Huntsville gazette., 1888-09-08
THE ALUMINIUM AGE.
A Pleasant Word Picture Drawn by an En-
thusiastic Chicago Man.

/
| full significance is not realized by the
public, for this silvery metal is the
most abundant in nature. Common
clay everywhere contains from two to
| ten pounds of it in every 100 pounds.
| 1t is therefore more common than iron
or all the metals taken together. The
cost of extracting it has been the great
and only hindrance to its general use.
In 1858 it's value was $240 per pound,
and the following year chemical dis
covery dropped its price to $44. A
steady decrease since then has taken
place to about S. per pound, at which
price its uses are enormous, but moth
ing to compare with the alleged %
cent value.
As iron weighs three times as much,
and is, therefore, one-third as bulky
as aluminium, when the latter can be
obtained at three times the price of
iron that metal will be supplanted rap
idly. Even at the Krupp price it will
pay to build railroad trains Of alumi-
nun, because of the greatly reduced
weight afforded. This dead weight of
trains is a prodigious expense to rail-
ways, nine-tenths of which could be
saved by constructing passenger and
freight cars of aluminium weighing
from half a ton to q ton each. The
adaptability for this purpose may be
instantly seen in roughly stating alum
mum to be far stronger than steel and
as light as chalk. Locomotives need
ing traction weight would still be
made of iron and steel, though
they could be reduced in weight
materially in proportion to the
diminished dead weight, or the old en-
gine unchanged would be enabled to
add ten aluminium cars for each one of
the old style discarded. 1t would be
equivalent to doubling the freighting
capacity by counting the weight of
present cars and their contents as
equal in reducing the car weight to a
practical zero.
Aluminium conducts electricity bet
ter than iron, the comparison being
one-third as well as copper while iron
is one-seventh, hence aluminium will
be used for telegraph lines. The met
al being so light and strong, inch rods
of it will hold up the wires as well as
the largest telegraph poles under
greatly reduced weight.
Houses could be easily constructed
by pouring the metal into sand or or
dinary metal molds. 1t melts easier
than silver. Every part of the domi-
cile could be cast on the spot in this
way into solid mass of metal more
rigid and durable than stone. Movable
parts such as doors, windows, tran
SONS, scuttles, could be made of the
same bright metal and just as heavy
or light as desired.
Ships larger than the Great Eastern,
with less draught, could be construct
ed nearly entirely of aluminium, in
Guiding the machinery and boilers,
which at present weigh down vessels
| seriously.
The stone age held fast our ancest-
ors in a condition but little better than
that Of our arboreal progenitors, the
apes; the bronze age was a great step
ahead, and the iron age ushered in
civilization and made it possible. We
are now living in the latter part of
that period and beholding the dawn of
| the aluminium age, which will confer
blessings millions of times greater
| than can be understood un-
| der existing circumstances. The
possibilities of cheap aluminium are
limitless. Erial navigation will be
effectually settled, and monstrous
| aluminium air-ships will literally give
| wings to commerce and settle the tariff
question by rendering trade as free as
| the medium in which it will be con-
| Quoted. Cities of solid aluminium will
| spring up everywhere, fire-proof, in
destructible, paved with the white
metal, lighted by electricity passing
over aluminium wires to towers of the
same substance. Railway beds, sleep
| ers, ties, rails, bridges and all will be
cast solidly in their places, with airy
aluminium palace-carS dancing over
| them one hundred miles an hour or
more. Floating bridges can be built
| upon the seas; wide rivers can be
spanned by cobwebby but strong
structures at small expense, and in a
few days where years were previously
required. Sanitation will become
great possibility, and every one, no
matter how poor, can have home of
his own far better than the present
ordinary dwelling.
Transition stages such as this in
volve rapid and decided changes from
past modes of living, and, like all
| other civilizing influences, aluminium
will prove to be a great leveler, for
| wealth will decrease in the hands of
the few and increase in those of the
many. Old-time manufacturing pro-
cesses will be killed off and thousands
lose employment, to be re-employed in
new industries or adaptations of the
old to the new. Carpentering, cabinet