alum• Spence's product was an ammonium alum which gradually displaced the potashalum which had been made principally at Whitby.• He sprayed a picric acid and alumsolution into the noses of forty-six hundred Alabamians, to no good end.• Much of the long-distancetrade was in commoditiesconnected with the clothindustry, notably dyestuffs such as woad and alum.• Here he also made alum and sulphuric acid by the lead chamber process.• The treatment so far had been innocuous: quinine pills and injections of alum water.• He learned, among other things, what alum served for, besides dyeing.• Whit- or white-leather was leather that had been dressed with alum, and it was often horse-leather.