Mexico Missouri message. (Mexico, Audrain County, Mo.) 1899-1918, 1910-06-30

sometimes as much as a hundred feet in length,
depend for their effects wholly upon such paper
cylinders no bigger than good-sized irecrackers,
stuck all over the lattice work Of the skeleton
structure employed by the hre-painter In lieu as
one might say, of canvas.
Something more in detail about these fire pic
lures will be said later on; but meanwhile it may
be as we'll to speak descrptvely of the processes
used in the manufacture of the more simple and
samiliar kinds of irewQrks-such, for example,
as roman candles, bombs, rockets pnwheels and
the like. All of these, excepting the bombs, are
! substantially nothing more than cylinders OF
pasteboard, filled with combustibles and fash
Toned in different ways.
One of the greatest fireworks factories in the
world is located on the outskirts of Brooklyn,
but the stranger who passes by 1t on trolley car
the way to Coney island would scarce sus-
pect the character of the outfit which is scat
tered over about twenty acres of land in a series
OF small buildings some of them being so tiny
as to accommodate only single workman. The
object of this arrangement is to minimize the
consequences of accidents. If the lone man who
occupies any one of the tiny houses should hap
pen to be blown up he alone would suffer.
It naturally happens that the only building
of considerable size the premises is one in
which no explosives or other lively combustibles
used. Here, in fact, is where all the paper is
stored tons upon tons of It, for the outer wrap
pings of the fireworks. Pyrotechnic toys, of
course, must be pretty to look at else they would
not sell to advantage and the papers utilized for
the purpose are of all colors Of the rainbow and
a great variety of ornamental patterns. For
extra fancy goods more or less gilt and silver
paper is employed.
Upstairs in the same building all of the pa
per cylinders are made the process adopted be-
ing so exceedingly expeditions that one person
turn out as many as Is gross of them in
day. OF course they are Of all lengths and diam
eters according to kind and size of fireworks
for which they are intended and though the
rocket cylinders are rolled by machine all of the
others are made by hand. With the aid of a long,
round stick of metal and pot of paste the oper-
ator converts sheets of thin, brown pasteboard
into neat and compact tubes at the rate of three
or four a minute
A dozen work people engaged In this
patton turn out an immense number Of cyl
inders in day and the manner in which they
utilized in the manufacture Of different kinds
of fireworks will presently be explained 1t might
be well to say incidentally however, that in this
same department are made the bombshels, which
are stamped by machine out of papier-mache
in halves. When they have become dry the
halves are Joined by strips Of thin canvas soaked
IN paste, each sphere thus produced having
round hole at one end for loading.
Bombs are among the most interesting and
beautiful of fireworks and some of them are OF
great size-as much as five feet in diameter
They discharged from mortars and, reaching
height of 1000 feet or more, explode with
great noise, nberating showers Of many-colored
stars or golden rain, or sometimes parachutes
carrying trains OF stars. Some are made as
small as two inches in diameter-baby ones
suitable for family use.
The method of their construction is always.
the same and is at once simple and ingenious
The papier-mache shell is filled with stars
that is to say, with little pieces of cylindrical
paper tubing packed with different chemical com
positions. Beneath the shell thus loaded is at
tached and firmly glued paper receptacle con-
tanning a slow-burnng composition similar to
ia so hXad hat nR
ignited at the instant of the bombs discharge 1t
will burn Just long enough to explode the shell
at the moment when the projectie has reached
its greatest height in the air When this hap
pens the paper she'll is blown to pieces and the
stars, incidentally ignited thrown far and
wide. Being light they fall slowly and the effect
produced is very beautiful
Even the stars, you see, are paper cylinders
though only half an inch perhaps in length, But
they vary much in size according to the uses to
which they are to be put. A man cuts them by
the millions with a small circular saw, taking a
handful of paper tubes of small diameter and
using the saw to chop them into short pieces Of
equal length. Then the little sections are filled
with chemical mixtures of various kinds, nitrate
and chlorate of baryta being used for green car
Donate Of strontium for red. oxylate Of soda for
yellow and oddly enough) paris green for blue
with various admixtures OF chlorate Of potash
shellac etc.
II should have been said that in order to
strengthen the papier-mache shells and so TO en-
able them TO scatter their stars widely
when shattered. they are wound with strong gro
Ser's twine outside of which the final decorative
paper cover is put on There is, however, an
other and quite new kind Of bomb, which is made
IN the shape of cylinder. 1t is so constructed
that during its flight through the air 1t makes
series of breaks" sometimes as many as ten
throwing out each time shower of stars. This,
as might be imagined. is a very beautiful effect
and is achieved by dividing the containing cylin-
der into series of compartments holding stars,
each compartment being set Off in its turn.
Some of these cylindrical bombs contain par
achutes which are arranged like the parachutes
dropped from rockets inside OF the pasteboard
is circular piece Of tissue paper, around
the circumference Of which are attached series
Of very long strings. To each OF these strings
are fastened at intervals number OF the little
paper stars already described and the arrange.