, 1893-06-17
WASTE PRODUCTS MADE
USEFUL.
From the West Endian d Commercial
A11eyEiser.

Adceytiser.
Ii the North american Reciew for Novem-
Der here is a yely intere ting article by Lord
PLAY fair under the above title. 1t iS full of
facts illustrating the extraordinary progress
tia has been made by modern chemistry in
the usc If waste products. Dirt, said Lord
pa,mcrs.on is matter in the wrong place"
Dirt. says lord Playfair, il Of money value
if you only know how to get at it.
lhospherops WAS formerly made from
human sewage, i is now extracted from old
bones. BY the utilization fist Of
yewagc and then Of old bones, Lord
rlayfajr calculates that every man, wo-
man and child in the country saves
seventy eight hour a year, or ten working
days, in the quickness with which he can
strike a light now as compared with the tedi-
Gus method in Use before PHOSPHORUS
MATCHES were invented. He estimates that
the gain of these extra ten days represents
for the United States alone AN aggregate
economy of sixty two million pounds sterling
per aAnum. Human liquid sewtge is no
longer III demand for phospherOus, but it is
used for making smelling salts; 1900 tons are
daily taken out of the c~esspools of Paris to be
converted into ammonia.
Lord Playfair lovingly describes the utili-
sation of rage. He considers that the compe-
tition for cotton and linen rags ia a better
Indication IF civilisation than even the con-
sumption of soap. In 1887 England used
Glib, Of paper per head, the United States
lob, Germany Glib. France 8lb., and Italy
Alb. Black coats when they are used up
beyond possibility of survival, are sent to
France, Russia. aud Poland to be made into
Gaps. The British red jacket when worn
out goes to Holland, where the Dltch ina
- - 81 Ia kIn hA1k ~r0Ea0&IO~ 49,
rheumatism when worn on the chest.
When old woollen rags have reached their
fourth stage of degradation SO that they are
unfit for the shoddy maker, they are atill
economicallyuseful. They are then mixed
with other degraded waste such ~ shavings
of hoofs and horns, and the blood of slaugh-
ter houses, SSand are melted IN an iron pot
with wood ashes and sorap-irOn. This pro-
cess produces the material out of which the
beautiful dye PruSsian blno is made.
In the utilisstion of waste substances it is
very odd that some of the incest things come
out of the nastiest materials. For instance,
furel oil is the sinking product of the dis
t~illatiou of spirits. It is however utilised
to make oil of grape and oil of cognac. Oil
of pine apple is made by the action of putrid
cheese upon sugar, or by dissolving rancid
butter with alchohol or oil or %vitriol. The
ladies' ~favorite Eau de Mile Fleurs is made
from the DRAWINGS of COW byres. Gas tar,
however. is the great resource of all utilisers
Of waste. 1t is from gas tar that they make
saocbarine, turkey-red, and all the aniline
dyes. Coal tar Las destroyed the cultiva-
ton of madden. which used to be used in
maxi, & TIM keyIred. and at any moment it
may destroy the whole of tho Indian indigo
industry. At the close of his article Lord
Playfair says
OF all living things rats seem to be among
the most repulsive; and when dead what oan
be their use tut even they are the subject
of production in industrial arts. In Paris
there is a pond surrounded by walls into
which all dead caroasses are thrown. A