Word: alum
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Last fall the Fairbanks Exploration Co., mining for gold in Alaska, washed the body out of its deep-freeze burial place; the parts that were found, still frozen, had changed little through the centuries. As the skin and flesh began to thaw, workmen embalmed them with formaldehyde, glycerin and alum. They were flown to Manhattan's American Museum of Natural History and quickly refrozen...
Then she fired up the stove, crammed Faustina into several kettles (with "my formula of 10 Ibs. of caustic soda, alum and resin") and boiled them 24 hours. From this she made soap and candles. She ground the bones into flour and made cookies for her other clients. In the same way she murdered a 53-year-old widow (3,000 lire), then a 60-year-old retired soprano, Virginia Cacioppo, said to have sung Butterfly once at La Scala. The diva yielded 50,000 lire and assorted diamonds and rubies, as well as soap and candles...
...Alum for Basic. But the Truman sleuths found little to praise in the sorry story of Basic Magnesium. Conceived by Cleveland's Basic Refractories, Inc., the project mushroomed from a $24,000 investment in magnesium-bearing ore lands to a DPC contract to build and operate a $70,000,000 magnesium plant. Basic Magnesium, the company's operating subsidiary, stood to net a fat $840,000 yearly on the deal, although "it had no financial resources and only the most meager experience and talent." Typical result: although the magnesium-bearing ore was over 200 miles distant, the plant...
Drinking water was so nauseous the mayor's office had to be provided with bottled water; thousands of citizens went daily to Fairmount Park springs to collect their drinking supply. Last week a bluish-black liquid stinking of chlorine, puckery with alum, gushed from many a tap. "There must have been a severe storm in the coal regions," the water bureau explained...