The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-09-04
USING UTAH STONE.
How the Material is Prepared for
the Market.
Notwithstanding the Stone Cutting Business
Clawson's Glass Company-Real Estate
Transfers Business Notes.

There ara thousands of Salt Lakers
whose acquaintance With the business OF
their city is bounded by the several main
streets where banking and mercantile
trade is transacted. and who know abso-
lutely nothing of the fast growing hive OF
manufactures springing up along the rail
road lines.
A HERALD representative was SHOWN
the other day through one OF these plants
located on the Rio Grande track on Sixth
West. Previous to his visit he was I'M
aware of the existence of so important an
industry, and without doubt today's HER
AID will give the first in timstion thousands
of others have received of its presence IN
our midst.
The plant in question is the rock steam
sawmills Of Watson Brothers. which nave
been established for eighteen months IN
this city. An immediate idea Of the magnl-
tude Of the enterprise may be gained when
it is stated that 400 tons Of st0ne-DlRmoEd
creek and Kyune-are under the sheds
waiting TO be sawed, and that the capacity
of the two immense Merriman patent gang
saws now being operated Is GOO superficial
feet per day.
Tue saws were at work cutting through
immense stone boulders meauring ID feet
long, 3 feet high and feet wide. The
ssws-long strips OF thin iron-cut through
the stone iengthwise; q steady stream OF
water from pipe overhead trickled into
the cut made by the iron and as it trickled
it carried deposit of sand under the iron.
The resultant friction let the saw cut It's
way smoothly through the great rock ike
knife through cheese, only not with the
| same speed. Four inches per hour is the
average penetration of the saw into the
rock.
This plant has revolutionized the stone
cutting business said Mr. Watson to
THE HERALD representative, ''since 1t
was put in. Each one OF those
saws does the work of q gang OF
from fifteen to twenty men. Formerly
one third of block of stone was lost by
Deing Clipped into shape by hand. Now
our loss is almost nothing. Six or eight
years ago it took US all summer to ge,
ready the dressed stone necessary for q
building front. Now we do it in three OF
four weeks.''
A part Of the steam mills not less curl
GUS is the apparatus for lifting the huge
blocks of stone, two Of which weigh twelve
tons each. A travelling crane, operated
overhead. snatches up these twelve-tOI
| boulders and deposits them in any corner
of the big work sheds as easily as an ele-
| plant would lift q child. The crane is OPP
Grated by one man, and to see him by
means of simple windlass directing his
huge car and It's huger burden as easily as
boy would draw bucket of water from
well, ia most astonishing spectacle
Just what sort of revolution
those machines have effected il
building operations can be gained by Mr..
! Watson's statement that il they had hRt
them at the temple during its construction
the cost of that great edifice could have beer
reduced so per cent
Another specially interesting feature OF
the plant is the lathes, with which a solit
stone is turned into all sorts of ornamen tai
designs, caps, stills, water tables, etc
| With this machine nine foot column OF
any rock from marble to sandstone coull
be turned out as perfect as the handsome
polished granite columns in front of The
Mccormick building. Besides operating
the stone saw mills, Watson Bros. do {
heavy mantel, tile and monument business
and they employ steadily between fifty ant
sixty masons and brickayers on the build
ings they are erecting throughout the city