North Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1867-current, 1870-01-12
Nothing Wasted.

Nothing Wasted.
In some respects we Americans are
the most wasteful people on the face of
the earth. Food enough is ruined by
vile cookery or thrown away unconsum-
ed, to support good-sized colony of
Frenchmen. In the article of dress there
is frightful extravaganza, and no fashion
able person thinks of continuing to wear
a piece of clothing until it is worn out
An immense amount of paper and good
ink is wasted in the production of books,
some Of which no one ought to read, and
many Of which it is impossible to read
without painful effort.
But, in the processes Of manufacture,
! nothing is wasted. No manufacturing
concern can compete with others engag-
ed in the production of similar goods
except upon the condition of careful
economy in the use of raw material, and
an equally careful saving of all the odds
and ends pertaining to the work in
hand.
A short time ago the manufacturers
of lighting-gas were puzzled to know
how to dispose Of the villainous coal-tar
left in the retorts. It defilcd the air
and corrupted the waters. A more use.
less, nauseous substance was hardly
known to exist. Chemistry came to the
rescue, and to-day not less than thirty
six marketable articles are produced
from their black, vile, sticky slime
solvents, oils, salts, colors, flavors. You
eat bit of delicious confectionery, hap
PLY unconscious that the exquisite taste
which you enjoy 50 keenly comes from
coal-tar-you buy at the druggists
tiny phial of what is labeled lotto of
Rose" little dreaming that the delicate
perfume is waited not from s'the fields
Of Araby," but the nasty gas-ret,rt.
A few years since it was thought to
be the perfection Of economy to saw
sticks Of mahogany and rosewood into
thin vencerings; to-day, the loss incur
red by this process is ruinous, because
half of the timber is lost in saw-dust
By using machine that shaves of the
slice, none of the material is wasted, and
the saving on single log of rosewood
is said to amount to not less in some
cases than six hundred dollars.
No person engaged in making jewelry
can thrive, unless he exercises the great
est care in protecting the precious metal
that he handles from the slightest waste.
The water in which the workmen wash
must be preserved, and the sediment
made to yield back the minute atoms Of
gold that are deposited they must not
be allowed to wear pomatum or adorn
their flowing locks with bears grease,
because of a trick they have of running
their auriferous fingers through their
hair; and the windows of the establish
ment must be kept closed, as far as pos
sible, to save the precious dust floating
in the air from blowing away. A large
manufacturer of Ettleboro jevelry once
told the writer that he probably lost
more gold by the wind than he put
upon his stock. In Wexford, r. l., the
floor of jewclry establishment was
taken up and burned in furnace for
the sake of collecting the dust that had
settled in the cracks.
1t is quite suggestive t. glance at IL 9
bales of fbrous conglomerate used in
shoddy-mills, and study the varied con-
tents as they lie spread out for purifca-
ton in the fields. 1t seems impossible
that such heterogeneous mass of shreds,
patches, strings, rags and wool-dust, can
ever be made to re-appear in the form
of anything like cloth. Strange grasses
get mixed with this compound
and if it SO happens that the seeds are
not exterminated, funny results are
likely to ensue. After exposure to the
rain and sunshine, the manufactured
goods have been known to actually
sprout into life; an awkward thing it
would be for ones ovcrcoat on damp
day to creep out between the shoulders
into verdant sward! And what a
marvellous variety of waste matter enters
into the composition of paper! Near
Bergen, in Europe, there is church of
the Corinthian order, and large enough
to accommodate thousand persons,
of papier-mache If the
pulp Of which that cdifce is built should
become neutrality-suspicious. might
tell If all the good and all the bad, |
all the serious and all the absurd words
that were once inscribed on the fibre of
that church should appear again, what
sermons would be preached there! If
[ worshipped in that paper structure, / |
should imagine all the while that I |
heard the rustling Of old letters, written
by hands that are now spectral, and the
rafting Of silken banners that once
floated proudly on the breeze, and the
low signing Of mothers over the, frayed
garments no mortal vestment now. |
should fancy that saw floating in the
air ancient tones, modern journals,
weary biographies, loud-to orations,
high-strung poems, cloudy PHILOSOPHERS,
and rejected articles, all bringing up at
last in the iron mill and ground down
together into common pulp.
A somewhat weird affair, that paper
church near Bergen.-Appleton's Jour
nal.
CATER Us, THE DELUaE. The
world is to be overwhelmed by water
six thousand two hundred years from
now at least SO says an eminent French
mathematician, NJ. Adhemar. The GEN.
ter Of gravity, which once conceded
with the center Of sphericty of our