounds, by precipitation with barium chlorid solution, is necessary. Twenty cubic centimeters
of the above solution, corresponding to 0.3056 gram of the salt, are placed in a flat porcelain dish
having a diameter of about ten centimeters and, after the addition of five cubic centimeters of the platinic
chlorid solution, evaporated on the water-bath with constant stirring until, after cooling, the sirupy liquid
passes quickly into a fine crystalline condition. The residue is rubbed into a fine powder with a glass rod,
mixed with twenty cubic centimeters of ninety-six per cent alcohol and dried at 120° to a constant
weight. It is weighed while warm and brought on a moistened filter with alcohol, care being taken that
the liquid does not touch the edge of the filter. The filtration can be carried on under a moderate
pressure. The complete washing of the potassium platinochlorid can be easily accomplished upon the
filter. The filter and the precipitate, after as much of the alcohol wash has been removed as is possible,
are dried at 120° to constant weight and weighed while still warm. One milligram of the potassium
platinochlorid thus obtained corresponds to a tenth per cent of potassium chlorid.
Estimation of Sodium Chlorid.—For the estimation of the sodium chlorid which may be present in the
potassium chlorid twelve and a half grams of the latter salt are dissolved in a quarter liter flask with
twenty-five cubic centimeters of boiling water after the addition of a little potassium carbonate for the
purpose of converting the magnesium and calcium compounds into carbonates. After filtration 100 cubic
centimeters corresponding to five grams of the salt are evaporated to dryness in a porcelain or platinum
dish after the addition of a few drops of concentrated hydrochloric acid in order to convert any calcium
carbonate which may be present into chlorid. The residue is gently ignited and weighed. In this mixture
of potassium and sodium chlorids the potassium chlorid may be estimated in the usual way and the
sodium chlorid determined by difference or the respective proportions of the two bases may be
calculated after the determination of the total chlorin by precipitation with a standard solution of silver
nitrate.
Estimation of Magnesium Chlorid.—In order to estimate the amount of magnesium chlorid in high
grade muriate of potash, twenty-five grams of the latter salt are dissolved in a half liter flask and treated
with ten cubic centimeters of a normal solution of potash lye. The flask is then filled to the mark with
water, thoroughly shaken and its contents filtered. Fifty cubic centimeters of the filtrate are then titrated
with one-tenth normal sulfuric acid. The calcium compounds which remain in solution do not influence
the result. The quantity of magnesium chlorid originally present corresponds to the number of cubic
centimeters of the normal potash lye which has disappeared in the operation. The reaction which takes
place is represented by the following equation:

MgCl₂ + 2KOH = MgO₂H₂ + 2KCl.

Potassium Sulfate.—The quantity of potassium sulfate contained in the high grade sulfates of
commerce is determined in the following manner: In a half liter flask are placed 8.9235 grams of the
finely ground sample which is dissolved in about 350 cubic centimeters of boiling water after the addition
of twenty cubic centimeters of hydrochloric acid. The sulfuric acid is thrown out by the addition, drop by
drop, of a barium chlorid solution, the contents of the flask being kept boiling meanwhile and thoroughly
stirred. From time to time the addition of the barium chlorid is stopped and the upper part of the liquid
allowed to become clear by the subsidence of the barium sulfate. It is then noticed whether or not an
additional drop of the barium chlorid solution produces a turbidity. Any excess of barium chlorid is
removed by the careful addition of sulfuric acid. After the precipitation is complete and the contents of
the flask are cooled, it is filled up to the mark with water and its contents filtered. Twenty cubic
centimeters of the filtrate, corresponding to 0.357 gram of the original salt are precipitated by platinic
chlorid in the usual manner and the resulting potassium platinochlorid collected and weighed. One
milligram of the potassium platinochlorid thus obtained corresponds to one-tenth per cent of potassium
sulfate in the original salt. To the percentage of potassium sulfate thus found three-tenths per cent are to
be added for a correction when high grade potassium sulfate is taken. If the sample be a high grade
sulfate of potassium and magnesium no correction should be applied.
Estimation of Potassium Chlorid and Potassium Sulfate in Calcined Manurial Salts.—In these salts
15.281 grams for potassium chlorid or 17.847 grams for potassium sulfate are dissolved in a half liter
flask after the addition of ten cubic centimeters of hydrochloric acid. The flask is filled to the mark and its
contents filtered and 250 cubic centimeters placed in a half liter flask and treated with barium chlorid
solution as indicated above. The rest of the operation is exactly as has been described. In each case
one milligram of the potassium platinochlorid corresponds to one-tenth per cent of the desired salt.
Estimation of Magnesium Sulfate in Kieserit.—Ten grams of the finely powdered kieserit are boiled
for one hour in a half liter flask two-thirds full of water. After cooling, from fifty to sixty cubic centimeters
of double normal potash lye and twenty cubic centimeters of a ten per cent neutral potassium oxalate
solution are added, the flask filled to the mark, and after being well shaken and standing for a quarter of
an hour, filtered. The reaction is represented by the formula
 MgSO₄ + 2KOH = MgO₂H₂ + K₂SO₄.
Fifty cubic centimeters of the filtrate are then titrated with one-tenth normal sulfuric acid. To the
percentage of magnesium sulfate found by this process two-tenths per cent are to be added as a
correction.
Barium Chlorid Solution.—Dissolve 122 grams of crystallized barium chlorid in water in a liter flask.
Add fifty cubic centimeters of hydrochloric acid and water to the mark and shake well.
260. The Barium Oxalate Method.—The principle of this process, worked out by Schweitzer and
Lungwitz[208] is based on the fact that in an ammoniacal solution, by means of barium oxalate, all the
alkaline earths can be precipitated as oxalates, and sulfuric acid in similar circumstances can be thrown
down as a barium salt and the iron and alumina as hydroxids. The reagents used to secure this
precipitation are ammonia and barium oxalate.
For the determination of potash in a superphosphate the analytical process is conducted as follows:
Ten grams of the superphosphate are mixed with half a liter of water and fifteen grams of barium oxalate
dissolved in hydrochloric acid.
The mixture is boiled for twenty minutes and treated with some hydrogen peroxid to oxidize any
ferrous iron that may be present. Afterwards the solution is made alkaline with ammonia. After cooling, it
is made up to a given volume (half a liter) and filtered. An aliquot part of the filtrate is evaporated to
dryness, ignited, extracted with hot water and, after the addition of a few drops of hydrochloric acid, the
potassium is precipitated with platinic chlorid, and collected and weighed in the usual manner: Or the
ignited residue may be dissolved directly in dilute hydrochloric acid and the rest of the process carried
out as indicated.
In kainit the process is conducted as follows: Ten grams of the powdered sample are treated with a
hydrochloric acid solution of the barium oxalate containing ten grams of the salt. The rest of the
operation is conducted as described above. In the use of this method it is important that always enough
of the barium oxalate solution be employed to fully saturate all the sulfuric acid which may be present.
261. Method of DeRoode for Kainit.—All the potash contained in kainit, according to de Roode,
passes readily into aqueous solution.[209] On evaporating this aqueous solution to a pasty condition with
enough platinic chlorid to unite with all the halogens present all the other bodies can be washed out of
the potassium platinochlorid by ammonium chlorid solution and the pure platinum salt thus obtained,
which is washed and dried in the usual way. De Roode therefore asserts that it is quite useless to
previously precipitate the solution of kainit with barium chlorid, ammonium oxalate, or carbonate. Before
the addition of alcohol to the residue obtained by evaporation with platinic chlorid the sodium sulfate
present renders the platinum salt sticky and difficult to wash, but the disturbing sodium compound can
be readily removed by washing with ammonium chlorid solution.
The method of direct treatment has the advantage of avoiding the occlusion of potash in other
precipitates and the danger of loss on ignition. The method as used by de Roode gives results about
one-tenth per cent higher than are obtained by the official processes.
262. The Calcium Chlorid Method.—Huston has proposed the addition of calcium chlorid to the
solution of a fertilizer in the determination of potash, in order to furnish sufficient calcium to form
tricalcium phosphate with all the phosphoric acid present, and thereby permit of the use of platinum
dishes in the lindo-gladding method.[210] In testing this process de Roode found that when sufficient
calcium chlorid was added to combine with all the phosphoric acid present and then ammonia added in
excess and a portion of the solution filtered, no test for phosphoric acid could be obtained; but, that if in
addition to the calcium chlorid and ammonia, some ammonium oxalate or carbonate was added, a
filtered portion of the solution gave a test for phosphoric acid.[211] This is accounted for by the fact that
the calcium phosphate, which is precipitated by the ammonia, is changed by the ammonium oxalate or
carbonate into calcium oxalate or carbonate and ammonium phosphate, so that the very object for
which the calcium chlorid was added is defeated by the addition of the ammonium oxalate or carbonate.
In order to make the use of calcium chlorid effective it is necessary to filter the liquid from the precipitate
formed by the calcium chlorid and ammonia and then add the ammonium oxalate or carbonate to the
filtrate. This necessitates two separate filtrations and makes the proposed method of Huston as long as
the old process.
263. Rapid Control Method for Potash Salts.—For rapid control work where great accuracy is not
required Albert recommends that the finely ground substance be placed in a liter flask and about 400
cubic centimeters of water added and three cubic centimeters of hydrochloric acid.[212] After boiling,
barium chlorid is added drop by drop as long as a precipitate is produced. After cooling, the flask is filled
to the mark and shaken and its contents filtered through a dry filter. An aliquot portion of the filtrate is
evaporated with platinum chlorid solution in a smooth porcelain dish almost to dryness and the mass
treated with alcohol, filtered through a weighed filter, and well washed with alcohol. The filter is then
dried in an air-bath to a constant weight. For the different kinds of potash materials on the market the
following proportions are recommended:
Kainit or Carnallit.—Twenty grams in one liter: Fifty cubic centimeters of the filtrate are evaporated
with forty of platinic chlorid solution. The weight of potassium platinochlorid obtained × 19.3 gives the
per cent of K₂O.
Sulfate of Potash.—Fifteen grams in one liter: Twenty cubic centimeters of the solution are
evaporated with fifteen of platinic chlorid. The weight of potassium platinochlorid obtained × 64.33 gives
the per cent of K₂O.
Potassium Chlorid.—Ten grams in one liter: Twenty-five cubic centimeters are evaporated with
fifteen of platinic chlorid solution. The weight of the precipitate obtained × 77.2 gives the per cent of
K₂O.
264. Weighing the Precipitate as Metallic Platinum.—Hilgard calls attention to the difficulty of
weighing the double chlorid of platinum and potash as such, although he acknowledges that in the
gooch this weighing can be made with great accuracy.[213] He prefers to estimate the platinum in the
metallic state and uses for this purpose a platinum crucible the inside of which, half way up from the
bottom, is coated with a layer of platinum sponge, which is conveniently prepared by the decomposition
of a few decigrams of the platinum double salt by inclining the crucible and rotating it during the
progress of the reduction, using about a quarter of an hour in all. The platinum sponge produced in this
way greatly favors the decomposition of the double salt for analytical purposes. The decomposition of
the salt takes place quickly and quietly and at conveniently low temperatures.
When the decomposition is ended the crucible is strongly heated so as to hold the platinum sponge,
which is produced, together sufficiently to prevent its being removed in the subsequent washing of the
crucible by decantation. By the ignition at a high temperature necessary to secure this, the greater part
of the calcium chlorid is volatilized. After cooling, a few drops of concentrated hydrochloric acid are
placed in the crucible and if the slightest yellow color be shown the acid is evaporated and the ignition
repeated, with the addition of a little oxalic acid. In most cases the slight yellow color produced comes
from a trace of iron and will therefore appear again after the second ignition. The crucible is
subsequently washed by repeated decantations, finally with boiling water, and after drying is ignited and
weighed.
The advantage of this process is that without further trouble the reduced metal is completely freed of
any salts of the alkaline earths, etc., which have been carried down with it and also from any of the
uncombined sodium chlorid which may not have been washed out by the alcohol. In fact, the results
obtained in this way are nearly always lower than those obtained through the direct weighing of the
double salt, and the wash water which is first poured off contains, as a rule, traces of the alkaline earths
and almost without exception some sodium chlorid. Correction for the filter ash is unnecessary because
the ash is completely dissolved by the treatment received. The platinum sponge which is collected in the
crucible in this way is removed in case it does not adhere to the sides and the crucible is then ready for
the next operation.
265. Sources of Error in the Platinum Method.—In the comparative work done in the
determination of potash by the members of the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists there has
been noted, from year to year, marked differences in the data obtained by different analysts. Such
differences often are due to personal errors, or a failure to accurately follow the directions for
manipulation. Sometimes, however, they are due to sources of error in the processes employed. In the
platinum method these sources of error have been long known to exist. Chief among these is the
remarkable facility with which potash becomes incorporated with the precipitates of other bodies. The
character and magnitude of some of these errors have lately been studied by Robinson.[214]
Many precipitates occlude potash and hold it so firmly that it cannot be washed out with hot water
although the potash compounds present in the precipitate are perfectly soluble. It appears to be a kind
of molecular adhesion. Barium sulfate has this property of attaching potash molecules in a high degree,
and ferric and aluminic compounds only to a slightly less extent. To reduce the losses, consequent on
the conditions just mentioned, to a minimum, the sulfuric acid and earthy bases should be very slowly
precipitated, with violent agitation, at a boiling temperature.
Another source of loss in the platinum method arises from the use of a solution of ammonium chlorid
for washing the potassium platinochlorid precipitate. There is danger here, not only of the solution of the
impurities present in the precipitate, but also of a double decomposition by means of which some
ammonium may be substituted for the potassium in the washed product. In the official method,
moreover, there is danger of securing a final precipitate which may contain traces of calcium and
magnesium sulfates when these bodies are abundantly present in the sample taken for analysis. The
careful analyst must guard against these sources of error, but it is probably true that he will never secure
a practically chemically pure precipitate of potassium platinochlorid when working on the mixed
fertilizers found in commerce.
266. Effect of Concentration on the Accuracy of Potash Analysis.—Winton has also studied the
sources of error in the determination of potash as platinochlorid, especially with reference to the effect of
the concentration of the solution at the time of precipitation.[215]
He finds that the method of precipitating in concentrated solutions and drying the potassium
platinochlorid at 130°, depends for its accuracy upon the mutual compensation of three errors; viz., (1)
to the solubility of the potassium salt in eighty per cent alcohol, (2) to the presence of water in the
crystals which is not driven off at 130°, and (3) the use of a factor based on the wrong atomic weight of
platinum.
He finds, further, that the error due to the presence of water occluded in the crystals can be reduced
to a minimum, and the process of drying greatly simplified, by adding the solution of platinum chlorid to
the potash solution in a dilute condition, not exceeding one per cent in strength. The potassium
platinochlorid thus produced can be very effectively dried at 100°. The error due to the solubility of the
salt in eighty per cent alcohol can also be greatly reduced by using ninety-five per cent alcohol. The
error due to the wrong factor, based on the old atomic weight of platinum, viz., 0.3056, can be corrected
by using the factor based on the recently determined atomic weight of platinum, viz., 195, which is
0.30688.
267. Differences in Crystalline Form.—Winton has also observed a distinct difference in the
crystals of potassium platinochlorid when obtained from concentrated and dilute solutions.[216] When
platinic chlorid is added to a concentrated solution of potassium chlorid, a large part of the salt which is
formed is precipitated in a pulverulent state, the remainder being deposited on evaporation. After
treating with alcohol, filtering, and drying, the double salt is found in the state of a fine powder which,
when examined under the microscope, is found to consist largely of radiating crystals. The characteristic
form is one having six arms formed by the intersection, at right angles, of three bars. Numerous globular
cavities in the crystals are observed in which mother liquid is enclosed. For this reason the salt is not
easily dried at 100°, but when so dried loses additional moisture at 130°, and still more at 160°. The total
additional loss, after drying at 100°, from this cause may amount to as much as six-tenths per cent of
potassium chlorid.
When, however, the solution of the potassium salt is so dilute that no precipitate at all is formed on
the addition of platinic chlorid, the double salt is all deposited, as well as formed slowly, during the
evaporation and occurs exclusively as octahedra. These octahedra are comparatively free of cavities,
and give up practically all their moisture when dried at 100°. A method of procedure therefore for potash
determination, based on the above principle of the addition of the reagent to dilute solutions, and drying
the double salt produced upon evaporation, after washing with ninety-five per cent alcohol at 100°, and
using the factor 0.30688 for potassium chlorid and 0.1939 for potassium oxid, gives good results and is
regarded as better than any of the methods which prescribe the addition of platinic chlorid to highly
concentrated potash solutions.
268. Factors for Potash Estimation.—The factor now in use by the official chemists to convert
potassium platinochlorid into potash (K₂O) is 0.19308, and for potassium chlorid 0.3056.
Wolfbauer gives the differences which may arise by computing the potash from its platino-double
chlorid by the different values assigned to the atomic weight of platinum.[217]
The common factor used to obtain potassium chlorid from potassium platinochlorid is based on the
atomic weight 197.18 and is derived from the formula:
2(39.13 + 35.46) 149.18
= = 0.30557.
2 × 39.13 + 197.18 + 6 × 35.46 488.20
The variations arising from taking other assigned values for the atomic weight of platinum are shown
in the following table:
Factor for potassium Relation to factor 0.30557
chlorid from in per cent
Atomic
Determined or Potassium Potassium
weight of Platinum. Platinum.
calculated by platinochlorid. platinochlorid.
Platinum.
197.18 Berzelius 0.30557 0.75658 100.00 100.00
197.88 Andrews 0.30517 0.75390 99.86 99.65
195.06 Haberstadt 0.30690 0.76468 100.44 101.07
Seubert and
194.87 0.30700 0.76555 100.47 101.20
Clark
The factor 0.3056 is regarded as the best for the computation from potassium platinochlorid and
0.7566 from platinum. It is also suggested that it is better to make the computation from the reduced
platinum than from the double salt.
269. Recovery of the Platinum Waste and Preparation of the Platinic Chlorid Solution.—(1) By
Reduction in Alkaline Alcohol.—All filtrates containing platinic chlorid, all precipitates of potassium
platinochlorid and all residues of metallic platinum should be carefully preserved and the platinum
recovered therefrom by the following process: The platinum residues are placed in a large porcelain
dish. Since these residues contain a large amount of alcohol they should be diluted with about one-third
their volume of water, and when boiling treated with some sodium carbonate. The solid potassium
platinochlorids should not be added until the liquid is boiling, and then only little by little. The heating on
the water-bath is continued until the liquid floating over the platinum sponge is quite clear and only
slightly yellow. The liquid is then poured off and the reduced platinum purified by boiling with
hydrochloric acid and water. It is then dried and ignited to destroy any organic matter which may be
present. It is advisable to boil the finely divided platinum once with strong nitric acid, and after this is
poured off the solution of the platinum is effected in a large porcelain dish over a water-bath by adding
about four times its weight of hydrochloric acid, warming, and adding nitric acid, little by little. After the
platinum is in solution the evaporation is continued until a drop of the liquid, removed by a glass rod,
quickly solidifies. The crystalline mass which is formed on cooling is taken up with water and filtered,
and then a sufficient amount of water added so that each ten cubic centimeters will contain one gram of
platinum. The specific gravity of this solution is 1.18 at ordinary temperatures. Special care must be
taken that the solution contains neither platinous chlorid nor nitrogen compounds. If the first named
compound be present it should be converted into platinic chlorid by treatment with fuming hydrochloric
acid and a little nitric acid. The last mentioned compound may be removed by evaporating successively
with hydrochloric acid and water. If the platinic chlorid be made from waste platinum, the danger of
contamination with iridium must be considered. In such a case the platinum should be separated as
ammonium platinochlorid, which can afterwards be reduced as above indicated. A convenient test of the
purity of platinic chlorid solution is accomplished by the precipitation of a known weight of chemically
pure potassium salt.
(2) By Reduction in Nascent Hydrogen.—The platinum residues, filtrates containing platinum, etc.,
are collected in a large flask and evaporated in a large dish on a water-bath, and reduced by means of
zinc and hydrochloric acid to metallic platinum, the mass being warmed until all the zinc has been
dissolved. The supernatant liquid standing over the spongy platinum is decanted and the spongy mass
boiled twice with distilled water. The spongy platinum is then brought on a filter and washed till the
filtrate shows no acid reaction. The filter and platinum sponge are next incinerated in a platinum dish
and the residue weighed. The weighed mass of pure platinum is dissolved in hydrochloric acid, with the
addition of as little nitric acid as possible, and, after cooling, filtered. The filtrate is afterwards evaporated
in a porcelain dish on a water-bath to a sirupy consistence, taken up with water and filtered. To this
filtrate enough water is now added to make the solution correspond to one gram of metallic platinum in
ten cubic centimeters.

THE ESTIMATION OF POTASH AS PERCHLORATE.

270. General Principles.—By reason of the great cost of platinum chlorid analysts have sought for a
reagent of a cheaper nature and yet capable of forming an insoluble compound with potash.
Phosphomolybdic and perchloric acids are the reagents which have given the most promising results.
[218] The principle of the method with the latter salt is based on the insolubility of potassium perchlorate
in strong alcohol containing a little perchloric acid and the comparative easy solubility of the other bases
usually associated with potassium in water. The French chemists have stated that magnesia, when
present in considerable quantities, interferes with the accuracy of the results. Since in soil analysis
considerable quantities of magnesia are often found, this base, according to the French chemists,
should previously be removed when present in any considerable quantity, by the process described in
the first volume. Kreider, however, as will be seen further on, working in the presence of magnesia, did
not notice any disturbing effects caused thereby. The method is applicable to the common potash salts
of the trade and with certain precautions to mixed salts. As will be mentioned later on, sulfuric acid
should be previously removed and this is likely to introduce an error on account of the tendency of
barium sulfate to entangle particles of potash among its molecules and thus remove them from solution.
The barium sulfate should be precipitated slowly and in a strongly acid (nitric or hydrochloric) solution.
The loss, which is inevitable, is thus reduced to a minimum and does not seriously affect the value of the
numbers found. It is important to have an abundant supply of pure perchloric acid, and as this is not
readily obtainable in the market the best methods of preparing it are given below. The method, while it
has not been worked out extensively, is one of merit, and seemingly is worthy of fair trial by analysts.
The process is by no means a new one, but it will not be necessary to describe here its development
any further than to refer to the methods proposed by Serullas,[219] Schlösing,[220] Kraut,[221] and
Bertrand,[222] The method was fully developed by a committee appointed by the French agricultural
chemists in 1887.[223]
Wense has also described an improved method of estimating potash as perchlorate after the
removal of sulfuric acid and also a process of preparing perchloric acid by distilling potassium
perchlorate with sulfuric acid in a vacuum.[224] He was also the first who proposed the plan of rendering
potassium perchlorate insoluble in alcohol by dissolving a little perchloric acid therein.[225] The best
approved methods now known of preparing the perchloric acid and conducting the analysis will be
described in the following paragraphs.
271. Caspari’s Method for Preparing Perchloric Acid.—A hessian crucible about fifteen
centimeters high is filled with moderately well compressed pure potassium chlorate and gradually
heated in a suitable furnace until the contents become fluid.[226] The heat must then be carefully
regulated to avoid loss by foaming due to the evolution of oxygen. The heat is continued until oxygen is
no longer given off and the surface of the liquid becomes encrusted, which will take place in from one
and a half to two hours.
 After cooling, the contents of the crucible are pulverized and heated, with vigorous stirring, to boiling,
with one and a half times their weight of water. By this process the potassium chlorid which has formed
during the first reaction is dissolved and is thus removed. The residual salt is washed with additional
quantities of cold water and finally dried. To remove the potassium salt from the crude potassium
perchlorate obtained as above, recourse is had to hydrofluosilicic acid. The reaction is represented by
the following formula: 2KClO₄ + H₂SiF₆ = K₂SiF₆ + HClO₄. In order to effect this decomposition the
potassium perchlorate is dissolved in seven times its weight of hot water and an excess of
hydrofluosilicic added to the boiling solution. The boiling is continued for about an hour until particles of
potassium perchlorate can no longer be detected with addition of water to compensate for evaporation.
On cooling the gelatinous potassium silicofluorid is deposited and the perchloric acid separated
therefrom as completely as possible by decantation. The residue is again boiled with water and a little
hydrofluosilicic acid and the clear liquor thus obtained added to the first lot. Finally, any residual
perchloric acid may be removed on an asbestos felt under pressure. The clear liquid thus obtained is
evaporated on a steam-bath to the greatest possible degree of concentration and allowed to stand in a
cool place for twenty-four hours, whereby is effected the separation of any remaining potassium
silicofluorid or potassium perchlorate. The residual liquid when filtered through an asbestos felt should
give a perfectly clear filtrate. In order to throw out the last traces of hydrofluosilicic acid and any sulfuric
acid present an equal volume of water is added, and while cold small quantities of barium chlorid are
successively added until the barium salt is present in a very slight excess. The clear supernatant liquid
is poured off after a few hours and evaporated until the hydrochloric acid is all expelled and white fumes
of perchloric acid are noticed. Any potassium perchlorate still remaining will now be separated and, in
the cold, sodium perchlorate will also be separated in crystals. The clear residue is again diluted with an
equal volume of water and any barium salts present carefully removed with sulfuric acid. The mass is
allowed to stand for one or two days, and is then filtered through paper and is ready for use. The purity
of the acid obtained depends chiefly on the purity of the hydrofluosilicic acid at first used. Hence to get
good results this acid must be free from foreign bodies. If an absolutely pure product be desired the acid
above obtained must be distilled in a vacuum.
272. Method of Kreider.—Kreider has worked out a simpler method of preparing perchloric acid
which will make it easy for every analyst to make and keep a supply of this admirable yet unappreciated
reagent. This method is conducted as follows:[227]
A convenient quantity of sodium chlorate, from 100 to 300 grains, is melted in a glass retort or round-
bottomed flask and gradually raised to a temperature at which oxygen is freely, but not too rapidly
evolved, and kept at this temperature till the fused mass thickens throughout, indicating the complete
conversion of the chlorate to the chlorid and perchlorate, which requires from one and one-half to two
hours: or the retort may be connected with a gasometer and the end of the reaction determined by the
volume of oxygen expelled, according to the equation

2NAClO₃ = NACl + NAClO₄ + O₂.

The product thus obtained is washed from the retort to a capacious evaporating dish where it is
treated with sufficient hydrochloric acid to effect the complete reduction of the residual chlorate, which, if
the ignition has been carefully conducted with well distributed heat, will be present in but small amount.
It is then evaporated to dryness on the steam-bath, or more quickly over a direct flame, and with but little
attention until a point near to dryness has been reached, when stirring will be found of great advantage
in facilitating the volatilization of the remaining liquid and in breaking up the mass of salt. Otherwise the
perchlorate seems to solidify with a certain amount of water and its removal from the dish, without
moistening and reheating, is impossible.
After triturating the residue, easily accomplished in a porcelain mortar, an excess of the strongest
hydrochloric acid is added to the dry salt, preferably in a tall beaker where there is less surface for the
escape of hydrochloric acid and from which the acid can be decanted without disturbing the precipitated
chlorid. If the salt has been reduced to a very fine powder, by stirring energetically for a minute, the
hydrochloric acid will set free the perchloric acid and precipitate the sodium as chlorid, which in a few
minutes settles, leaving a clear solution of the perchloric acid with the excess of hydrochloric acid. The
clear supernatant liquid is then decanted upon a gooch, through which it may be rapidly drawn with the
aid of suction, and the residue retreated with the strongest hydrochloric acid, settled, and again
decanted, the salt being finally brought upon the filter where it is washed with a little strong hydrochloric
acid. A large platinum cone will be found more convenient than the crucible, because of its greater
capacity and filtering surface. When the filter will not hold all the sodium chlorid, the latter, after washing,
may be removed by water or by mechanical means, with precautions not to disturb the felt, which is then
ready for the remainder. Of course, if water is used, the felt had better be washed with a little strong
hydrochloric acid before receiving another portion of the salt. This residue will be found to contain only
an inconsiderable amount of perchlorate, when tested by first heating to expel the free acid and then
treating the dry and powdered residue with ninety-seven per cent alcohol, which dissolves the
perchlorate of sodium but has little soluble effect on the chlorid.
The filtrate, containing the perchloric acid with the excess of hydrochloric acid and the small per cent
of sodium chlorid which is soluble in the latter, is then evaporated over the steam-bath till all hydrochloric
acid is expelled and the heavy white fumes of perchloric acid appear, when it is ready for use in
potassium determinations. Evidently the acid will not be chemically pure because the sodium chlorid is
not absolutely insoluble in hydrochloric acid; but a portion tested with silver nitrate will prove that the
sodium, together with any other bases which may have gone through the filter, has been completely
converted into perchlorate, and unless the original chlorate contained some potassium or on
evaporation the acid was exposed to the fumes of ammonia, the residue of the evaporation of a portion
is easily and completely soluble in ninety-seven per cent alcohol and its presence is therefore
unobjectionable. One cubic centimeter of the acid thus obtained gives on evaporation a residue of only
0.036 gram, which is completely soluble in ninety-seven per cent alcohol.
Caspari’s acid under similar treatment gave a residue in one case of 0.024 gram and in another
0.047 gram. If, however, a portion of pure acid be required, it may be obtained by distilling this product
under diminished pressure and, as Caspari has shown, without great loss providing the heat is
regulated according to the fumes in the distilling flask.
Some modification of the above treatment will be found necessary in case the sodium chlorate
contains any potassium as an impurity, or if the latter has been introduced from the vessel in which the
fusion was made. In these circumstances the hydrochloric acid would not suffice for the removal of
potassium, since a trace might also go over with the sodium and thus on evaporation a residue insoluble
in ninety-seven per cent alcohol be obtained. To avoid this difficulty, the mixture of sodium perchlorate
and chlorid, after treating with hydrochloric acid for the reduction of the residual chlorate, being reduced
to a fine powder, is well digested with ninety-seven per cent alcohol, which dissolves the sodium
perchlorate but leaves the chlorid, as well as any potassium salt insoluble. By giving the alcohol time to
become saturated, which was facilitated by stirring, it was found on filtering and evaporating that an
average of about two-tenths of a gram of sodium perchlorate are obtained for every cubic centimeter of
alcohol and that the product thus obtained is comparatively free of chlorids, until the perchlorate is
nearly all removed, when more of the chlorid seems to dissolve. This treatment with alcohol is continued
until on evaporation of a small portion of the latest filtrate, only a small residue is found. The alcoholic
solution of the perchlorate is then distilled from a large flask until the perchlorate begins to crystallize,
when the heat is removed and the contents quickly emptied into an evaporating dish, the same liquid
being used to wash out the remaining portions of the salt. When the distillation is terminated at the point
indicated, the distillate will contain most of the alcohol employed, but in a somewhat stronger solution,
so that it requires only diluting to ninety-seven per cent to fit it for use in future preparations. The salt is
then evaporated to dryness on the steam-bath and subsequently treated with strong hydrochloric acid
for the separation of the perchloric acid.
One cubic centimeter of the acid prepared in this way, on evaporation gave a residue in one case of
0.0369 gram, and in another 0.0307 gram, completely soluble in ninety-seven per cent alcohol, which
was then ignited and the chlorin determined by silver from which the equivalent of perchloric acid in the
form of salts was calculated as 0.0305 gram. By neutralizing the acid with sodium carbonate,
evaporating, igniting in an atmosphere of carbon dioxid till decomposition was complete, collecting the
oxygen over caustic potash, allowing it to act on hydriodic acid by intervention of nitric oxid, according to
a process soon to be published, titrating the iodin liberated, with standard arsenic and calculating the
equivalent of perchloric acid, after subtracting the amount of acid found in the form of salts, the amount
of free acid per cubic centimeter proved to be 0.9831 gram.
 The whole process, even when the separation with alcohol is necessary, can not well require more
than two days and during the greater part of that time the work proceeds without attention.
273. Keeping Properties of Perchloric Acid.—By most authorities it is asserted that perchloric acid
is a very unstable body and is liable to decompose with explosive violence even when kept in the dark.
It is probable that this tendency to spontaneous decomposition has been exaggerated. It is not even
mentioned in Gmelin’s Handbook.[228]
The most concentrated aqueous acid has a specific gravity of 1.65, is colorless, fumes slightly when
exposed to the air, and boils at 200°. It has no odor, possesses an oily consistence and has a strong
and agreeably acid taste. It reddens litmus without bleaching it and is slowly volatilized at 138° without
decomposition. It is unaffected by exposure to the light, even the sun’s rays. It is not decomposed by
hydrosulfuric, sulfurous, or hydrochloric acids, nor by alcohol. Paper saturated with the strong acid does
not take fire spontaneously, but it deflagrates with red-hot charcoal.
The acid prepared by the method of Kreider has approximately the composition of the di-hydrate,
HClO₄·2H₂O.[229] Unless well evaporated, however, it is a little more dilute than is shown by the above
formula. The di-hydrate is quite stable and the more dilute acid can be kept for an indefinite time.
Kreider has kept the acid for six months and noticed no change whatever in its composition. Acid
containing one gram of perchloric acid in a cubic centimeter has been kept three months with perfect
safety. There is no reason why the strong aqueous acid should not be made a regular article of
commerce by dealers in chemical supplies, under proper restrictions for storage and transportation.
The strong acid made in this laboratory by the Kreider method has not given the least indication of
easy or spontaneous decomposition.
274. The Analytical Process.—The perchlorate process cannot be applied in the presence of
sulfuric acid or dissolved sulfates. This acid, when present, is to be removed by the usual methods
before applying the perchloric acid. Phosphoric acid may be present, but in this case a considerable
excess of the reagent must be used. The process, as originally proposed by Caspari and carried out by
Kreider, is as follows:[230]
The substance, free from sulfuric acid, is evaporated for the expulsion of free hydrochloric acid, the
residue stirred with twenty cubic centimeters of hot water and then treated with perchloric acid, in
quantity not less than one and one-half times that required by the bases present, when it is evaporated,
with frequent stirring, to a thick, sirup-like consistency, again dissolved in hot water and evaporated, with
continued stirring, till all hydrochloric acid has been expelled and the fumes of perchloric acid appear.
Further loss of perchloric acid is to be compensated for by addition of more. The cold mass is then well
stirred with about twenty cubic centimeters of wash alcohol—ninety-seven per cent alcohol containing
two-tenths per cent by weight of pure perchloric acid, with precautions against reducing the potassium
perchlorate crystals to too fine a powder. After settling, the alcohol is decanted on the asbestos filter and
the residue similarly treated with about the same amount of wash alcohol, settled, and again decanted.
The residual salt is then deprived of alcohol by gently heating, dissolved in ten cubic centimeters of hot
water and a little perchloric acid, when it is evaporated once more, with stirring, until fumes of perchloric
acid rise. It is then washed with one cubic centimeter of wash alcohol, transferred to the asbestos,
preferably by a policeman to avoid excessive use of alcohol, and covered finally with pure alcohol; the
whole wash process requiring from about fifty to seventy cubic centimeters of alcohol. It is then dried at
about 130° and weighed.
The substitution of a gooch for the truncated pipette employed by Caspari will be found
advantageous; and asbestos capable of forming a close, compact felt should be selected, inasmuch as
the perchlorate is in part unavoidably reduced, during the necessary stirring, to so fine a condition that it
tends to run through the filter when under pressure. A special felt of an excellent quality of asbestos was
prepared for the determinations given below and seemed to hold the finer particles of the perchlorate
very satisfactorily.
A number of determinations made of potassium, unmixed with other bases or non-volatile acids, is
recorded in the following table:
 Potassium Potassium Error on Error on
Volume of Error on
chlorid perchlorate potassium potassium
filtrate. potash.
taken. found. perchlorate. chlorid.
Cubic
Grams. Grams. Grams. Grams. Grams.
centimeters.
0.1000 54 0.1851 0.0008— 0.0004— 0.0003—
0.1000 58 0.1854 0.0005— 0.0002— 0.0002—
0.1000 51 0.1859 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
0.1000 50 0.1854 0.0005— 0.0002— 0.0002—
0.1000 48 0.1859 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
0.1000 52 0.1854 0.0005— 0.0002— 0.0002—
Considerable difficulty, however, was experienced in obtaining satisfactory determinations of
potassium associated with sulfuric and phosphoric acids. As Caspari has pointed out, the sulfuric acid
must be removed by precipitation as barium sulfate before the treatment with perchloric acid is
attempted, and unless the precipitation is made in a strongly acid solution, some potassium is carried
down with the barium. Phosphoric acid need not be previously removed, but to secure a nearly
complete separation of this acid from the potassium, a considerable excess of perchloric acid should be
left upon the potassium perchlorate before it is treated with the alcohol. When these conditions are
carefully complied with, fairly good results may justly be expected. Below is given a number of the
results obtained:

(A) = Volume of filtrate. Cubic centimeters.

(B) = Potassium perchlorate found.
(C) = Error on potassium perchlorate.
(D) = Error on potassium chlorid.
(E) = Error on potassium potash.

Compounds
(A) (B) (C) (D) (E)
taken.
Cubic
Grams Grams. Grams. Grams. Grams.
centimeters.
Potassium chlorid = 0.10
Calcium carbonate = 0.13 50 0.1887 0.0027+ 0.0014+ 0.0005+ [231]
Magnesium sulfate = 0.13 82 0.1875 0.0016+ 0.0008+ 0.0005+ [232]
Ferric chlorid = 0.05 80 0.1861 0.0002+ 0.0001+ 0.0001+ [233]
Magnesium sulfate = 0.05 80 0.1843 0.0016- 0.0008- 0.0005- [234]
Manganese dioxid = 0.05 92 0.1839 0.0020- 0.0010- 0.0006- [235]
Sodium phosphate = 0.40 60 0.1854 0.0005- 0.0002- 0.0002- [236]
In the last three experiments of the above table the amount of perchloric acid was about three times
that required to unite with the bases present, and the phosphoric acid subsequently found with the
potassium was hardly enough to appreciably affect the weight, although its absolute removal was found
impossible.
That the magnesia does not produce any disturbing effect, as is supposed by the French chemists,
Kreider has proved by the following test: One hundred and fifty milligrams of magnesium carbonate
were treated with perchloric acid, evaporated till fumes of perchloric acid appeared, and cooled, when
the magnesium perchlorate crystallized: But on treating it with about fifteen cubic centimeters of ninety-
seven per cent alcohol containing two-tenths per cent of perchloric acid a perfectly clear solution was
obtained. If, therefore, a sufficient excess of acid be used, no interference will be caused by the
presence of magnesium.
While it is true, therefore, that the potassium perchlorate obtained may be contaminated with a trace
of phosphoric acid, if the latter be present in large quantity, no fear of contamination with magnesia need
be entertained if a sufficient quantity of the perchloric acid be used.
275. Removal of the Sulfuric Acid.—The practical objection to the removal of the sulfuric acid in
the form of barium sulfate rests on the fact of the mechanical entanglement of some of the potash in the
barium salt. Unless special precautions are taken, therefore, a considerable amount of the potash will
be found with the barium sulfate.
Caspari has succeeded in reducing this amount to a minimum by the following procedure:[237] The
solution of barium chlorid is prepared by dissolving 127 grams of crystallized barium chlorid in water,
adding 125 cubic centimeters of thirty-five per cent hydrochloric acid, and bringing the total volume up to
one liter with water.
Five grams of the substance from which the sulfuric acid is to be removed are boiled with 150 cubic
centimeters of water and twenty of strong hydrochloric acid. While the solution is still in ebullition it is
treated, drop by drop with constant stirring, with the barium chlorid solution above mentioned, until a
slight excess is added. This excess does not cause any inconvenience subsequently. After the
precipitation is complete the boiling is continued for a few minutes, the mixture cooled and made up to a
quarter of a liter with water. No account is taken of the volume of the barium sulfate formed since, even
with the precautions mentioned, a little potassium is thrown down and the volume of the barium sulfate
tends to correct this error. With a solution from which the sulfuric acid had been removed as above
indicated, Caspari found a loss of only one milligram of potassium perchlorate in a precipitate weighing
over 800 milligrams.
276. Applicability of the Process.—Experience has shown that sulfuric acid is the only substance
which need be removed from ordinary fertilizers preparatory to the estimation of the potash by means of
perchloric acid. The fact that this process can be used in the presence of phosphoric acid is a matter of
great importance in the estimation of potash in fertilizers, inasmuch as these fertilizers nearly always
contain that acid. The fact that the French chemists noticed that magnesia was a disturbing element in
the process, as has been indicated in volume first, probably arose from its presence as sulfate. Neither
Caspari nor Kreider has noticed any disturbance in the results which can be traced to the presence of
magnesia as a base.
If ammonia be present, however, there is a tendency to the production of ammonium perchlorate
which is somewhat insoluble in the alcohol wash used. Solutions therefore containing ammonia before
treating by the perchlorate method for potash should be rendered alkaline by soda-lye and boiled. With
the precautions above mentioned, the method promises to prove of great value in agricultural analysis,
effecting both a saving of time and expense in potash determinations.
277. Accuracy of the Process.—The perchlorate was tried in conjunction with the platinum method
on the two samples of potash fertilizer prepared and distributed by the official reporter on potash for
1893.[238] One of the samples was of a fertilizer which had been compounded for the Florida trade and
contained bone, dried blood, and potash, mostly in the form of sulfate. The other sample consisted of
mixed potash salts, sulfate, chlorid, double salt, kainit, and about five per cent of the triple sulfate of
calcium, potassium, and magnesium.
The results obtained by Wagner and Caspari on the two samples follow:
Sample No. 1. Sample No. 2.
Per cent potash. Per cent potash.
By the platinum method 13.25 37.98
By the perchlorate method 13.09 37.82
The perchlorate method on the whole appears to be quite as accurate as the platinum process,
requires less manipulation and can be completed in a shorter time and at less expense for reagents.

AUTHORITIES CITED IN
PART THIRD.
[185] Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 97,
p. 7.
[186] Annual Report Connecticut Station, 1892, p. 32.
[187] Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 10.
[188] Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin No.
103, p. 9.
[189] Annual Report, Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment
Station, 1888, p. 202.
[190] Vid. op. cit. 2, 1890, p. 110.
[191] Traité de la Fabrication de Sucre, Horsin-Déon, p. 511.
[192] Chemical Division, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin
No. 37, p. 350.
[193] Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 17, p. 86.
[194] Volume First, pp. 19, et seq.
[195] Precht: Die Stassfurter Kalisalze.
[196] Maercker: Die Kalidüngung, S. 1.
[197] Vid. op. cit. supra, p. 3.
[198] Vid. op. cit. 12, p. 5.
[199] Vid. op. cit. 12, p. 7.
[200] Volume First, pp. 378, et seq.
[201] Chemical News, Vol. 44, pp. 77, 86, 97, and 129.
[202] Chemical Division, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin
No. 7, p. 38.
[203] Vid. supra, Bulletin No. 43, p. 349.
[204] Die Agricultur-Chemische Versuchs-Station, Halle a/S., S.
76.
[205] Methoden van onderzock aan de Rijkslandbouw-
proefstations, 1893, p. 7.
[206] From the Official Swedish Methods. Translated for the
Author by F. W. Woll.
[207] Chemical Division, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin
No. 35, p. 63.
[208] Chemiker Zeitung, Band 18, S. 1320.
[209] Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 17, p. 85.
[210] Chemical Division, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin
No. 43, p. 26.
[211] Vid. op. cit. 25, Vol. 17, p. 46.
[212] Zeitschrift für angewandte Chemie, 1891, S. 281.
[213] Zeitschrift für analytische Chemie, Band 32, S. 184.
[214] Vid. op. cit. 25, Vol. 16, p. 364.
[215] Vid. op. cit. 25, Vol. 17, p. 463.
[216] Vid. op. et. loc. cit. supra.
[217] Chemiker Zeitung, 1890, S. 1246.
[218] Volume First, pp. 369, 375.
[219] Annales de Chimie et de Physique {2}, Tome 46, p. 294.
[220] Comptes rendus, Tome 73, p. 1296.
[221] Zeitschrift für analytische Chemie, Band 14, S. 152.
[222] Chemical News, Vol. 44, p. 316.
[223] Rapport adressé par la Comité des Stations Agronomiques,
1887, p. 10.
[224] Zeitschrift für angewandte Chemie, 1891, S. 691.
[225] Vid. op. cit. supra, 1892, S. 233.
[226] Vid. op. cit. 40, 1893, S. 68.
[227] American Journal of Science, June, 1895, from advance
proofs sent by author.
[228] Watt’s Translation, Vol. 2, pp. 317-318.
[229] Manuscript communication from Mr. Kreider.
[230] Vid. op. et loc. cit. 43.
[231] The residue showed phosphoric acid plainly when tested.
[232] The residue showed phosphoric acid plainly when tested.
[233] Only traces of phosphoric acid found in the residue.
[234] Only traces of phosphoric acid found in the residue.
[235] Only traces of phosphoric acid found in the residue.