McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1885-04-30
MILLIONS IN sODA-wATER.
Fortunes Made In the Business, and Where the
Most Extensive Trade Is Done.

u
Most Extensive Trade Is Done.
With the near approach of summer
the various saltwater factories in the
city are busily engaged in preparing
| for the coming hot season, when
enough of the cooling fluid will be
quafied to float the Great Eastern and
the American navy thrown in. 1.-The
soda-water business has grown to i'm
mense proportions. remarked a
wholesale manufacturer of soda water
and apparatus uptown to reporter.
Fifteen years ago it began to boom
and since then has more than doubled.
Each hamlet, village, and town in the
far west, on the mountain slope, IN
the valley and amid the burning sands
of the PLAIN, all have their soda-water
fountains and squirt the foaming bev-
erage during the long summer months.
Millions of dollars are spent and for
tunes are made in the course of sever
al summers. A man at Coney island
last summer cleared over $50, 600 alone
on soda water.
'How much marble do you use in
your factory per annumP"
Last year we ground 1874 tons of
white marble into dust to generate
carbonic acid gas. 1t cost S1.25 per
barrel of APO pounds. This marble is
quarried at Pleasantville, N. Y. All
the year round we have machine
pounding it to fine dust. getting u
large quantity ready for the summer
rush. 1t is popular fallacy that So
da-water is made of sulphuric acid and
marble dust, but the fact is they never
come in contact with the beverage.
Saltwater is simply pure water
charged or saturated with carbonic
acid gas.
"Why don't you use cheaper mate
rial than marble to generate carbonic
acid gasp"
1T is cheaper to use when conve-
niently near than bicarbonate of soda.
Bicarbonate of soda is utilized when
marble can not be had. In England
whiting is used extensively, and at one
time it was universally used both here
and there. This whiting is carbo-
nate of lime-fossil, and the fossil con-
tains animalculp, which often give the
water fshy taste. On that account
we dropped it. So much soda-water
is consumed every year, and so many
scareS have started about its being I'M
healthy from contact with copper and
other metals, that the chief aim now
Of manufacturers is to produce appa-
ratus so lined with pure sheet block
tin containing no admiXtuTe of lead or
other injurious metal, that absolutely
no danger is apprehended. Last year
the board of health passed an ordinance
forbidding the use of fountains lined
with brass, lead, copper, or other metal
or metallic substance that will be
affected by liquids, so that dangerous,
unwholesome, or deleterious COM
pounds are formed therein. The re-
suit of this ordinance has been bene-
fetal, although many fountains had to
be refined and overhauled.
'Do you expect to do large bust
ness this Summer?n
The present indications are that
coming season than ever before.
Grand preparations at Coney island
and all the watering places are going
forward to receive thousands of pleas
ure-seekers, aud as last season was
somewhat broken by cold spells this
one is expected to be fine and IN
broken"
s.Do you sell many fountains in the
south?n
Eyes, great many. We have seven
or eight men travelling in that section
all the time, The women and chill
dren drink soda water. and the men, as
a rule, prefer something stronger.
But the fountain is frequently made
10 pour forth good old rye instead OF
strip of sarsapariila. These, though,
are used in the prohibition counties.
But here in New York during the dead,
hot, still summer days the great drink
ing of soda-water is done. The factory
is kept running all the time, marble by
the ton is ground to dust, ten thousand
gallons of water is filtered and puri-
fed day, and many hundred gallons
of extracts and fruit fiavors are pre-
pared daily. This great rush lasts
frequently four months without cessa-
ton, and often five. AS Col. Sellers
said, there are millions in it, if once
started with the proper trim in the way
of capital and energy. ''-Neso York
Mail and Express.