Part 35 (2/2)
The Certain Big Man shook his head negatively; but he was flattered nevertheless He leaned over and spoke to Henry Forrest
”If ever I aeneral”
And so it came to pass that on the blizzardy Dakota-urated President of these United States there was a parade--a parade in which many men rode in panoply and pride; but none was prouder there than he who, nificent bay horse, headed the Philippine Band
A pro kept The bay horse started three times to bolt from the line of march, and this was probably because its rider was better used to the Pompeian-red broiler car than to a Pompeian-red bay mare
But these were mere trifles Despite theer brethren at the terressional merely as Mr Forrest He was General Forrest now--a title he bears proudly and which he will carry with hi years of his life
What becomes of the older porters?
Sohts, the exposure and the hard, hard work begin to be too o to the ”super” and beg for the ”sick man's run”--a leisurely sixty or a hundred miles a day on a parlor car, perhaps on a side line where travel is light and the parlor car is a sort of sentimental frippery; probably one of the old wooden cars: the Alicia, or the Lucille, or the Celeste, still vain in bay s and grilles, and abundant in carvings For a sentiiven a feh she does creak in all her hundred joints when the track is the least bit uneven
As to the sick ratuity is no less a matter of keen interest and doubt at sixty than it is at twenty-six And though there is a smile under that clean mat of kinky white hair, it is not all habit--some of it is still anticipation But quarters and half dollars do not coer brother on the sleepers, or those elect who have the smokers on the fat runs To the oldon their worn faces the faint presentments of the ruler on the north side of Lake Erie and hardly redeemable in Baltimore or Cincinnati Yet even these are hardly to be scorned--when one is sixty
After the sick man's job? Perhaps a sandy farm on a Carolina hillside, where an old man may sit and nod in the warm sun, and dream of the days when steel cars were new--perhaps of the days when the platfor over the rails-- lories of a career on a fast train and a fat run For if it is true that any white boy has the potential opportunity of beco President of the United States, it is equally true that any black boy may become the Autocrat of the Pullman Car
_(The Independent)_
THE GENTLE ART OF BLOWING BOTTLES And the Story of How Sand is Melted into Glass
BY F GREGORY HARTSWICK
Remedies for our manifold ills; the refreshment that our infant lips craved; coolness in tione--drafts to assuage our thirst; the divers stays and supports of our declining years--all these things come in bottles Fronon of the rag-and-bone man the bottle plays a vital part in our lives And as with most inconspicuous necessities, but little is known of its history We assuuely that it is blown--ever sincethe Bohelass is blown into whatever shape fancy e of its manufacture extends
As a matter of fact the production of bottles in bulk is one of the lass industry of this country today The nficance before the hugeness of the bottle- business; and even the advent of prohibition, while it lessens lass containers of liquids, does not do so in such degree as to warrant very active uneasiness on the part of the proprietors of bottle factories
The process of ly involved one It includes the transportation and preparation of raw material, the reduction of theof the o forth on its lass is made is, of course, sand Not the brown sand of the river-bed, the well remembered ”sandy bottom” of the swimmin' hole of our childhood, but the finest of white sand from the prehistoric ocean-beds of our country This sand is brought to the factory and thereOn the tint of the finished product depends the sort of coloring agent used For clear white glass, called flint glass, no color is added The e to the glass; alass is obtained by the addition of an iron coives the finished bottle the clear blue tone that used to greet the waking eye as it searched the roo The flux used is old glass--bits of shattered bottles, scraps frolass is called ”cullet,” and is carefully swept into piles and kept in bins for use in the furnaces
The sand, coloring matter, and cullet, when mixed in the proper proportions, form what is called in bottle-makers' talk the ”batch” or ”dope” This batch is put into a specially constructed furnace--a brick box about thirty feet long by fifteen wide, and seven feet high at the crown of the arched roof This furnace is made of the best refractory blocks to withstand the fierce heat necessary to bring the batch to a molten state The heat is supplied by various fuels--producer-gas is the as is forced into the furnace and nited the flaases pass out of the furnace on the other side The gases at their exit pass thru a brick grating or ”checkerboard,” which takes up eas becomes the outlet, and vice versa, so that the heat taken up by the checkerboard is used instead of being dissipated, and as little of the heat of combustion is lost as is possible The batch is put into the furnace from the rear; as it liquefies it flows to the front, where it is drawn off thru ss and blown into shape
The terees Fahrenheit; it is lowest at the rear, where the batch is fed in, and graduates to its highest point just behind the openings thru which the glass is drawn off This temperature is measured by special instruments called thermal couples--two metals joined and placed in the heat of the flame The heat sets up an electric current in the joined raduated to read degrees Fahrenheit instead of volts, so that the temperatureof sand for glass are essentially the same in construction and principle The radical differences in bottle lass and blowing it into shape
Glass is blown by three , and auto The first used was the handthe old way a back nulass blower reigns suprereat centers of the bottle industry in the United States is down in the southern end of New Jersey Good sand is dug there--New Jersey was part of the bed of the Atlantic before it literally rose to its present state status--and naturally the factories cluster about the source of supply of ator may see bottles turned out by all three , while it is the slowest andbottles, is by far the --dark as far as daylight is concerned, but weirdly lit by orange and scarlet flashes froreat furnaces that crouch in its shelter At the front of each of these squatting low from the doors, move about like puppets on wires--any noise theyroar of the fire A worker thrusts a long blowpipe (in glassworkers'
tery a wand) into the molten mass in the furnace and twirls it rapidly The end of the wand, armed with a ball of refractory clay, collects a ball of selass to be withdrawn for the particular size of the bottle that is to bematerial is withdrawn froit to a cylinder, and passes the wand to the bloho is standing ready to receive it The blower drops the cylinder of glass into a mold, which is held open for its reception by yet another man; the mold snaps shut; the blower applies his mouth to the end of the blowpipe; a quick puff, accolass to shape in theabove The , is withdraith a pair of asbestos-lined pincers, and passed to a h strip of steel, after which he gives the bottle to one who sits guarding a tiny furnace in which oil sprayed under pressure roars and flares The rough neck of the bottle goes into the flaes left when the bubble was chipped off are soes a final polishi+ng and shaping twirl in the jaws of a steel instrument, and the bottle is laid on a little shelf to be carried away It is shaped, but not finished
The glass must not be cooled too quickly, lest it be brittle It must be annealed--cooled slowly--in order to withstand the rough usage to which it is to be subjected The annealing process takes place in a long, brick tunnel, heated at one end, and gradually cooling to atmospheric te platform, which slowly carries them from the heated end to the cool end The process takes about thirty hours At the cool end of the annealing furnace the bottle is met by the packers and isfurnaces are called ”lehrs” or ”leers”--either spelling is correct--and theinquiry failed to discover the reason for the name They have always been called that, and probably alill be
In the hand-blowing process six atherer to draw the glass from the furnace; a blower; a man to handle the mold; a man to chip off the bubble left by the blower; a shaper to finish the neck of the bottle; and a carrier-off to take the coatherer is also the blower, in which case two athers for his turn; but on one platfor all the blohile another gathered for him The pair used tands, so that their production was the sa This particular bloasquart bottles, and he ell qualified for the job He weighed, at a conservative esti had to happen I arrived at his place of labor just as the shi+fts were being changed--a glass-furnace is worked continuously, in three eight-hour shi+fts--and as the little whistle blew to announce the end of his day's toil the giant grabbed the last wand, dropped it into the waitingfrom the mouth of the , filling the air with shi+h to be wafted likeshower had settled and I had opened et an eyeful of those beautiful scraps--the huge bloas di in perspective toward his dinner, and the furnace door was, for the ation of workers I lared the mouth of the furnace, withfros of glass left by the withdrawal of the wand The heat three feet aas enough to make sand melt and run like water, but I was not unpleasantly warm This was because I stood at the focus of three tin pipes, thru which streams of cold air, fan-ient it would be ilass