SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



seemed on the way out. But wood has of late enjoyed 

 a revival as enthusiastic as an old-fashioned camp 

 meeting. 



By new chemical treatments wood is now rendered 

 flexible, fireproof, and amazingly strong and durable. 

 Paper-thin sheets of wood smeared lightly with a heat- 

 setting plastic can be built up, layer after layer, over 

 a form. Thrust the whole into a pressure chamber; 

 clamp down the doors; turn in live steam up to a pres- 

 sure of hundreds of pounds per square inch. Within a 

 very few moments you can withdraw a canoe, a bath- 

 tub, the body for a baby carriage or an automobile, a 

 housing for a carpet sweeper or for a huge dynamo. 

 The plastic plywood has been formed hard, strong, 

 without flaw or seam. I have lifted with one hand such 

 a bathtub. It is coated without and within with a lus- 

 cious, enamellike finish that will not chip and cannot 

 stain; waterproof and acid-and-alkali-proof; capable of 

 being colored permanently any shade from jet black to 

 snow white. 



This fashioning of plastic plywood over forms seems 

 so simple and its possibilities are so bright, one is likely 

 to overlook the fact that here is an absolutely new 

 technique to handle a new kind of material. For ages 

 man has pounded and molded metals, chipped stone, 

 sawed and shaved wood, woven fibers, and then fas- 

 tened these various materials together by weld, by 

 nail, by glue, by thread. But here we have a new 



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