Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1884-03-12

! The Pennsylvania Salt Maintaining Com
/ pauy, whose works are at NatroDa, station OF
the West Penn railroad, below Freeport, have
| lately purchased farm in that vicinity and
| intend sinking wells for gas for use in their
works. The Company now own their own
coal mines in the adjoining hills and employ
| about a hundred miners and i: they succeed in
obtaining enough gas to run their extensive
establishment there, they will no doubt save
thousands of dollars annually. This company
do not manufacture salt, as its name would
| imply, but do manufacture soda, sal-soda, BIZ
carb- soda, sulpher, muriatic acid, blue vitriol
oil of vitriol, caustic, concentrated lye, ball
potash sapunifer and other articles. The
works at Natrona but small part of which
can be seen from the railroad) are said to be
| worth over five millions of dollars, and give
employment TO over 1900 persons. The owners,
mostly Quakers, live in Philadelphia, and
| besides these works have another somewhere
along the Delaware They bring their cryolite,
rock that is almost pure soda, from cryolite
mountain in Greenland, for the monopoly OF
which they pay the Danish Government a
| large sum, said TO be quarter of million
annually, and their sulphur ore from Sicily
The cryolite rock is ground up as fine as pow
der then liquifed, purified and run into large
watts, where il congeais into pure soda, IN the
form of staiactites, very beautiful in appear
sIce. A trip through The works Is attended
with dangers, and the worhmen often bave
their shoes, clothes and their fingers burned,
and their eyes put out in the lye and acid de
partments The business of the company
amounts to many millions annually, aid its
principal Office is in Philadelphia. The COM
pany has an interesting history. Some thirty
years ago a man named Pemberton, brother
of the rebel general of that name, in looking
around for some substance, other than wood
ashes from which to make soda, ran across
some specimens of cry. lite rock, brought home
by survivors of the Kane artic expedition. lie
analysed them and found them to be almost
pure soda, then went TO Danmark and with a
chemist named Hagaman, visited Greenland
and found the cryolte mountain, the only one
that exists, or as yet discovered, on the planet,
came home, organized company secured the
monopoly of the cryolite from the Danish
government, bought the charter from the old
Pennsylvania Salt Company, built their works
and started business, which has now become
one of the most extensive in the country, and
of which but very little is known by outsiders.
The company has its own tenement houses and
stores al Natrona, and most of the laborers are
Poles the idea being, suppose, that the
Poles will do less talking to outsiders than
would Americans.
Col. SANFORD will lecture here
on Friday evening, the 2lst inst.
Subject, ri alks in Rome
COL SANFORD is meeting with wonderful sue
lecturer the Americth PLATFORM Marshall
town (la) Times"
THERE'S life in his lectures ard glow of feel
ing, and a glow of generosity. and therein lies
much of the power of man.-"Des MONIES Daily
Register"
1t is no extravagant praise to coneede CoI.
SANFORD the power OF entertaining an audience
beyond that of any other modern lecturer who has
visited Detroit.-"Free Press"
-Witherspoon Institute.-The
Spring Term will open on Monday,
March II. The prospect is favorable
for very successful session. School
tickets at reduced rates can can be Oh
tanned by those who live on
any one of the railroads centering
in Butler, and who wish to board at
their homes while attending the Insti.
tute See advertisement in an other
column