The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-05-12

friends and position. At his majority he was
made clerk and auditor of Washington coun-
ty, and soon thereafter commenced his bust
ness life. His first investment was in a saw
and grist mill, and this proving successful,
he added mill after mill, combining with this
business farming, trading and banking, at the
same time investing largely in the grain
trade.
Before the war Mr.. DePauw was
the largest grain trader in Indiana,
and by his knowledge of this trade and com
mand OF means, was enabled to materially
assist III furnishing the government with
supplies. With patriotism and confidence in
the success of the Federal cause he invested
III government securities, and at the close of
the war had greatly increased his already
large fortune.
Mr.. DePauw has used his wealth freely to
encourage the manufactures and build up
the city of New Albany. He has made many
improvements, and is largely interested in
the iron foundries and rolling mills of tina
city. But as a manufacturer and business man
MIR. DePauw will be always known in the
commercial history of the United States as
the first American who succeeded in the
manufacture of plate glass at a profit. In
his letter declining the nomination for Lieu
tenant Governor in 1872, Mr.. DePauw wrote
wrote IS follows:
MY early business life was spent in an intense
ly earnest struggle for success as a manufac-
turer, grain dealer and banker. Since then l
have fonnd full work in endeavoring to assist
ana IN promoting the religious, benevolent and
educational interests of Indiana, and in helping
TO extend those privileges to the South and
west. Hence | have neither the time nor incIi-
nation Tor politics. In these chosen fields of
Laoor l ma congenlal spirits whom L love and
understand. My long experience gives me the
nope that | may accomplish something, perhaps
rnuch, Tor religion and humanity"
These noble words are an index of Mr.. De-
PAW character. He is eminently and by ma
ture and habit a business man, seeking from
the first his fortune within himself, and find
ing 1t in an earnest will and vast industry. He
is eminently self-made, standing to-day as
one who, in the press of business, has ever
maintained his reputation for honesty, in
tegrity and morality. He has had no time
for politics; his energies have been given to
his business and home interests, and to the
advancement OF education and religion.
HOW PLATE GLASS IS MADE.
1t is not worth while to describe again the
process OF making common cylinder or win
dow glass. Every large city has its glass
factory, and the weird and gnome-like pro-
cess by which a mass of molten metal is
shaped into a beautiful cylinder of crystal
glass, flattened out, annealed, diamond cut,
and sized up" is known to all who have
any interest in technology.
But with plate glass it is different. Few
have seen the process; the great factories of
Europe admit no visitors except under strin-
gent rules, and the few factories of the
United States are little known to the public
Glass, whether plate or common, consists
essentially of a mixture of sand, al
kali and lime. These materials vary in
various grades and manufactures. They are
carefully mixed, and to the batch is added n
little salt, dash OF arsenic and a handful of
powdered charcoal. Each ba~tch-enough to
cast a plate of glass twenty feet long and half
as wide, and about half an inch thick-is
put in a fre-proof pot, which is itself a mar
vel of skillful structure. The pot is thrust
into a fiery furnace" of 5000 degrees F.,
with a dozel Others, where in eighteen
nofnhTss p III MM4eftad.a2 age0yy- for casing.
riage, taken TO a crane, hoisted over the cast
ing tables, on the sides of which are placed
iron rods of the thickness the glass is re-
quired and upon which the roller travels.
The pot is then emptied in front of the roll
er, the roller passed over the metal, and a
plate of glass is the result. The glass is
at once pushed off on to a plaster-top table
and conveyed to the oven to anneal.
OF these ovens there are sixty, varying in
size from six to eight hundred square feet.
The glass is put in, the fires withdrawn, and
in three or four days the glass is annealed
and cool enough to handle 1t is withdrawn
and squared, and is now ready for the grind
ing. smoothing and polishing tables. In the
grinding room the plates are bedded in plas-
ter Of paris, and the whirling tables of glass
ground under the action of sand and iron
until they are reduced nearly one-half in
thickness. They then go to the smoothing
room, where four grades of emery are used;
then to the polishing room, where the plates
are again bedded in plaster and polished by
friction with felt covered blocks
and colcothar. Finally they are
~hand-polished, and then sent to the ware
house, to await the riders of the public.
The entire process is one of great interest.
The description given affords little idea of
the complex and ingenious machinery by
which the rough plates are changed into
sheets of crystal glass. To appreciate this,
one should go with the genial superintend-
ent of the department. Mr.. P. Brockman,
through the works. He is master of the bust
ness, has been in plate-glass works most of
his life, and remembers twenty years ago
when an English factory celebrated the then
ne plus ultra of plate glass making-a plate
only eight feet by eleven.
The composition of the plate glass varies.
1t is a matter of technology rather
than of chemistry. Prof. John
Hurry analytical chemist, of Indianapolis,
who accompanied the writer to the works Sc
cured specimens OF the various grades for
cumulative analysis, but had not completed
them at the time of writing.
Few citizens of Indiana are aware OF the
magnitude and extent of the DePauw Amer
lean Plate-Glass Works. 1t is a peculiar in
dustry, beset with great difficulties, and that
they have been overcome is a credit to the
State, and a lasting monument to the energy
and industry of the man who, single-handed,
has made American plate-glass known in
America and feared in Europe.
Augustus and the William Goat.
Augustus Prim went out to swim,