TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 113 



that in the pure material there was nothing to affect the flavour or odour of common 

 drinks, wine, heer, spirits, &c. The machine was constructed which made the cores, 

 but the first cold weather that set in so hardened them as stoppers in bottles, that he 

 might as well have attempted to withdraw ivory, of the same form, from the bottles : 

 he then directed his attention to the formation of an elastic core, and found felted 

 wool the fittest for his purpose ; his first experiments with these were made at the end 

 of the year 1 834, and he carried them on for nearly five years before he secured his 

 patents, and it was only when he was seeking to manufacture so cheaply as to com- 

 pete with the price of common corks that he took out patents. Like most inventions, 

 its progress is a history, but the patentee only described enough to make his improve- 

 ments understood. 



For the attainment of his object he persevered through evil report and good report, 

 and struggled with ignorance and prejudice ; the prize was a great one to attain, for a 

 million gross of corks are consumed annually in Great Britain for the bottling of 

 common drinks, and at least £250,000 paid for them. The inventor felt that he was 

 possessed of a better and fitter instrument for closing vessels than such imperfect ma- 

 terial as cork could furnish, for his stoppers are air-tight and firm, and will neither 

 fracture nor decay, nor be destroyed by insects ; he gave his constant attention to its 

 improvement, and he is now finding his reward in a demand from wine-merchants 

 and others far exceeding the present means of supply ; the manufacturers now em- 

 ploy from sixty to eighty men and children, and they will soon be enabled, by their 

 arrangements, to supply the stoppers to any extent, for the patentee has entered into 

 a connexion with Charles Mackintosh and Co. in Manchester, and their means and' 

 energies to carry out any manufacture which they undertake require no comment. 



When that engagement began the only practicable plan was to form the core of the 

 stoppers of coarse wool yarn, which in a long hank of fifty or sixty feet, and in quan- 

 tity sufficient for the size required, was fastened at one end and twisted at the other, 

 until it formed a round rope ; this was lapped with flax twine to preserve its cylindri- 

 cal form, until it had, by being beaten in fulling stock for some hours, become felted 

 into a solid rope; the twine was then unwound, and the rope subjected to further 

 fulling until it was felted to the hardness and size required : this rope was manufac- 

 tured for the patentee by Messrs. Whitehead of Saddleworth. 



The rope, when dry, was lubricated with India rubber dissolved in rectified naph- 

 tha, and then cut into convenient lengths of about three feet ; these were covered 

 with a sheet of India rubber ; when they were hard and firm they were again cut 

 into the lengths required for the stoppers ; the ends were then charged with some of 

 the same solution on a marble slab, and when dried off to a proper state of adhesive- 

 ness, sheet rubber was attached to the ends also; the excess was then trimmed off and 

 the stopper completed. But there was great difficulty in obtaining the wool-rope round, 

 and of an equal or required size throughout ; the fulling-stocks produced an imperfect 

 article ; nor was it always clean ; and dirt was charged as wool ; and when inferior 

 material was used, too often the case, the felting, one great means of holding the cork- 

 screw, sometimes failed; cotton was resorted to for the core, and after many attempts 

 and many failures, a core of cotton was combined, which the patentee then described. 

 He takes a sufficient quantity of the slivers or rovings of cotton to form three 

 strands of the patent rope; these are gathered and drawn through three different 

 fixed holes or nozzles, around which bobbins, charged with strong flax thread, revolve, 

 and lap the threads round the strands as they are drawn out, with about eight turns 

 to the inch ; the three strands so lapped are then brought together through another 

 fixed nozzle of the size required for the stopper; around this revolves another bobbin 

 charged with a lighter thread, which binds the rope as it is drawn through and pre- 

 serves its cylindrical form, by lapping it with twenty or more turns to the inch ; this 

 being regulated by the different speed of the bobbins and that of the cylinder to which 

 the rope is fastened, and which draws it through the machine. This machine will make 

 about ten or twelvethousandstoppers perday,and is further capable,if required, of cover- 

 ing the rope with a sheet of India rubber before being removed from the machine. 



This rope so prepared exposes on its surface more than one-third of the lapping of 

 the strands of the strong flax thread, and when lubricated and the rubber attached to 

 it, each turn becomes a loop, which cannot be torn from the rubber on the surface 

 without destroying it ; and as each strand has eight turns to the inch, and the stopper is 

 three-fourths or seven-eighths long, there are no less than eighteen or twenty such 

 loops in each stopper'; and it is almost impossible to insert a cork-screw which will not 

 1842. i 



