The old Dutch method of manufacturing white-lead consisted in suspending thin sheets of lead in long wooden boxes, at the bottom of which was weak acetic acid. See Lead Manufacture. The boxes were placed in a close stove-room, were either surrounded with horse-dung or had wine-lees put into them, and were subjected to a temperature of 85o to 90o for about a fortnight.,The changes which take place in this process may be shortly stated as follows. The spent tan, or horse-dung, or wine-lees, slowly decompose, generating heat, and evolving carbonic acid. The heat volatilises the acetic acid, and this, with the oxygen of the atmosphere, forms with the metal a basic acetate of the oxide of lead. The carbonic acid derived from the eremacausis of the organic matter decomposes this basic acetate, forming carbonate of lead and neutral acetate; the latter soon becomes basic again, and the same decomposition goes on over and over again, till the metal is entirely converted into basic carbonate.