Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882
V >>
Various >> Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 | 4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10
The water is brought from the pump and discharged into the lower side of
the heater well forward, and passes around the heating tubes to the end,
when it is discharged into a pipe that carries it forward, either direct
to the check or into the purifier, which is located between the frames
under the boiler, and consists of a chamber in which are arranged a live
steam coil and a filter above the coil. The water coming in contact
with the coil, its temperature is increased from the temperature of the
exhaust, 210 deg., to about 250 deg. Fahr., which causes the separation of the
lime salts as before described, and it then passes through the filter
and direct to the boiler from above the filter, which is cleansed by
blowing back through it as before described.
One of these heaters lately tested showed a saving in coal of 22 per
cent, and an increase of evaporation of 1.09 pounds of water per pound
of coal.--_Franklin Journal_.
* * * * *
MONTEVERDE'S STATUE OF ARCHITECTURE.
This precious statue forms the noble figure that adorns the monument
erected to the memory of the architect Carles Sada, who died in 1873.
This remarkable funereal monument is 20 feet high, the superior portion
consisting of a sarcophagus resting upon a level base. Upon this
sarcophagus is placed the statue of "La Architectura," which we
reproduce, and which well exemplifies the genius of the author and
sculptor, Juli Monteverde.--_La Ilustracio Catalana_.
[Illustration: LA ARCHITECTURA.--STATUE BY JULI MONTEVERDE.
ERECTED IN MEMORY OF THE ARCHITECT, CARLES SADA.]
* * * * *
DESIGN FOR A GARDENER'S COTTAGE.
The illustration shows a gardener's cottage recently erected at Downes,
Devonshire, the seat of Colonel Buller, V.C., C.B, C.M.G., from the
designs of Mr. Harbottle, A.R.I.B.A., of Exeter. It is built of red
brick and tile, the color of which and the outline of the cottage give
it a picturesque appearance, seen through the beautiful old trees in one
of the finest parks in Devonshire.--_The Architect_.
[Illustration: Gardener's Cottage at DOWNES for Colonel Buller V.C.,
C.B., C.M.G., _E.H. Harbottle Architect_]
* * * * *
PAPER MAKING "DOWN EAST."
Writing from Gilbertville, a Lewiston journal correspondent says:
Gilbertville, a manufacturing community in the town of Canton,
twenty-five miles from Lewiston, up the Androscoggin, is now a village
of over 500 inhabitants, where three years ago there was but a single
farmhouse. If a town had sprung into existence in a far Western
State with so much celerity, the phenomenon would not be considered
remarkable, perhaps; but growths of this kind are not indigenous to the
New England of the present era. Gilbertville has probably outstripped
all New England villages in the race of the past three years. It is only
one of the signs that old Maine is not dead yet.
Gilbert Brothers erected a saw mill here three years ago. A year later,
the Denison Paper Manufacturing Company, of Mechanic Falls, erected a
big pulp mill, which, also, the town voted to exempt from taxation for
ten years. The mills are valuable companions for each other. The pulp
mill utilizes all the waste of the saw mill. A settlement was speedily
built by the operatives. Gilbertville now boasts of a post-office, a
store, several large boarding houses, a nice school house, and over 500
inhabitants. The pulp mill employs seventy men. It runs night and day.
It manufactures monthly 350 cords of poplar and spruce into pulp. It
consumes monthly 500 cords of wood for fuel, 45 casks of soda ash,
valued at $45 per cask, nine car loads of lime, 24,000 pounds to the
car. It produces 1,000,000 pounds of wet fiber, valued at about $17,000,
monthly. The pay roll amounts to $3,500 per month.
The larger part of the stock used by the mill consists of poplar logs
floated down the Androscoggin and its tributaries. One thousand two
hundred cords of poplar cut in four-foot lengths are piled about the
mill; and a little further up the river are 5,000 cords more. The logs
are hauled from the river and sawed into lengths by a donkey engine,
which cuts about sixty cords per day, and pulls out fourteen logs at
a time. All the spruce slabs made by the saw mill are used with this
poplar. The wood is fed to a wheel armed with many sharp knives. It
devours a cord of wood every fifteen minutes. The four-foot sticks are
chewed into fine chips as rapidly as they can be thrust into the maw of
the chopper. They are carried directly from this machine to the top of
the mill by an endless belt with pockets attached. There are hatchways
in the attic floor, which open upon rotary iron boilers. Into these
boilers the chips are raked, and a solution of lime and soda ash is
poured over them.
This bath destroys all the resinous matter in the wood, and after
cooking five hours the chips are reduced to a mass of soft black pulp.
Each rotary will contain two cords of chips. After the cooking, the pulp
is dumped into iron tanks in the basement, where it is thoroughly washed
with streams of clean cold water. It is then pumped into a machine which
rolls it into broad sheets. These sheets are folded, and condensed by
a hydraulic press of 200 tons pressure. This process reduces its bulk
fifty per cent., and sends profuse jets of water flying out of it. The
soda ash, in which, mixed with lime and water, the chips are cooked, is
reclaimed, and used over and over again. The liquor, after it has been
used, is pumped into tanks on top of large brick furnaces. As it is
heated, it thickens. It is brought nearer and nearer the fire until it
crystallizes, and finally burns into an ash. Eighty per cent. of the ash
used is thus reclaimed. This process is an immense saving to the pulp
manufacturers. The work in the pulp mill is severe, and is slightly
tinged with danger.
Three thousand four hundred pounds of white ash to 2,100 pounds of lime
are the proportions in which the liquor in each vat is mixed. One does
not envy the lot of the stout fellows who crawl into the great rotaries
to stow away the chips. The hurry of business is so great that they
cannot wait for these boilers to cool naturally, after they have cooked
one batch, before putting in another. So they have a fan pump, to which
is attached a canvas hose, and with this blow cooling air currents into
the boiler, or "rotary," as they call it. The rotary is subjected to an
immense pressure, and is very stoutly made of thick iron plates, bolted
together.
Describing the business as carried on at Mechanic Falls, the same paper
says: There are six of these mills on the three dams over which the
Little Androscoggin falls. These are the Eagle, the Star, the Diamond,
the Union, the pulp, and the super calendering mills. The Eagle and the
Star mills run on book papers of various grades. The Union mill runs on
newspaper. The old Diamond mill now prepares pulp stock. The pulp mill
does nothing but bleach the rag pulp and prepare for the machines in the
other mills; while the super-calendering mill gives the paper an extra
finish when ordered. There is practically but one series of processes by
which the paper is made in the various mills.
It is a curious fact that America is not ragged enough to produce the
requisite amount of stock for its own paper mills. Nearly all the rags
used by the Denison Mills (and by others in various parts of the country
as well) are imported from the old countries. All the rags first go
through the "duster." This is a big cylindrical shell of coarse wire
netting. It is rapidly revolved, while a screw running through its
center is turned in the opposite direction. Air currents are forced
through it by a power fan. The rags are continuously fed into one end of
this shell, which is about ten feet long and four feet in diameter. The
screw forces them through the whole length of the shell, while they are
kept buzzing around and subjected to breezes which blow thick clouds of
dirt and dust out of them. The air of the room is thick with European
and Asiatic earth. It is swept up in great rolls on the floor. The man
who operates the duster should have leather lungs.
Overhead is a long room where thirty girls are busily sorting the rags
for the various grades of papers. That the dusting machine is no more
perfect than a human machine is evinced by the murky atmosphere of this
room, by the particles that lodge in the throat of the visitor, and
by the frequent coughing of the sorters. They protect their hair with
turbans of veiling, occasionally decorated with a bit of bright color.
These turbans give the room the appearance of an industrious Turkish
harem. Short, sharp scythe blades, like Turkish scimeters, gleam above
all the girls' benches. When a sorter wishes to cut a rag, she pulls it
across the edge of this blade, and is not obliged to hunt for a pair of
shears.
Curious discoveries are frequently made in the rags. Old pockets,
containing small sums of money, are occasionally found. A foreign coin
valued at about $3 was found a few days ago. In the paper stock, quaint
and valuable old books or pictures are found often. One of the workmen
has a museum composed of curiosities found amid the rags and shreds of
paper. Rev. Dr. Bolles, of Massachusetts, makes an annual pilgrimage
to Mechanic Falls for the sake of the rare old pamphlets, books, and
engravings that he may dig out.
Stuffed in hogsheads, the rags are lowered from this room through
a hatchway, and are given a red hot lime bath. They are placed in
ponderous cylinders of boiler iron, which revolve horizontally in great
gears high above the floor. A mixture of lime and water, which has been
prepared in large brick vats, is poured over them. An iron door, secured
by huge bolts, is closed on them. The cylinder slowly turns around, and
churns the rags in the lime-juice twelve hours. This process is called
bleaching. When the rags come out they are far from white, however. They
are of a uniform dirty brown hue. But the colors have lost their gripe.
When the rags shall have been submitted to the grinding and washing in
pure water, as we shall see them presently, they are easily whitened.
The lime bath is the purgatory of the paper stock.
Before we go any further, we must see what becomes of those soft
and lop-sided bundles which are going into the mills. These contain
chemically prepared wood fiber, a certain percentage of which is used
in nearly all the papers made now. It gives the paper a greater body,
although its fiber is not so strong as that made of rags. The pulp comes
down from Canton in soft brown sheets. These are at once bleached. The
brown fiber is placed in a bath of cold water and chlorate of lime.
There it quietly rests till a sediment settles at the bottom of the
tank. At an opportune moment the workman pours in a copious libation
of boiling water. This causes the escape of the chlorine gas, which
destroys all the color in the pulp. In half an hour it comes out, a mass
of smoking fibers as white as a snow heap. The drainers into which it
goes are large pens with perforated tile floors. The pulp remains in the
drainers till it so dry it is handled with a pitchfork.
We are now ready to look at the beating machines, which have to perform
a very important part in paper making. These are large iron tanks with
powerful grinders revolving in them. Barrow loads of the brown rags are
dumped into them, and clear cold water is poured in. The grinders are
then started. They chew the rags into fine bits. They keep the mass
of rags and water circulating incessantly in the tanks. Clean water
constantly flows in and dirty water as constantly flows out. In the
course of six hours the rags are reduced to a perfectly white pulpy
mass. There is one mill, as we have said, devoted exclusively to the
reduction of rags to this white pulp. It is dried in drainers such as we
saw a few moments ago filled with the wood fiber.
There are other beating machines just like these, which perform a
slightly different service. Their function may be compared to that of an
apothecary's mortar or a cook's mixing dish. The white rag stock and the
white wood fiber are mixed in these, in the required proportions.
At this stage, the pulp is adulterated with China clay, to give it
substance and weight; here the sizing (composed of resin and sal soda)
is put in; oil of vitriol, bluing, yellow ocher, and other chemicals are
added, to whiten or to tint the paper. These beaters are much like
so many soup kettles. Upon the kind, number, and proportion of the
ingredients depends the nature of the product. The percentages of rag
pulp, wood pulp, clay, coloring, etc., used, depend upon the quality of
paper ordered.
After the final beating, the mixture descends into a large reservoir
called the "stuff chest," whence it is pumped to the paper machine. The
pulp is of the consistency of milk when it pours from the spout of
the pumps on the paper machine. The latter is a complicated series of
rollers, belts, sieves, blankets, pumps, and gears, one hundred feet
long. To describe it or to understand a description of it would require
the vocabulary and the knowledge of a scientist. The milky pulp first
passes over a belt of fine wire cloth, through which the water partly
drains. It is ingeniously made to glide over two perforated iron plates,
under which pumps are constantly sucking. You can plainly see the broad
sheet of pulp lose its water and gain thickness as it goes over these
plates. Broad, blanket-like belts of felt take it and carry it over and
between large rolling cylinders filled with hot steam. These dry and
harden it into a sheet which will support itself; and without the aid of
blankets it winds among iron rolls, called calenders, which squeeze it
and give it surface. It is wound upon revolving reels at the end of the
machine.
If a better surface or gloss is required, it is carried to the super
calendering mill, where it is steamed and subjected to a long and
circuitous journey up and down tall stands of calenders upon calenders.
The paper is cut by machines having long, winding knives which revolve
slowly and cut, on the scissors principle--no two points of the blade
bearing on the paper with equal pressure at once. Girls pack the sheets
on the tables as they fall from the cutters, and throw out the damaged
or dirtied sheets. A small black spot or hole or imperfection of any
sort is sufficient to reject a sheet. In some orders fifty per cent. of
the sheets are thrown out. There is no waste, as the damaged paper is
ground into pulp again. Having been cut, the paper must be counted and
folded. Then it is packed into bundles for shipment. The young lady who
does the counting and folding is the wonder of the mill. Giving the
sheets a twist with one hand so as to spread open the edges, she gallops
the fingers of the other hand among them; and as quickly as you or I
could count three, she counts twenty-four and folds the quire. She takes
four sheets with a finger and goes her whole hand and one finger more;
thus she gets twenty-four sheets. Long practice is required to do the
counting rapidly and accurately. Twenty-four sheets, no more and no
less, are always found in her quires.
Papers of different grades are made of different stock, but by the same
process. Some paper stock is used. This must be bleached in lime and
soda ash. There are powerful steam engines in the mills for use when
the water is low. There are large furnaces and boilers which supply the
steam used in the processes.
The Messrs. Denison employ 175 hands at Mechanic Falls. Their pay roll
amounts to about $5,000 per month. The mills produce 350,000 pounds of
paper per month and they ship several car-loads of prepared wood-pulp,
in excess of that required for their own use, weekly. The annual value
of their product is not far from $300,000. They use, for sundries,
each month, 300 tons of coal, 100 casks of common lime, 250 gallons of
burning-oil, 28,000 pounds of chlorate of lime, 3,700 pounds of soda
ash. 10,000 pounds of resin. 24,000 pounds of sal soda, 22,000 pounds of
oil of vitriol, 22,000 pounds of China clay, etc.
* * * * *
WHEAT-MEAL BREAD AS A MEANS OF DIMINISHING TUBERCULAR DISEASE.
By M. YATES, Hon. Sec. Bread Reform League, London.
It is well recognized that defective mineral nutrition is an important
factor in the production of rickets and bad teeth, but as its
influence in predisposing toward tuberculous disease is not so clearly
ascertained, will you kindly allow public attention to be directed to
a statement which was discussed at the Social Science and Sanitary
Congresses and which, if confirmed by further scientific research,
indicates a simple means of diminishing consumption, which, as Dr.
William Fair, F.R.S., says, "is the greatest, the most constant, and the
most dreadful of all the diseases that affect mankind." In "Phosphates
in Nutrition," by Mr. M.F. Anderson, it is stated that although the
external appearances and general condition of a body when death has
occurred from starvation are very similar to those presented in
tuberculous disease, in starvation, "from wasting of the tissues, caused
by the combustion of their organic matter, there would be an apparent
_increase_ in the percentage proportion of mineral matter; on the other
hand, in tubercular disease, there would be a material _decrease_ in the
mineral matter as compared with the general wasting." Analyses, made
by Mr. Anderson, of the vascular tissues of patients who have died
of consumption, scrofula, and allied diseases, show "a very marked
deficiency in the quantity of inorganic matter entering into their
composition; this deficiency is not confined to the organs or tissues
which are apparently the seat of the disease, but in a greater or lesser
degree pervades the whole capillary system."
The observations of Dr. Marcet, F.R.S., show that in phthisis there is
a considerable reduction of the normal amount of phosphoric acid in the
pulmonary tissues; and it is very probable that there is a general drain
of phosphoric acid from the system.
This loss may be caused by the expectoration and night-sweats, or it may
also be produced by defective mineral nutrition, either from deficient
supply in the food, or from non assimilation. But, whatever causes this
deficiency, it is universally acknowledged that it is essential the food
should contain a proper supply of the mineral elements. If the body is
well nourished, the resisting force of the system is raised. Professor
Koch and others, who accept the germ theory of disease to its fullest
extent, state that the minute organisms of tubercular disease do not
occur in the tissues of healthy bodies, and that when introduced into a
living body their propagation and increase are greatly favored by a low
state of the general health.
Dr. Pavy, F.R.S., showed in his address on the "Dietetics of Bread" that
in white flour, instead of obtaining the 23 parts of mineral matter
to 100 parts of nitrogenous matter--which is the accepted ratio of
a standard diet--we should only get 4.20 parts of mineral matter.
Professor Church states that 1 lb. of white flour has only 49 grains of
mineral matter, while 1 lb. of whole wheat meal has 119 grains. Whole
wheat meal, besides containing other essential mineral elements,
has double the amount of lime, and nearly three times the amount of
phosphoric acid; so that if defective mineral nutrition in any way
predisposes to consumption, the adoption of wheat meal prepared in a
digestible and palatable form is of primary importance for those who are
unable to obtain the phosphates from high-priced animal foods.
Wheat meal has also great advantages for those who are able to afford
animal food, for, as Dr. Pavy stated, "It acts as a greater stimulant to
the digestive organs."
It is probably due to this stimulating property of wheat meal that
people who have adopted it find they can digest animal fat much better
than previously. If this is corroborated by general experience, it may
be of great benefit in aiding the system to resist tendencies toward
consumption and scrofula, for these diseases are generally accompanied
by loss of the power of assimilating fat. It is believed that a
deficiency of oleaginous matter is a predisposing cause of tuberculous
disease. An important prophylactic, therefore, against such maladies,
would be a general increase in the use of butter and other fatty foods.
There is such good reason to believe that a low state of nutrition
favors the development of tuberculous disease, that parents cannot be
too strongly urged to provide their children with a proper supply of
healthy, nourishing, and pure food (under which term must, of course, be
included pure air and pure water), for by so doing they may often arrest
consumptive tendencies, and thus would be diminished the ravages of
that fatal disease which, when once established, is "the despair of the
physician, and the terror of the public."
* * * * *
THE NEW YORK FISH COMMISSION PONDS AT CALEDONIA.
The capacity of the New York State fish farm at Caledonia is 6,000,000
fry a year. The recently issued report of the fish commissioners says
that this year the ponds will be worked to their full capacity.
The supply of spawn has been greater than could be hatched there, and
supplies were sent to responsible persons in every State in the Union to
be experimented with. At the date of issuing the report the supply of
stock fish at the hatchery embraced, it was estimated, a thousand salmon
trout, of weights ranging from four to twelve pounds; ten thousand
brook trout, from half a pound to two pounds in weight; thirty thousand
California mountain trout, weighing from a quarter of a pound to three
pounds; forty-seven hundred rainbow trout, of from a quarter of a
pound to two pounds' weight; and a large number of hybrids produced by
crossing and interbreeding of different members of the salmon tribe. In
this connection reference is made to the interesting fact that hybrids
of the fish family are not barren. Spawners produced by crossing the
male brook trout with the female salmon trout cast 72,000 eggs last
fall, which hatched as readily as the spawn of their progenitors. The
value of the stock of breeding fish at the hatchery is estimated at
$20,000.
The hatch of salmon trout this season was not far from 1,200,000, and
these will be distributed chiefly in the large lakes of the interior.
About a million little brook trout were produced. The commission doubts
whether much benefit has resulted from attempting to stock small streams
that have once been good trout waters, but the temperature of which has
been changed by cutting away the forest trees that overhung them. The
best results have been attained where the waters are of considerable
extent, especially those in and bordering on the wilderness in the
northern part of the State. The experiments with California trout, have
been very successful, and it is found that the streams most suitable for
them, are the Hudson, Genesee, Mohawk, Moose, Black, and Beaver rivers,
and the East and West Canada creeks. The commission hopes to hatch
6,000,000 or 8,000,000 shad this season at a cost of about $1,000.
Concerning German carp, the commissioners find that the water at
Caledonia is too cold for this fish, but think that carp would do well
in waters further south.
The commission awaits a more liberal appropriation of money before
beginning the work of hatching at the new State fish farm at Cold
Spring, on the north side of Long Island, thirty miles out from
Brooklyn.
* * * * *
MIOCENE MAN.
Grant Allen, an English evolutionist, gives this imaginary picture
of our supposed ancestor: "We may not unjustifiably picture him to
ourselves as a tall and hairy creature, more or less erect, but with a
slouching gait, black faced and whiskered, with prominent, prognathous
muzza, and large, pointed canine teeth, those of each jaw fitted into
an interspace in the opposite row. These teeth, as Mr. Darwin suggests,
were used in the combats of the males. His forehead was no doubt low and
retreating, with bony bosses underlying the shaggy eyebrows, which
gave him a fierce expression, something like that of the gorilla. But
already, in all likelihood, he had learned to walk habitually erect, and
had begun to develop a human pelvis, as well as to carry his head more
straight on his shoulders. That some such animal must have existed seems
to me an inevitable corollary from the general principles of evolution
and a natural inference from the analogy of other living genera."
* * * * *
GOULIER'S TUBE-GAUGE.
As well known, the method by which glass barometer tubes are made gives
them variable calibers. Not only do the different tubes vary in size,
but even the same tube is apt to have different diameters throughout
its length, and its sections are not always circular. Manufacturers
of barometers often have need to know exactly the dimensions of the
sections of these tubes, and to ascertain whether they are equal
throughout a certain length of tube, and this is especially necessary in
those instruments in which the surfaces of the sections of the reservoir
and tube must bear a definite ratio to one another. Having ascertained
that no apparatus existed for measuring the caliber of these and
anolagous tubes, and that manufacturers had been accustomed to make the
measurements by roundabout methods, Colonel Goulier has been led to
devise a small apparatus for the purpose, and which is shown in the
accompanying cuts.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 | 4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10