THE SAVINGS OF SCIENCE. 805 



excellent material for making the commoner grades of paper, suitable 

 for wrapping and newspaper purposes. 



The present sources of the supply of potash are rapidly failing ; 

 every year the area of the supply becomes smaller, and the product, in 

 consequence of this and the increased demand, becomes more and 

 more expensive. The cobs of Indian corn, which are now considered 

 of little or no value, may yet share the same fate as many substances 

 which, though formerly considered worthless, have become new mines 

 of wealth, through the aid of chemistry. 



The average yield of 1,000 parts of cobs is 7*62 parts of carbonate 

 of potash, or nearly twice as much as the best specimens of wood, and 

 it is a material which can fill its full measure of usefulness for other 

 purposes, before it comes into the hands of the manufacturer of potash. 

 At the shipping ports, large shelling-mills are established, capable of 

 running through 500 bushels of corn an hour. Here, then, are the 

 places where a supply of cobs may be procured. 



The corn-crop of North America varies ; but, taking the yield of 

 1871 1,100,000,000 bushels, at fourteen pounds of cobs to the bushel 

 this would yield 7,700,000 tons of cobs, containing an average of 

 three quarters per cent of pure carbonate of potash. The enormous 

 quantity of 115,500,000 pounds of that useful article might thus be 

 thrown into commerce. In some districts, these corn-cobs are exten- 

 sively used as fire-lighters, being dipped into a composition of resin 

 and tar, and then dried. 



It is only some twenty years now since glycerine, a by-product in 

 the manufacture of soap and candles, has been produced on a commer- 

 cial scale, but the quantity now made represents an annual value of 

 nearly a quarter of a million sterling. Glycerine has thus attained to a 

 position of considerable technical importance. The introduction of 

 the stearine-candle industry and the efforts to utilize the heretofore 

 waste products of the soap manufacture demonstrated its existence in 

 considerable quantity. The important uses to which this substance is 

 now applied are so numerous that it would be difficult to enumerate them. 



There is a large consumption of cork-bark, in this and other coun- 

 tries (the quantity we import exceeds in value half a million sterling), 

 and even in this direction the economizing of the waste is found 

 profitable and useful. The suberine powder is made into cork carpets 

 for floor-cloth, and it is even used by chemists in place of lycopodium, 

 powdered rice, starch, etc. Old corks are collected, and cleaned with 

 hydrochloric acid and hot water, so as to be used again. The Paris 

 sewers are provided with gratings, and the corks thus collected are re- 

 cut, and used again. All cork cuttings are useful for filling life-buoys, 

 belts, jackets, and even beds. 



In Europe, as much use has not been made of sea-weed as in China 

 and Japan, where it forms a very large article of consumption for food. 

 In China, it is imported both from Japan and Asiatic Russia, to the 



