Show converting convertine rocks bocks into wool ot of all the wonders of modern modeen indus try that of the manufacture of a soft and downy wool from sandstone and ani from the waste slag ot of blast f furnaces u frnaces Is one of the mos most t striking the product called mineral wool Is already widely used tor for packing fireproofing fire proofing etc and the process of manufacture Is described canslers Cass lers Af magazine agazine september as follows the wool itself serving a variety of useful purposes as a conducting non covering against heat and cold all alike ke tor for steam pipes and cold storage room walls as a sound deadener in floors of buildings and as a means of fireproofing among many others Is as its name implies a soft and wooly substance consisting of a mass of very fine mineral f fibers interlacing one another in every direction and thus forming an endless number of minute air cells the wool appears on the market in a variety of colors principally white but often yellow or gray and occasionally quite dark and is made vy converting scoriae and certain rocks while in a molten state stale into a fibrous condition by a steam blast directed against the liquid material probably no better idea can be given of the nature of the alie process than by the annexed sketch which almost speaks for itself blast furnace slag forms the raw material for one variety of the wool and sandstone for another yielding respectively slag wool and rock wool the latter being preferable tor or pipe covering because of I 1 the he absence from tt it of sulphur which with moisture present becomes an active corroding corrod lne agent the furnace slag or the rock as the case may be is melted in a large cupola and as it trickles out at the tap hole in a somewhat sluggish stream it meets a high pressure steam jet which atomizes the woolen mineral if this term may be used blowing it in fleecy clouds into the storage room provided for it soft and downy the stuff settles wherever a resting place affords itself the heavier and coarser wool coming down first while the lighter powders are blown further along by the force of the steam and settles in the more alls distant parts of the room the material thus naturally grades itself into varieties of different quality A thousand pounds of wool per hour are turned out by one of the cupolas cu and after the storage room has been blown full the flocculent mass is 13 packed into bags ready for the mar market ket the whole process affords art an admirable and interesting illustration of the utilization of an utterly waste product |