The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-07-14
HOME OF ROCKET AND ROMAN CANDLE Fireworks Factory Looks Like
 a Picnic Ground THE WORK IS INTERESTING Pyrotechnic Wonders Are Simply Made in Ne>. York-Pictures In
 Fire Are the Easiest
 to Design.


 amid the gentle bueolc surroundings of rustling leaves overhead and grass and red clover along the paths begins every ] day the life of thousands of rockets that will fill the night with upshooting streams of fire, of shells that burst into falling stars. of batteries and Roman candles that will pour forth volleys of fiery balls, n of set pieces that will become pictures sketehed in flame.
 ',So our grove here strikes you as ap- bearing like a picnic ground, does it?" ex- I claimed the superintendent in comment 9 on a remark of visitor the other day We'll it's far from it. We have a hun i, dred men and women working here, and l the hurry orders are coming in so fast just now that you can be sure we are having no picnic.
 'lt is necessary for the making of fire s works to have big inclosure and lot of small houses, so to prevent an ex- plosion of powder in one from causing the whole plant to go up in smoke. Perhaps you would like to take a walk around our village"
 The interior of the little house in which are taken the first steps in the making ot rocket looks, upon casual glance Ike bakeshop. Here are rows of girls standing at tables with their sleeves up ana rolling pins in their hands
 At the right hand of each is a symmet- rical pile of sheets of heavy brown paper ana big pot of paste. With ceaseess Industry each worker is spreading sheets or the paper on the table, daubing them with paste. deftly turning them on the roiilng pin, and tossing the stiff cylndri- cal shapes thus formed into heap at nf ha crir rlc hntr In rolling pins. and some small ones, and several who are making slender Roman candles. are working with thin bars of metal.
 Ready for Charges.
 After the paste has been allowed to dry the cylinders are ready for their charges. Those which are to become rockets are clstrlputed among several houses. each of which is occupied by a powder begrimed man, who works alone
 lie sets the prospective rockets on end In frames holding a couple of dozen or so, packs foundation of clay into the bot I tom of each, and upon this puts n small v scoop or powder. hydraulic machine with projecting rods is now called into f play. The rods slip into the paper cylln- 0 ders and ram the powder tight with a V pressure of seven tons.
 r This layer of powder is followed by an- . other which is aiso pressed down bv the - ued until the cylinder is nearly filled with powder, on top of which is put another . casing Of clay. In other booths the rocket Is fitted with it's fuse It's stick and the outer adornments that put it in readiness Tor the window of the fireworks dealer
 Equally simple in their making are the spherical shells which go hurtling into the heavens and flame out against the dark ness into showers of stars and falling can oples Of changing lights. One of their chief ingredients is waste paper In one of the houses is a machine for grinding the paper, and near by is a tub of it in half liquid state. A man thrusts dipper into this, and pours the paper . through a DowlilSe aperture in another machine. He then moves a crank that causes sort of rounded ram to descend into the bowl and squeeze the paper into the same shape.
 Passed to Girls.
 These forms. which have been com pressed tightly enough to handle. are passed to girls who make globes of pairs of them by pastng them together with strips of paper. They are then left to dry Lying on racks in the open air in sunny weather they resemble cocoanuts, and are so humble of aspect that one
 would never suspect that they are des- tined in their final movement to give forth an awe-inspiring beauty.
 This beauty, in it's original form Is to be found in barrels in several of the little | houses In which the chemists work Here . | the latter combine the various chemical ingredients into compounds, each of which when ignited will produce fire of dis | tinctive color. The compounds are packed into what are called pill boxes because they are of about the same size and shape . | as small receptacles for pills. . Held in these powders of various col ors are stored in the shells through a hole left in the top of each, and when the mid air explosion comes they take the form ! of multi-colored falling stars. To produce the snake-like and other odd effects, the < compounds are arranged in forms which carry the fire in the desired directions. This Is the general principle of con struction of the mines. fountains meteors 4 and all the rest of the yaregated forms 4 of fireworks that make gorgeous specta- 4 cles of the night celebrations of the Fourth of July. Clever brains at the fire works factory are constantly busy devis- 4 ing new effects in the form and color of the fire. An idea of this season Is radium fire. an intense white ligh, which aims the moon and causes the stars for time to be forgotten.
 paper cone containing a charge of ordinary powder is affixed to the bottom of the shell to project it from the motor, and a fuse is put in place which fires this charge. and then, burning ex- plodeS the smell at a nelSnt or aDout bU0 feet
 4 One of the houses in the inclosure is de- I voted to the making of the fuses. Here one sees men with their arms deep in vats of powder. which has been mixed as to bring it to a semi-liquid state. A \ worker puts a long coil of light cord in a vat and manipulates it there until all of it has been saturated and carries a \ coating of the powder. Then the cord is taken out and strung big frames to I dry Afterward, needed. it is cut into fuses
 Platform for Drawing. Another feature of the inclosure is a : smooth wooden platform that furthers the suggestion of the trees and grass that this might be picnic ground. The platform would do very well for dancing. On 1t, however. are drawn in black paint. three pictures of heroic size. One is of George Washington, another is of Presi- dent Roosevelt. and the third is combi- nationa of the American eagle and the Stars and Stripes
 This is where we sketch our drawings for the set pieces" remarked the super intendent The three you see are used so often that we have put them down in black paint L Ut all others are merely chalked on he boards and in day or SC are rubbed out and replaced by new ones
 We have two artists constantly ai work on pictures to be reproduced in fire
 With the exceptions of the ones you sec