New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1885-05-20
MILLIONS IN soDA-WATER.

MILLIONS IN. SODA-WATER.
Fortunes Made in the Business, and Where the
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
| quafi;ed to float the Great Eastern ant!
the American navy thrown in. '.Thc
| soda-water business has grown to inn
mense proportions remarked
| wholesale manufacturers 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 plan, all have their saltwater
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 oversee, 600 alone
on soda-water.
! your factory per annum?''
''Last year we ground 1874 tons of
white marble into dust to generate
carbonic acid gas. It cost S1.25 per
barrel of 420 pounds. This marble is
quarried at Pleasantville, N. Y. All
the year round we have machine
pounding it to fine dust. getting a
| large quantity ready for the summer
rush. It 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
st 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 a carbo-
nate Of lime-fossil, and the fossil con-
tains animalculn, which often give the
water fshy taste. On that account
we dropped it. So much soda-wateT
is consumed every year, and so many
scares have started about it's 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 admixture of lead or
other injurious metal, that absolutely
no danger is unprecedented. Last year
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"
The present indications are that
more saltwater will be used the
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, and as last season was
somewhat broken by cold spells this
one is expected to be fine and I'M
broken. p"
"Do you sell many fountains in tho
south?"
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
to pour forth good old rye instead OF
sirup of sarsaparilla. 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 sodawater 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 tlavors are pre-
pared daily. This great rush lasts
frequently four months without cessa-
lion, 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 -Nee0 York
Mail and EIpress.
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