Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1906-10-10


III the corresponding period OF any
other year. The output, Furthermore,
even during the warm months when
industrial strenuousness everywhere
let's up a little, has kept right on, so
that long before the current year
closes there must be in operation
considerably more than 5000,vvv sta
tons of the vast interconnected or
ganization which was first to occupy
the telephone field.
ana little Imagination, based on
plain fact, reveals a remarkable story
the ransacking Of four quarters
of the globe in order that every Ameri-
can may talk with every other. how
ever distant. The separate parts OF
the telephone that go to the subscri-
Der today were two or three years ago
TO be found in widely scattered locali-
tles-under the earth in Montana,
Michigan and Pennsylvania; al the
bottom OF TIE bogs in Sweden; in not,
miasmic swamps of South America
and central Africa: in beds Of beaux.
lite of northeast Georgia; in the spruce
forests of she great northwest. Tne
diverse elements finally come together
in the New York and Chicago facto--
les of the Western Electric company.
the manufacturing auxiliary OF the
Bell companies.
In the New York establishment
alone, after all the parts have teen as
sembled, IS paop.e give their entire
time to putting together the finished
pieces OF the transmitters, 81 paople
TO the pieces of the receivers, wnil Sc
skilled artisans dismantle instrum mis-
that need. repair, often thru the in
sertion of some minute part which has
worn out before the rest of the appa-
ratus. In the total work of preparing
these and other portions of the famil,
lar telephone system, more than 20
goo people in the United States alone
are employed, constituting the greatest
electrical company in the world-one
having a. present on its payroll in.
Guiding the establishments in foreign
countries, about 2S,S50 persons.
LOOK for a moment at the materi.
ais of the recei er as it hangs on its
hook. The most apparent part of IL
consists of three rubber moulded
parts made IRON yulcanite, a materi.
al which recalls the story of the en-.
beavers of Charles Goodyear to dis
cover the process of hardening the
raw rubber which he had been using
for covering overshoes. Goodyear had
learned that sulphur powder could be
used as drying agent, and, by acct
dent one day, some sulphur-dried
rubber falling from his hands upon a
red not stove hardened there instead
of melting as he would have expected.
Forthwith the inventor had the long
sought for clue, and speedily patented
the process OF vulcanizing, without
which the telephone industry might
have been seriously hampered these
many years.
Into the making OF about 1000 Of
these receivers a day, which are for
warded to Bell subscribers, a goodly
quantity Of yulcanite goes-as one
might learn by weighing the material
In the receiver and multiplying it by.
say, 100000 the approximate num-
Der Of telephone stations in the sys-
TEN. The previous history of the hard,
dark substance covering e delicate
apparatus Of given receiver would
be difficult to trace. Such is the sub.
division Of production in modern in.
dustry that the telephone manufac-
turer has no direct concern with the
processes Of manufacture Of yulcanite
or the sources Of supply Of crude rub
Der, whether it comes from Congo
state, where the negro rubber gather
er, working among long cable.like
vines, smears his bod. vita sap,
which, drying ca, IS pulled Oh at tn
tax collecting station in thin sheets
or whether 1t arrives here from the
desolate swamps Of the Amazon,