Note 4. 4. 32 — GLOSSARY

, 3 Soda di leuante, Or your Ferne ashes. Soda-ash is still the common trade name of sodium carbonate. In former times soda was chiefly obtained from natural deposits and from the incineration of various plants growing by the sea-shore. These sources have become of little importance since the invention of artificial soda by Leblanc toward the end of the eighteenth century (see Soda in CD.). Florio’s definition of soda is: ‘a kind of Ferne-ashes whereof they make glasses.’ Cf. also W. Warde, Tr. Alessio’s Secr., Pt. 1 fol. 78[m] 1º: ‘Take an vnce of Soda (which is asshes made of grasse, whereof glassemakers do vse to make their Cristall).’ In Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale (11. 254 f.) the manufacture of glass out of ‘fern-asshen’ is mentioned as a wonder comparable to that of Canacee’s ring.