Cork: Its Origin and Industrial Uses

by Gilbert Erwin Stecher

As cork is likewise a very bad conductor of sound, it is successfully used on the doors of consulting rooms, and for making floors for hospitals, etc. Finally, in the manufacture of certain stringed instruments, it is used to prevent a loss of sound.

The slight density of cork, as compared with water, and its impermeability to liquids, make it an excellent float, capable not only of remaining on the surface, but also of supporting quite heavy bodies thereon. We shall be content to mention the annular cork float used in night lamps, the square block in which bath thermometers are fixed, and the fisherman’s dobber.

It is cork, too, that is used by preference in the manufacture of swimming and life-saving apparatus, to which inventors have devoted much thought. Very many vessels are provided with cork mattresses, which, in cases of shipwreck, render the greatest services. For example, the ship Constant, which sailed from Anvers for Brazil in 1845, was wrecked on the night of October 12th, at twelve miles from St. Thanes, but, thanks to the cork life preservers and mattresses that she had on board, not one of the crew was lost. As for life-saving buoys, properly so called, they consist of several cork planks which are given an annular form, and are provided with free ropes that are knotted here and there so that they may be easily grasped. From the stern of every vessel a buoy of this kind is suspended by a rope that may be at once cut when the cry of “A man overboard!” is heard. These buoys are usually covered with canvas coated with a paint that serves to preserve it. It is also possible to save a person who has fallen into the water at a certain distance from a wharf by means of floats. This device consists of a piece of rattan provided with points around which molten lead has been poured, and the whole is then surrounded with cork in chips, and covered externally with canvas and a network to protect the affair against wear.

Fenders are canvas bags that are filled with cork and are placed along the sides of ships or along docks in order to deaden the shock in case of a collision. Such are the principal uses rendered to navigation by cork.

It has already been seen, by the extract from Pliny, that Roman ladies preserved their feet from cold by means of cork soles. Such a use of cork is still in vogue. In addition to these soles, which are flat, there are others that have nothing to do with hygiene, and are merely connected with fashion. Such are the Louis Quatorze talonettes, designed to increase the stature without exaggerating the heel of the shoe. Female dancers wear linings of this kind in their shoes, which, as well known, have flat soles. A thin sheet of cork enclosed in the sole of the shoe would, we think, prove very useful to troops on a march during bad weather.

Cork is not only useful as an application to foot gear, but also renders great service in head gear, and, in the form of helmets, has preserved a large number of soldiers from death by sunstroke in tropical countries. We find it again, in the form of very thin sheets, in the interior of beaver hats, where it is used as a protection against heat. It is also used in these same hats as a sweat band, in lieu of leather. In ladies’ toilets, the cork serves to make the carcasses of the birds that decorate their head gear. Manufacturers of dress trimmings use cork molds, which they cover with silk or cotton, for ornamenting cloaks, etc. The lightness of cork can alone explain the great size of these balls, olives, etc., some of which are larger than a hen’s egg.

A few years ago, a Paris house sold cork cravats, and we have recently seen, exposed in a show case, some children’s costumes, in which the sailor’s collar was of thin sheet cork decorated with colored designs. Although cork gowns have not yet appeared, we have waterproofs composed of thin sheet cork cemented between two pieces of silk. These cloaks have the advantage over those made of rubber of not allowing air to pass through them.

There is also a curious application of cork in the manufacture of a fabric that renders those who are clothed with it insubmergible.

We can mention but few of the many applications of cork, new ones of which are being discovered every day, so shall confine ourselves to recalling the services rendered by this valuable product in surgical prosthesis and for the use of naturalists, etc. In domestic life, it is used for bath steps, and for making rolling pins for crushing almonds without absorbing the oils as wood would do. Thin sheets of it are used for making fancy labels for wines. The ease with which it may be cut, turned and worked causes it to be employed in the manufacture of small objects, such as rural landscapes and the reproductions of monuments, some of which are genuine works of art. We may likewise mention, among objects made of cork, cases of various forms for sending bottles by mail, spools for allowing of the cheap carriage of silk, the old-fashioned inkstand, the thick penholder for preventing writer’s cramp, the cigar holder and many fancy objects that would take too long to enumerate. There is perhaps no calling that does not have to make more or less use of cork. Polishers of gold have used it from time immemorial, in the form of narrow strips, for rubbing their work with rouge. The wheels with which crystals are polished are faced with it, and watchmaker’s lens mounted in cork, the lightness of which prevents the muscles of the face from tiring.

In the industries, driving pulleys are now beginning to be provided with cork in order to secure an adhesion of the belting. In carpenter shops these bands of cork are now advantageously replacing rubber ones for covering the pulleys over which the band saw runs. The stoppers of nursing bottles are now being replaced by hygienic ones of cork, which, being very cheap, can be changed as soon as the presence of ferments is suspected. Cork is likewise employed in the manufacture of children’s toys; it serves, for example, for fixing the wig on dolls’ heads. Is it necessary to recall the cork of pop-guns and pistols, and the cork battledores and shuttlecocks used for playing with indoors? These few data will serve to show that but few products are capable of so many diverse applications as cork is; and the question may be asked whether it would be possible to substitute anything else for it, in case the supply should become exhausted.