The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-06-28
WASTE THAT rs NOT TASTED.
odd Uses of Things onco Cast Away.

IL. A. M. in New York Evening Post.l A curious and interesting field oi study Is afforded in the methods and
 appliances adopted in recent years for the utilization of what are commonly known as waste products, such as saw dust, old leather, cinders, slag, and oth-
 CT refuse. A use has been found for
 almost everything of this kind, so that even the once condemned and despised
 garbage heap has come to have not a little importance from commercial
 point of view, Naptha refuse, for ex- ample. has been used for a number of
 years as fuel in the boilers of Russian
 vessels plying the Caspian Sea, and
 more recently has been introduced in
 the vessels of the Black Sea fleet. The
 substance known as mineral wool, pro-
 duced from blast-furnace slag, was first
 made practically available about twelve
 years ago by a German inventor, but
 several subsequent improvements have
 been made in its manufacture, improv-
 ing the average quality and lessening
 the cost. The wool is usually made
 by blowing jets of steam or air against
 a small stream of molten slag, convert
 ing the latter into fine vitrified flores
 but in this process, as heretofore con
 ducted, only a part of the slag is con
 verted into fibre, the rest forming hard
 granules or shot, which 1t has been
 difficult to separate from the fibre, the
 operation having a tendency to break up the flores and make several inferior grades of mineral wool. By a recently ;.,x taJ ira nF the "blow'' is what is known as No. wool, the product being light and soft, uniform in quality, and free from gran ules or shot. This mineral wool is adaptable to many purposes, more par ticularly in building and, among en- gineers, as a non-conductor of heat.
 The only other use made of slag un- til recently was in road-making, and the supply was so far in excess of the demand that the diminution of the slag heaps was infinitesimal, The construc- tion of a breakwater at the mouth of the Tees in England, and another at the mouth of the harbor at Barrow-in- stand as lasting memorials of one of the uses which can be made of this mineral waste. The slag used for this purpose is taken away from the furnaces in blocks weighing three and one-half tons each. Slag-castings, for paving, are also now produced under a number of patents for this purpose. success has attended the efforts of one firm to use the slag for glass bottles; and slag glass, owing to It's toughness, is especially suitable for into tiles, plates, pipes, states, etc. Slag shingle, another form Is used for making concrete building blocks.
 According to a, writer in Engineer ng, artificial leather, mixed with from to 10 per cent. of sinew and pressed nto sheets like ordinary leather card board, has been recently made in Ger many. Both materials are made sep lrately. The leather pieces are wash 1 d, cut, boiled in alkaline lye, neutral l zed by hydrochloric acid, and finally | carefully washed once more to remove 1 III traces of acid. The sinews are | reated similarly, but steamed in acid gas until they are like glue. When | hus prepared, the materials are mixed, 1 ,ressed into sheets, and moistened on | ,oth sides with a concentrated solu- | ion of alum. The upper surface at | asst receives a thin coat of caoutchouc | n solution with carbon bisulphide.