Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1902-09-30

How. The men put ON rubber boots
and shovel the shells into the boats.
In the upper Mississippi district
shells are quoted in car lots. ranging.
from Is to 30 tons in weight, but the
Arkansas dealers have astounded ev-
|erybody in the business by sending
out quotations on 50O-ton lots and
promptly filling all orders sent them.
If they continue TO do this the fame
of the Arkansas mussel will soon
travel very far.
How Buttons Are Made.
The process of making the shells
into buttons is interesting. The shells
are first cut up into blanks the exact
size the buttons are going to be; then
they go to the grinder, a machine
which grinds the black off of them;
after that to the facing machine.
which cuts the. face on them; next
to the hacker, which bevels the back;
then to the drill, which puts in the
eyeholes; from there they go to the
polishing room, where the glossy fin
ish is put upon them; after that they
are sorted, put on cards and boxed
up.
The Making of Blanks.
great many of the factories do
not make the complete button, only
doing the preliminary work. Such
places are called blank factories
Muscatine is the place where the in
Gustry originated and where it has
hourished to the greatest extent.
There are about forty factories there
and the amount paid out weekly in
wages is $4,000. There are factories
in Davenport, Fort Madison, Burling-
ton, Quincy, LaGrange, Canton and
many other points.
The industry has developed to
such proportions that many thous-
ands of people are employed and mil
lions of buttons are turned out daily.
The button market of the world has
been affected by the Mississippi shell
to such an extent that prices are now
fully IS per cent cheaper than they
were few years ago.
MusseI Shell and RosarIes.
after the shells have had the but
ton blanks sawed out of them they
are used TO make walks around resi-
dences and they serve admirably for
this purpose. In other localities they
have been used successfully for max
ing roads. notably in New Orleans
and Galveston. \ new use to which
the discarded shells are now being
of beads, such as rosaries for sacred
use and also for the purpose of fem
mime ornamentation. Experiments
are being made i'm the way of grind
ing the shells into dust and after
ward manufacturing small articles
from the composition thus obtained.
History of the Button.
Button making was introduced in
to the United States in 1855. all the
material used in their manufacture
being secured from abroad and al
lowed to enter our ports free of duty.
The center of the industry has al
ways been in the east until recently.
Buttons were originally made of met
al and were as much for ornamental
purposes as to hold the garments of
the wearer in place. In the old eoun-
tries the dandies used to adorn them.
selves with innumerable buttons, but
it seems for purposes of adornment
they have never appealed to the prac-
teal mind of the American. The only
buttons on the clothes of our men
which have no use are the small ones
on the end of the coat sleeves.
The Che, alters Coatsleeve.
There is a tradition in connection
with these that few people know
about. y resourceful king put but
tons on the sleeves of his soldiers
coats to prevent them from wiping
their noses on them. That was long
ago. When handkerchiefs came into
vogue the tailor began gradually to
reduce the number of buttons on the
coat sleeves until now there are but
two, and these, for several centuries,
have had no purpose other than orna-
mentation."