The recent uses for corkwood are, as a float in the carburetter of an automobile, the cork insert in the periphery of a pulley,[33] cork paper for cigarette tips, a wadding for shot-gun cartridges, cork-coated fabric for balloons, as a filling for automobile tires, as a disk in the non-refillable bottle, for the making of casks and barrels in which to store wine, and the ground cork wood for shipping fruit, etc. in, to prevent spoiling.
[Substitutes]
Of course, no matter what the substance, a substitute is always sought for, and this has been the case with cork, but with very unfruitful results. “A primitive material used for bottle stoppers consisted of the roots of liquorice; the spongy substance of another tree called ‘Spondies Lutea,’ which abounds throughout the marshy regions of South America and there called ‘Monbia,’ was also used in the same way, as also a product called ‘Myssa,’ which contains some of the elements of cork.[34] Another substitute is mentioned in Henley’s “Twentieth Century Receipts” as follows: Wood pulp three parts; cornstarch pith one part; gelatin one part; glycerine one part; water four parts; 20 per cent solution formic aldehyde; and still another in the “Handyman’s ‘Inquire Within,’” by Haslock, called “Phellosene,” a French invention consisting of powdered cork mixed with a solution of nitro-cellulose in acetone: compressed and dried. The wood of Anona palustris growing in the West Indies, and called the alligator’s apple, is used by the negroes to stop their jugs and calabashes also, and a Mr. Brockedon invented a substitute as noted in “Knight’s Cyclopedia,” the core of which was cotton twisted into strands, wound with flax and the whole covered with India rubber. Cork’s competitor in buoyancy, “balsa wood,” is in no wise constituted to take its place, although 20 per cent lighter; as it is a fibrous growth and hygroscopic, requiring a coat of water-proofing solution before it can be used even for life-preservers; rubber, its close second, in the manufacture of stoppers is not to be compared with it, and although there have been many patent devices for sealing bottles, such as the porcelain stopper, crimped metal stoppers, etc., the cork stopper still reigns as the best of them all.
[MANUFACTURE]
IN describing the manner and process of converting the corkwood into the various commercial forms, no attempt will be made to give a scientific exposition of all the details, as being inconsistent with the character of this monograph, nor will any other processes be described than the ones in which the material being worked, is cork. This may exclude much of interest to the reader, but the intent of this little work is purely a corkwood exposition, and the desire to keep it so must prevail.
In taking up the processes of manipulation we naturally start from the beginning, but the beginning in this case has a peculiar significance as relating to the whole, for it is apparent to utilize corkwood to the fullest extent its qualities must be studied and the best, used first, so that the beginning of the corkwood industry is peculiar in this fact, that it takes the best part and leaves but scrap, which must be studied carefully to realize the value lost in the first process; therefore, in the manufacture of one article of corkwood it is necessary to make provision for the scrap created, and this is a characteristic of all such establishments.