Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-07-20
A VISIT TO A CAMPHOR REFINERY.

/ to write to you, ii saw anything inter-
| esting that was sure you had never
seen; and now I have. and SO I viii
1 For just after breakfast, a gentleman
asked father if he wouldn'tlike to take an
eight mile drive with him to. see some
Ecamphorlw works. H9ba4q9tfs y4sHlI .sya-
Fathertsaid: .tYes, indeed;p and then
he stopped and looked at me; and he
I told me afterwards that my eyes were
So big and pitiful that It was no wonder
that the gentleman said: Ills this your
little girl! I guess we can tnck her in
If she don't want to be Left
! So they did, and presently we were
riding up one of the steepesthills i ever
saw, and Plymouth. was away down be-
hind us, and then came West Plymouth
and then we-were going beside very
clear but very crooked stream called
Bakers River and. the gentleman said:
'.This is Rumney, and that is Hawk
Ledge, and there is Rattlesnake Noun
tain;" and by and by: ''Here is the
camphor refnery.''@ sEt "a 81
/ He opened a gate, and we drove int o
/ a big, grassy field, right up to the door
OF a rough, implanted building, like q
big barn, only there was chimney
smoking very hard at one end of it.
Papa jumped me out. and into the wide
open door, and oh! such a suffocating
/ smell of camphor, thatsI felt as,if / must
run out, or tumble down, or else sneeze
my head Off. But / thought in a min
ute that if you were there, you would
say: ''Come now, Laura, don't be a
goose," and YOU d believe exactly as if
| you'd smeltt that smell, and nothingjelse,
ever since you were born. So / stood
still and looked all about, and thought
what good place it would be to put
away furs in. Presently / got used to
the air, and didn't mind it at all; and
| this is what saw: A great, long room,
as big as the biggest barn at grandpa's
"a door wide open at each end-some,
little windows, very cobwebby and dusty
Ghe man told us they hadn't been
washed for twenty years, and you d
think SOY, and what looked like three
great dinner-tables, only they were made
of brick, all set with double rows
of covered dishes, just as if it was a
boarding school for giants, and every
one was going to have an iron pan full
ofs.aatnleal Tor his breakfast. There
were no seats for the giants, though,
and when went near the brick tables
/ found they were really furnaces, with
llOU HkC III CdCIl3 bAu WhCA AAdI
opened an iron door in the end of one,
/ saw that the fire was roaring red in
side, made of great sticks of wood.
Each furnace was so long that it held
twenty pans, [ am sure, and wide
enough for two rows of them; so if the
giants had come, there would have been
hundred and twenty in all, and even
you, sir, would have been scared. Some
of the pans were square and some were
round, but every cover had a round
hole in it about as big as an old copper
cent, and over every hole was put a
bright tin horn, just like a candle
extinguisher, only ten times as big. A
tall man, with gray hair and very
bright, pleasant eyes, was going about,
lifting off these extinguishers. and polk
ing something white back into the hole
in the cover with knife. ~st
|. said to myself: This is the giants
cook, and he is afraid their porridge
will boil over before the lazy things
come down to breakfast" But
just then he noticed my staring, I sup
pose, and so he kindly showed me the
inside of one of the horns; and it was
thickly crusted with the loveliest white
CRYSTALS. as delicate as frost. and as deep
as mother S ermine. The white lump
that he pushed back into the hole in the
cover was just the same. Then l
saw that all these. pans held camphor-
gum, and as the hot fire below melted
and simmered it, these pure snowy
crystals rose and chung to the inside of
the cover, and rounded out at the hole,
and UP into the cxtinguisher, leaving
all the sand and dirt and bits of wood in
the bottom of the dish in a hard cake.
Mr.. Holden-that was the pleasant
mans name-said that if he didn't keep
on the extinguishers the crystals would,
be hanging all over the rough walls and
rafters of the room. Wouldn't it
look like a fairy palace or Aladdin's
Cave?
Once, instead of pushing the camphor |
back, he ran his knife round, took it out |
and laid it in my hand. lit felt hot
through my glove and looked like a.
spiral Of fresh cream candy. He told
me that the camphor was put into the
iron pans Just as it comes from China |
and Japan, and set on these furnaces to
simmer for several days. The covers |
are cemented on with a paste made of I
whiting and rye meal, so there is some
porridge about it, after all.
AT the end of each furnace is pail of |
cold water, with a. sponge in it. with |
which he cools of any dish that seems |
too hot; I had called them the giants |
finger glasses Then father called me |
to the end of the room and showed me /
a great tub full of the crude camphor,
which looks just like dirty, coarse, white
sugar, or the snow in Washington street |
when it is a week old. 1t comes from
China and Japan in square boxes, COW
cred with Eastern-looking mating, each I
pounds. know you like figures.
3 Last of all. / saw some of the pans
which were cooked and cooled, and an.
other man was taking the ..camphor out
cracked off the cement that held |