ANIMAL SUBSTANCES. Among the most important materials of manufactures, are those which are derived from the animal king dom. Few persons are aware, unless they have actually been engaged in manufacturing operations, how numerous and varied these materials are. The bounty of nature has placed at the disposal of man so large a num ber of substances, derived from so large a number of animals, that there is scarcely an article in daily use but can exhibit an applica tion of some such substance, either in its for mation or its decoration. The exterior and the interior, the solids and the liquids—all parts of some animals, and numerous parts of many animals, admit of being thus industri ously applied.
In the classified list of objects which are ad missible to the Industrial Exhibition of 1851, as announced by the Commissioners, the prin cipal materials of manufactures and the arts derived from the animal kingdom are enume rated, and an attempt is made to arrange them into some convenient systematic form. In the first place the whole series is divided into three sections, viz ; 1st. Animal substances used as food ; 2nd. Animal substances used for medi purposes; and 3rd. Animal substances used in manufactures.
Almost every part of almost every species of animal serves as food to some variety or other of the human race. The flesh, the eggs of birds, and the milk of mammals, are obviously the chief forms in which animal food is pre sented ; but there are many other forms to which more or less of preparative process has been applied; such as preserved meats for long voyages ; portable soups ; concentrated nutriments; consolidated milk; dried gelatine, albumen, and isinglass ; caviare, and trepang ; sharks' fins ; nests of the Java swallow ; honey, &c.
The animal substances used in the medicinal art are exceedingly numerous. Those which the Commissioners enumerate as being fit sub jects for exhibition, comprise cod-liver and other animal oils ; unguents of spermaceti, lard, oil, and various combinations of the three ; musk, castoreurn, civet, and ambergris, considered as antispasmodics ; phosphorus and ammonia, from bones and hartshorn ; crabs' eyes (the calcareous concretions formed in the craw-fish), and cuttle-bone, considered as antacids ; cantharides, and their essence can tharitline ; and iodine, obtained from marine zoophytes and sponge.
But the animal substances used in manufac turing processes, though perhaps not equalling in quantity those consumed as food, are far more varied in quality and texture. They are so numerous, that the commissioners have found it convenient to separate this section into five divisions, viz ; Animal substances em ployed, 1st. for textile fabrics and clothing ; 2nd. for domestic or ornamental purposes ; 3rd. for serving as agents in the manufacture of other ar ticles; 4th. for the production of chemical sub stances ; and lith.forpignients and dyes. Under the first division come wool, hair, hair bands and ropes ; bristles and whalebone ; silk from the silkworm, the pinna, and other insects ; feathers, down, and fur ; skins, hides, and leather; elytra or beetle wings, for ornaments of dress ; &c. Under the second division are included bone, horn, hoofs, ivory, tortoise shell, shagreen, parchment, vellum, quills, pearls, seed-pearls, mother o' pearl, buffalo shells, Bombay shells, black shells, white-edge shells, yellow-edge shells, flat shells, green snail shells, coral ; together with a large num ber of softer substances, such as sponge, cat gut, gold-beaters' skin, bladders, spermaceti, wax, lard, tallows, oils, &c. Under the third division come glue, isinglass, gelatine, bone black, ivory black, animal charcoal, &c. Under the fourth division are included bones and other substances from which phosphorus, am monia, cyanides, &c. are procured. Under the fifth division are enumerated cochineal and carmine ; dyes from the galls of aphides ; gall stone pigment from ox-gall ; lac, in its various forms of stick-lac, seed-lac, lump-lac, shell-lac, lac-lake, and lac-dye ; sepia, from the cuttle fish ; essence d'orient, obtained from the scales of the bleak, and used in the manufacture of artificial pearls, &c.
All or nearly all of the above-named sub stances will be found noticed under their proper headings in this Cyclopcedia.