Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-05-07
SODA-WATER,
fortunes Made In the Business, and Where
the Most Extensive Trade is Done.

Fortunes Made In the Business, and Where
the Most Extensive Trade is Done.
With the approach of summer the
various soda-water factories in the city
are busily engaged preparing for the
| coming hot season, when enough of the
cooling fluid will be quaffed to float the
Great Eastern and the American navy
thrown in. THE soda-water business
has grown to immense proportions, !"
remarked a wholesale manufacturer OF
soda-water and apparatus uptown to
a 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 several
| summers. a man at COney Island last
! summer cleared over $4,000 alone on
| sodawater."
How much marble do you use in
your factory per annum?"
Last year we ground 1914 tons of
white marble into dust to generate car
bonic 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 large quantity
| ready for the summer rush. 1t is a
| popular fallacy that soda-water Is made
of sulphuric acid and marble dust, but
! the fact is they never come N contact
with the beverage. Saltwater is SIM
| ply pure water charged or saturated
with carbonic acid gas"
why don't you use cheaper ma
! terial than marble to generate carbon
| ic acid gas?"
1T Is cheaper to use when con-
veniently near than bicarbonate of
| soda. Bicarbonate of soda is utilized
when marble can not be had. In En-
! gland whiting is used extensively, and
at one time it was universally used
both here and there This whiting is
carbonate of lime-fossil, and the fos-
| sill contains animalculp, which often
give the water tishy taste. On that
account we dropped it. So much soda
water is consumed every year, and SO
many scares have started about its be-
| ing unhealthy from contact with cop
per and other metals. that the chief aim
now of manufacturers is to produce APP
| paratus so lined with pure sheet block
| tin containing no admixture of lead or
| other in furious metal, that absolutely
no danger is unprecedented. Last year
the board of health passed an ordi-
nance forb: dding 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 deleterlOuS COM
pounds are formed therein. The result
of this ordinance has been beneficial,
although many fountains had to be re-
lined and overhauled.'
do you expect to do a large bust
ness this summer?'
The prese1t indications are that
more soda-water will be used the COM
ing season than ever before. Grand
preparations at Coney Island and all
the watering-places are going forward
to receive thousands of pleasure-seekers,
and as last season was somewhat
broken by cold spells this one is expect
ed to be fine and unbroken."
'Do you sell many fountains in the
South?"
"Yes. great many. We have seven
or eight men travelling IN that section
all the time. The women and children
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 syrup of
sarsaparilla. These, though, are used
in the prohibition counties. But here
in New York during the dead, hot, still
summer days the great drinking of
saltwater is done. The factory is
kept running all the time, marble by
the ton is ground to dust, ten thousand
gallons of water are filtered and purified
day, and many hundred gallons of
extracts and fruit fiavors are prepared
daily. This great rush lasts frequently
four months without cessation. and often
five. AS Colonel Sellers said there are
m lions in it, if once started with the
proper trim in the way of capital and
energy. ~. Y. Naii and Express.