CORK, ITS MANUFACTURE AND PROPERTIES. 651 



made of cork ; and in water-proof garments this material is prefer- 

 able to India-rubber, in that it allows a freer passage to the air. 



Among other miscellaneous applications, may be named those for 

 prosthesis in surgery, naturalists' blocks, rolling-pins for pastry, bath- 

 landings, and wine-labels. The facility with which it is cut, makes 

 cork available for fanciful works of art, as in landscape combinations, 



Fig. 11. Cokk Jacket and Life-Buoy. 



models of monuments, cases for inclosing bottles to be mailed, spools 

 for silk, the inkstands of our fathers' childhood ; pen-holders, which 

 being large and light, do not cramp the fingers, and hundreds of other 

 articles of the kind. There is hardly a profession that does not make 

 more or less use of cork. Gold-burnishers make their rubbers from it, 

 and crystal-polishers their wheel-surfaces. It forms a very light and 

 convenient mounting for watch-makers' lenses, which is used with a 

 minimum amount of fatigue to the muscles of the eye. Applied as a 

 tire to pulley-wheels, it secures a firmer adhesion of the bands. The 

 stoppers of sucking-bottles have been replaced by cork tips which, 

 being very cheap, can be renewed when the presence of a ferment in 

 them is suspected. Cork is also used in a great many children's toys 

 and plays ; in fixing wigs on the heads of dolls ; in toy guns and 

 pistols ; in shuttlecocks and skittles to be played in rooms. In fact, 

 one is almost tempted to inquire to what use it can not be put. 



