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fuller's earth
For those of you who are also curious, I looked up fuller's earth at
Excite.com's ref encyclopedia.
fuller's earth
mineral substance characterized
by the property of absorbing basic
colors and removing them from
oils. It is composed mainly of
alumina, silica, iron oxides,
lime, magnesia, and water, in extremely
variable proportions, and is
generally classified as a sedimentary
clay. In color it may be whitish,
buff, brown, green, olive, or blue. It
is semi plastic or non plastic
and may or may not disintegrate easily
in water. It was originally used
in the fulling of wool to remove oil
and grease but is now used
chiefly in bleaching and clarifying
petroleum and secondarily in
refining edible oils. Fuller's earth is
mined in many parts of the United
States, Georgia and Florida
being the leading producers, and
in England near Reigate, Nutfield,
and Bath. Before it can be used,
it has to be crushed and dried.
--
Harvey Schneider
<harvsch at earthlink_net>