CORUNDUM 953 



floats to fishermen's nets, and in the construction of life-boats. Its impermeability to 

 water has led to its employment for inner soles to shoes. 



When cork is rasped into powder, and subjected to chemical solvents, such as 

 alcohol, &c., it leaves 70 per cent, of an insoluble substance, called suberine. When 

 it is treated with nitric acid, it yields the following remarkable products : White 

 fibrous matter 0'18, resin 14 - 72, oxalic acid 16'00, suberic acid (peculiar acid of cork) 

 14-2, in 100 parts. 



A patent was obtained some years ago for machine cork-cutting. The cutting of 

 the cork into slips is effected by fixing it upon the sliding bed of an engine, and 

 bringing it, by a progressive motion, under the action of a circular knife, by which 

 it is cut into slips of equal widths. The nature or construction of a machine to be 

 used for this purpose may be easily conceived, as it possesses no new mechanical 

 feature, except in its application to cutting cork. The motion communicated to the 

 knife by hand, steam, horse, or other power, moves at the same time the bed also 

 which carries the cork to be cut. 



The second part of the invention, viz., that for separating the cork into square 

 pieces, after it has been cut into slips as above, is effected by a moving bed as before, 

 upon which the slips are to be placed and submitted to the action of a cutting lever, 

 which may be regulated to chop the cork into pieces of any given length. 



The third part of the invention, viz., that for rounding or finishing the corks, con- 

 sists of an engine to which is attached a circular knife that turns vertically, and a 

 carriage or frame upon its side that revolves on its axle horizontally. 



The carriage or frame contains several pairs of clamps intended respectively to 

 hold a piece of the square cut cork by pressing it at the ends, and carrying it length- 

 ways perpendicularly. The wood of the Anona palustris, growing in the West Indies, 

 is so soft that corks are made of it. It is hence called CORK- WOOD. 



CORNEO. An ore of quicksilver found in Spain, is so called locally. 



COROIYEANDEXi WOOD. The wood of the Diospyros hirsuta. 



COROZO, COROSSO. Vegetable Ivory. The commercial names for the fruit of 

 the Phytelephas macrocarpa, a species of Brazilian palm. It is called the Tagua Nut 

 in South America. It grows on the borders of the river Magdalena in great abundance, 

 and the nuts are largely imported. The natives of the districts where the tree grows 

 have been in the habit from time immemorial of using this vegetable ivory for making 

 buttons, heads of walking-sticks, &c. It is used largely in this country in the place 

 of ivory, but it does not keep its colour well. See IVOEY, VEGETABLE. 



CORROSIVE SUBLIIMATE, Chloride, or Protochforidc, of Mercury, (Deuto- 

 chlorure de inercure, Fr. ; Aetzendes Quecksilber Sublimat, Ger.), is made by subliming 

 a mixture of 2 parts of sulphate of oxide of mercury, and 1 part of sea-salt, in a 

 stone-ware cucurbit. The sublimate rises in vapour, and encrusts the globular glass 

 capital with a white mass of small prismatic needles. Its specific gravity is 6 -225. 

 Its taste is acrid, stypto-metallic, and exceedingly unpleasant. It is soluble in 16 

 parts of water, at the ordinary temperature, and in less than three times its weight. 

 It dissolves in 2| times its weight of cold alcohol. It is a very deadly poison. Raw 

 white-of-egg swallowed in profusion is the best antidote. A solution of corrosive 

 sublimate has been long employed for preserving soft anatomical preparations. By 

 this means the corpse of Colonel Morland was embalmed, in order to be brought from 

 the seat of war to Paris. His features remained unaltered, only his skin was brown, 

 and his body was so hard as to sound like a piece of wood when struck with a hammer. 



In the work upon the dry rot, published by Mr. Knowles, Secretary of the Committee 

 of Inspectors of the Navy, in 1821, corrosive sublimate is enumerated among the 

 chemical substances which have been prescribed for preventing the dry rot in timber ; 

 and it is well known that Sir H. Davy had, several years before that date, used and 

 recommended to the Admiralty and Navy Board corrosive sublimate as an anti-dry rot 

 application. It has been since extensively employed by a joint-stock company for the 

 same purpose, under the title of Kyan's Patent. 



The preservative liquid known as Goadby's Solution, which is employed for pre- 

 serving wood and anatomical preparations, is composed as follows : Bay salt 4 oz., 

 alum 2 oz., corrosive sublimate 2 grains, water 2 pints. 



CORRUGATED IRON. See IRON. 



CORUNDUM. This mineral species contains sapphire, corundum stone, and 

 emery. It consists of alumina, more or less coloured by metallic oxides. 



The perfectly white crystals of sapphire are pure alumina. 



There are two varieties of the perfect corundum : the sapphire so called, and the 

 oriental ruby ; of which the latter has a rather less specific gravity, being 3'9 against 

 3'97. Their form is a slightly acute rhombohedron, which possesses double refraction, 

 and is inferior in hardness only to the diamond, The sapphire occurs also in 6-sided 

 prisms, See EMEEY ; KTJBY ; SAPPHIRE, 



