The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1901-05-02

A page of the St. Nicholas is hiled
with a paper by Ralph Benton entitled
Talking of Camphor."
Where does this come from, asked
Sandy McLauren, picking a block OIL
camphor out of jar that stood on the
counter.
The druggist at the corner near san
dy's home was a good friend to all
the boys, and they liked to ask him
questions.
"Camphor? That is a long story.
The speaker and questioner sat down
behind the prescription counter. Have
you ever noticed that row of lindens
down on Fourth street, near the gram
mar school? Well the tree that pro-
duces camphor looks very much like
any one of those. 1t grows in China,
Japan and other parts of eastern ASIA.
Occasionally a camphor tree becomes
so old and SO large that it is verita-
BILE landmark. In 1851, for instance,
a traveller in Japan described tree
which he found that was sc feet about
the trunk Almost century and a
half later the same tree was said by
another traveller to be so feet around.
did your grandmother ever make
you take few drops of spirit Of cam
phor? You know what fiery taste
it has. then. You wouldn't think that
camphor and the cinnamon sticks that
you like so we'll are first cousins; but
they belong to the same botanical fam
lily.
If you take one of the shiny gre9n
leaves from d camphOr tree ana ZAP
it gently between two stones, you sme1I"
the same odor as comes to you when
you take the lid off camphor jar.
Every part of the tree contains its
part of the gum, bat the bulk of 1t
comes from the root trunk, and
branches. The first step is to reduce
the tree to chips, and these are put
into iron vessels having a cone shaped
cover lined with rice straw. Then the
vessels are heated, and the camphor IS
driven out of the chips Do you know
what | mean when | use the word
volatile? No? Well, a thing is VIOLA
tile that seems to fly off in the air.
Now camphor is volatile; it is capable
of being changed into vapor. When
heat is applied to the iron vessels the
camphor is volatilized, but it condens-
es almost at once; that is, it is changed
to a multitude of tiny little Jumps of
solid camphor, which fasten them
selves on the straw that lines the COW
er. 1t is then scraped from the straw,
refined and pressed into blocks"
rs camphor used for anything but
medicine and to keep off moths?"
asked Sandy.
Il was just coming to that. Strange
as it may seem, we can get SUBJ
stance from it that looks almost like
ivory-hard and beautifully white. Go
out to the first show case on the left
and bring me white comb and one of
those hand mirrors with white back.
Sandy looked puzzled as he obeyed
This material" tapping the back Of
the mirror lis called celluloid, and it
is made from camphor and cotton. 1t
is used for hair brushes, soap boxes,
knife handles. and many other arti-
cles. In another field we find that it,,
plays its part in changing the map u
the world or shaping in the destiny or
a nation. Camphor is used in making
smokeless gunpowder. Our country
certainly learned the value of it in
the summer of '9S."
Why Sandy ventured, Il should
think with all the big armies every
where that most of the camphOr would
be used for powder
"A great deal of il is. That is why
camphor has been so dear for num-
Der of years past
Couldn't tar camphor be used?"
oh, no. Tar camphor is really not
camphor at all, though somebody dis
covered about IL years ago that it
would take the place of camphor in
preventing the ravages of moths. For
many years it was thrown away; it
was a puzzle to get rid of it. 1t
comes in a roundabout way, from btu
minous coal. When this kind of coal
is heated in certain way it is split
up into gas fused for lighting),
heavy black liquid local tar and coke:
and it is from the coal tar that tar
camphor is made. cOuldn begin to
tell you all about coal tar in one night,
Sandy. Some other time We'll talk