MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 105 



ARTIFICIAL HARD GRAIN OF LEATHER. 



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To give any kind of leather the appearance of genuine hard grain, J. A. 

 Richards, of London, takes a skin of real hard grained leather, electrotypes 

 it, and then bends the plate thus produced round a roller or drum, and 

 mounts it on a shaft. He then passes the leather to receive the hard grain 

 appearance under this roller, which is subjected to great pressure. 



ON THE MANUFACTURE OF KELP. 



From recently-published satistics we derive the following information re- 

 lative to the production of kelp and its resulting products in Ireland and 

 Scotland : 



The quantity of kelp imported into Glasgow is generally about six thou- 

 sand tons annually, although it has reached near twelve thousand in one 

 year. Of this amount about seven thousand tons are produced in Ireland, 

 and the rest in Scotland. The average price of kelp at the several places 

 of collection is twenty dollars per ton. The average cost to the manufac- 

 turer is twenty-five dollars. The aggregate amount expended annually 

 upon this product of the ocean is thus shown to be about $225,000. 



From these figures some idea may be formed of the value of this manu- 

 facture to the inhabitants of the sea coast, and they are well worthy the 

 attention of the inhabitants of the Maine and Xova Scotia seaboard. 



The average amount of Iodine procurable from a ton of kelp is about 

 nine pounds. The salts of Potash, however, constitute a very important 

 element in calculating the yield of kelp. The following table gives some 

 idea of the yield of 9,000 tons of kelp : 



9 Ibs. Iodine per ton, 81,000 pounds 



500 Ibs Chloride Potassium per ton, 4.500,000 



150 Ibs. Sulph. Potash, per ton 1,350,000 



800 Ibs. mixed Carb. Mur. and Sulph. Soda, called Kelp Salt, 2,700,000 " 



The insoluble residuum which remains after the exhaustion of the soluble 

 contents of the kelp, and which amounts to about one half the original 

 weight, when mixed with sand is the flux used by the glass bottle makers 

 in Scotland, the price paid being generally one dollar per ton. 



ARTIFICIAL WHALEBONE. 



In 1855, Joseph Kleeman, Meissen, Germany, obtained a patent for a 

 mode of preparing a substitute for whalebone. The process has recently 

 been successfully introduced into Xew York City. 



It consists in taking sticks of the common ratan and soaking them in a 

 liquid extract for about four days, after which they are immersed in a solu- 

 tion of any of the iron salts, which gives the ratan a deep black dye. Sub- 

 sequently the sticks are exposed in a close vessel, for the space of about one 

 hour, to the action of steam of about three or four atmospheres' pressure, 

 and then thoroughly dried in a furnace or drying-room at a temperature of 



