Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1890-07-18
In A CORK MANDATORY.
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT AN
uNPRETENTlous INDUSTRY.

where the Bark H. Obtained and What
1t Costs NoiseIess neutrality-suspicious.
other Than the Bottle stopper-A Bust.
ness Surrounded by Mystery.
There is veil of u ystery hanging over a
cork mandatory which is difficult to pierce.
OF the twenty facto lies in America none
will receive visitors. Their employees labor
behind barred portals and only differ from
state charges in not wearing barred clothes.
OF these twenty fac 'ories four are in this
city, four in Boston, three in Lancaster,
Pa, three in Canada, one in Baltimore, one
in Pittsburg, one in Norwich, Conn, and the
rest in unfrequented places. Six importers
feed these concerns v it'll stock.
A cork factory is al odd place Scarcely
sound comes from the buildings where the
industry is carried on. Noiseless machinery
whii'ls with great ia oidity. The only sound
heard is that of escaping steam
THE EARLY STAGES
Cork is soft and elastic, as everybody
KNOWS, aud Is the bark of a species of oak
which grows abundlntly in Portugal, Italy
and Spain, principally i'll Spain. The trees
grow to u prodigious size and live to the ripe
old age OF 100 year,. At 10 they begin to
bear, and continue 10 furnish new crops of
bark every ive years The harvesting oc-
ours in the early spring. AT that season of
the year large number of laborers are
turned loose in the wilderness and the bark
ing begins Incision are made around the
trees and the bark is stripped off. 1t is then
boiled TO take out the sap, after which it
passes through the pressing process When
dry it is cut, scraped trimmed and put up in
bales like cotton for shipment The bark
- l. n
inches, and the price fuctuates from three to
thirty cents pound.
At the factories it placed in square box
and steamed to soften it, SO that it can be
easily worked. Then it goes to the saw and
is cut into long strips. These saws are differ
ent from ordinary saws, inasnuch as they
have no teeth. They are provided with a
razor like edge instead. They make 1000
revolutions a minute, and if one should be so
unfortunate as TO feed his finger instead of
cork, amputation would be Just as complete
and clean
From the saver the strips go to the punch
ing machine. This is a simple piece of me-
chanism, furnished With punches of all sizes,
from three-eighths o. an inch to five inches
in diameter. 1t is operated with lever and
does its work as fast as a man can handle it,
The strips are punch ID with the grain, and it
requires no little jud gment to guard against
imperfections in thu bark. II is here that
the greatest waste IN the material is expert
enced. From q strip of bark trifie over a
foot long only a dozsn corks can be made,
and half of the ma terial Is lost But the
waste does not end here. 1t goes tagging the
cork all over the factory. Even those that
are so successful as to be molded into a useful
form have 10 be sort ed and goodly number
are rejected. So that waste is one of the
characteristic features of the manufacture
OF cork. Within the last few years, how
ever. uses have been found for these scraps
which have considerably lessened the manu-
lecturers loss.
SOME OF TIE THINGS MADE
After being punched into circular form
the corks go TO the tipsring machine, where
their final preparation comes. This is by
far the most interest ing part of this interest
ing industry. Not so very many years ago
the only tapering machine known was an
ordinary man and his knife Now hand
made corks are unknown. This finishing
machine is nothing more or less than a lathe,
the knife OF which moves after the manner
of an old fashioned apple peeler The corks
are put into an iron hand, which conveys
them to an imaginary mouth, when up comes
the knife and the shlvings fly. The finished
cork then drops out of place to make room
for another When running the machine
resembles a hungry man. Its capacity is
about 100 gross per day
But bottle shoppers are not the only things
which are made of cork Many specialties,
such as cork washers of various sizes caps
for pocket TASKS and kerosene oil cans and
sliced corks are ms nufactured also. Sliced
cork is used for insoles. II is also used In
silk machinery where friction occurs The
cork washers are fast taking the place OF
rubber ones, and are now considered the only
thing with which to pack valves as the
troublesome oil, which eats up rubber, has
no effect on cork
Before uses were discovered for the waste
some hundreds Of tons were burned up every
| month, and thousands of dollars were los,
| in this way. Things are different now
| however. All the waste is shipped to thi.
| city and made into life preservers, cork jack
cts, cork sprinkled paper, in which glass is
| packed, and linoleuln, This puIverized stuff
is also extensively sed to pack Malaga grapes
| in, being handy, safe and light. Bed mat.
| tresses and yacht cushions are also made OF
the shavings and are superior to those made
of other materials. In fact, they are so SUI
perior and come high that but few can
afford the luxury Every we'll furnished
| yacht, however, is thoroughly equipped with
| them
| The cork business is probably the only in
dustry known to tie civilized world which
has no broker, def Ter or go between. But
there are so few manufactures, and so limited
demand for the goods, that such an indi
| yidual could not exc out an existence in i,
alone. Consequently the owners are their
own agents and they make their own sales
mostly to druggists and mineral water bot.
| tiers, the corks being put up in bags end sold
by the gross.-New York Tribune