Show curious amount account of corlia aud and bunga we entered the factory at the hour appointed and accompanied by the managing director pro c ceded eded a warehouse stacked with huge p piles flea of cork tied up in bales as imported into this nou country to a little yard in the rear of the building here we found one of the workmen busily engaged before a blazing fire of cork shavings on which was placed a huge gridiron he was char achar ring the cork as the operation is called that is a to say hs he was and it on this gridiron it is this process that gives the bungs bangs that dark exterior which they always possess s it also closes the pores without at all diminishing the aize aze or lessoning lessening the weight of tile the cork many sheets of cork which by reason of their porosity would be almost valueless are by this means rendered fit for port wine and other fine corks A number of sooty little urchins who I 1 night might easily be mistaken for diminutive specimens of the sons of ham were assisting in this department returning Return returning in le to the warehouse we were enabled to inspect the curious carious and interesting machinery by which the manufacture is accomplished there was cork of e every kind tile the black coarse I 1 ind and dirty from portugal poring ivear if alie in e w white h ito fine and clean from froin spain cork of a somewhat yellowish line hue from sines cork in large sheets and cork in small pieces the size of a finger fi tiger if nail a il for phials and sma 11 er vessels the foreman told at a single glace the value of the various sheets and was wa asthig them according to their qualities to tha of a 0 ow tvr bauders who ma may y bo be en engaged adf ed in manufactures of various kinds which c call 11 I 1 in in the aid of steam it may not be uninteresting to present a brief descriptive sketch oa 01 the in mode 0 de in which these slice or sheet of the cork bark were turned into bottle corks corke and bu bangs bungs ns A sheet of cork is if placed on an iron table in which revolves a circular kni kul Teby feby which all knobs and are pared off parallel with this knife and at a distance from it regulated ted by the size of the cork required to is a little guage or edge pushing the cork against the edge or of the knife and passing it between the knife and the he gt tags the sheet is speedily cut up tip into long strips one boy cran can cutup cut up in this way half a conof tonof ton of cork in a day by a similar process these slips aro are cut into little parallelograms the length of the cork required A lad at Is duy day turns timia out 80 gross per diem while e the most experienced anen by hand labor could hardly do half as much within the same period aethol bo would charge five or six times tile money for his labor these parallelograms are then taken to another machine the boy places one on a lever holds I 1 it t there with his hand the lever hand and cork are carried up tip to an all iron table two holders now seize the alie square piece of cork exactly in its centre aud and it begins to revolve the hand and lever return now there comes along alon horizontally horizontal hori zonta 1 a I fearfully large knife a yard in leaf length th w which ib catches the parallelogram of cork on tile the side as aa it is to its edge it will be easily seen that the square is thus cut into an ordinary bottle cork and we may remark also as a curious fact that out of often ten thousand of these parallelogram sa eat round cork would in every individual ease case be c cut tt t of the very largest dimensions mathematically possible and not only so bat the entire ten thousand would be in the strictest mathematical sense of the word of precisely the same size and circumference cum ference moreover all are perfectly circular which cannot possibly be the case with corks cut cat by hand As the knife recedes the holders drop the perfect cork into one basket and the shavings into another and the knife by an ingenious process is made to sharpen itself this is a great advantage el for the hand and cutters lose much time in af sharpening pening their knives it being a fact that hardly any substance so soon takes off the edge as cork from 16 to 35 corks can be and are cut in a minute and there are children of from 12 to 14 years of age who make at the ratio of seventy I 1 gross a day by a similar machine tho somewhat more complicated bungs bangs are eat cut both round and tapering at one operation one of the patents held by this company which the managing director facetiously remarked were sufficiently numerous to paper his counting house was the manufacture of ordnance corks and we were shown some of these wads for eighteen inch howitzers howit further on an ingenious piece of mechanism was branding the corks with the names of large brewing and bottling firms for whose use they were intended this little machine acted very rapidly and the process was very simple we al also had an opportunity of witnessing cork cut ting by hand both by english and french operatives but their mode is too well known to need any descriptive details here it appears that the superior kinds of cork are not permitted to be exported from spain in an state spaniards on the spot being so far protected in their cutting the spaniards we may observe who export cork often place all the best sheets outside so that those who go down to the docks to purchase are sometimes taken in by this deceptive process to a very serious extent to us there appeared considerable beaty in the I 1 perfect accuracy and precision with which these corks were drued out by the machines before alluded 1 i to but this satisfactory result has only been attained after the purchase trial and rejection of I 1 several patents after expensive experimentation I 1 and the sacrifice of a large quantity of valuable I 1 machinery but patience has had its triumph and the existing I 1 ing machinery has at length been brought to a ai point which leaves apparently nothing further to I 1 be desired one olne of the important results which I 1 has thereby been attained is that these iron hand I 1 ed fire eating water drinking team stin breathing I 1 I 1 61 cork cutters can neither strike nor a i can neither pocket I 1 the corks nor cution of orders by making saint sua sin phrase goes that is by taking inking a holiday i ond day of the week cork is tile the hark bark of the evergreen oak oakl the quercus suber As it is a sp apeci eci i it bark it may be removed without deirl detrinis health of the tree at friter vals or of from e ei A years after the die tree has reached about i year it is ia curious carious also that afie ne more ai I 1 this bark is stripped from the parent k finer in quality and the greater in quan quantity succeeding layer the commoner purposes to which chesi I 1 is applied in every day dav life lif e need nc not t be t here the ancient egyptians woold u ft have been acquainted with its properties A aft 4 for among other things we are told that at H accustomed to construct their coffins om of 11 A I 1 them with a resinous composition the 1 preserve the bodies cork parings are m 4 duc tive being manufactured into Z we have cork soles for shoes ork cork 0 foliar o 1111 iii for hats hate nd arid amongst tile the wonders of th J 7 tion of 1851 we had some beautiful spec ediin eci e in printing on cork about tile the thickness 0 of r uk q the odds and ends and shavings in t his I 1 I 1 are disposed of by contract to a comp compisi al imi 4 grind them to powder mix them with a asa i of india rt rubber ibber and thus construct a baff floor cloth 1 7 cork is produced throughout the sont hofE rope the best is found however lit in auddel altho for the reason before mentioned detri 1 11 get it in limited quantities quantifies and in a man atut state we receive our best 01 from sines in portugal A very beautiful beau crip ion tion of cork t too oo 00 is grown at and ne ney kr jd j mo but little or none of it arrives arries in ia acim try the differ different out consign consignments ments very vary in i I 1 remarkably the ordinary prices range K to 70 fi ton but as much and more us i has at times been given for a very supe i I 1 some two or three years ago a cargo of twit red tons of cork was imported from mo morocco we can learn of none co coming M I 1 n g the thence ne e either her dab oi or since there are large forests of cork coa fa 1 french colony of algeria particularly on f tate granted some time back by the em emperor IF III to M le ie due do de montebello thi mense forest must give rise to a very great j when tile old coarse bark at present app 4 shall have been stripped off and replaced J A which is finer and fit for use 1 I the storeroom store room was suggestive of soi soniA interesting reflections there were p Q 41 fifty or one hundred gross or more lal litou ledl I 1 ready to depart some to various ai i united and others for different the world in fact you may now final pro dictions duct ions of the machines in the little baek back k and of our metropolis in the bottles of youra 61 6 w 1 ter wines stout ginger beer or lemon lemonade ad eje OK only illy throughout the united kingdom hil but t to III 61 interior of our indian possessions under the die 0 04 vas touts of the australian gold digger pt in iff 16 comfortable homes of other parts of i in the miserable hots hats of the gold regions pr t fornia or in the gorgeous salons of the nw ai U 1 and boston hotels jax I 1 |