The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-06-28
CELEBRATING THE FOURTH.
HAVING FUN WITH THE VARIOUS
FIREWORKS.
Where and How Chinese Trees, the
Devil Among TaiIors, Stars, Ro-
man Candles. Etc. Are Made-The
Cost of Some Great PyrotechnicaI
Displays.

AS the Fourth of July is day par
ticularly set apart for our self glorifi-
cation, / suppose l may be pardoned
for saying that accustomed as we
Americans are to being the biggest"
in any given direction probably no
youth in the land will be surprised to
learn that the largest manufactCry of
fireworks in the world is in America.
The word mandatory will doubtless
call up to your mind, as it did to mine,
visions of a huge brick building of
many rooms, more or less vibrant with
the noise and hustle of machinery and
labor. So you will easily iflagin my
surprise when l found myself escorted
instead to a vast meadow of some sew
enty acres, dotted over with little
smokeless huts, fifty or sixty in num-
Der. intersDersed here and there with
larger ones and two-story buildings.
In these small huts are kept all the
more dangerous combuStibleS, and they
are therefore placed at such a distance
from each other that an explosion in
any one of them would not affect the
others. Here all the charging is done
The floors are covered with rubber,
and projections are numerous. Talk
ing is strictly forbidden, as it is un-
SetlS lOI Lldu dJIeIlllOIl To- De us
tracted from his work. In fact, only
one man is allowed in a hut at a
time.
PUTTING THE WORK TOGETHER.
At a respectful distance from the
huts are the larger buildings where
less dangerous work is carried on, and
where many boys and not less than
seventy-fve girls arg employed. Here
one finds enormous quantities of
brown and white paper. hundred
weights of pins for attaching the
quick match to set pieces, steel and
iron filings for producing the bright
starry coruscations, chemicals to give
to the stars their wondrous hues of
red, green, white and blue, and other
harmless materials.
Scarcely less interesting was it to
watch the nimble fingers as they filled
the Roman candles. Into one of these
strong cases were put layers. in the
following order: Composition, a pinch
of gunpowder, a, star; and so on until
the case was quite filed, the compost
ton and gunpoWder furnishing
respectively the necessary combustion
and propeller for the variously colored
stars. The Roman candle not only
shines by herself, "a thing of sweet
ness and of light but fills an import
ant part in pieces like 1.-The Devil
Among Tailors," Chinese trees, etc.
Altogether a dainty modest creature,
quite unlike her more noisy, frisky
kindred.
Letters, figures, in fact, all designs
for set pieces are made by means of
hundreds, yes, thousands of lances con-
nected by quick match, and the max
ing of these requires many nimble
fingers. A lance is a small tube, about
the size of & squib. filed with ordinary
composition, which is gunpowder de-
based by the addition of ingredients to
reduce it's rate of combustion, contain
ing probably not more than 5 per cent
of actual gunpowder.
The quick match, the indispensable
fire conductor, is made by saturating
a piece Of lamp wick with wet gun
powder and gum. 1t is then reeled off
and dried, and afterwards cut into