SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



research staff studied the problem, learning fact by fact 

 how to add more and more of this waste wood pulp to 

 their beaters. Today they are using twenty-five per 

 cent rags and seventy-five per cent wood. This is a long 

 way to come in seven years, but they expect to go even 

 further. 



Back in the prewar days the petroleum refineries used 

 to pay Flintcote ten cents a load for carting away the 

 final waste residues of their stills. Today the refineries 

 must be paid five cents for this black, tarry, evil-smelling 

 gunk. This somersault in costs is bad enough, but to 

 make it worse this by-product asphalt is not always the 

 good old quality that it used to be. 



The petroleum refineries in the New Orleans area are 

 turning out more and more high-test gasoline, and the 

 asphalt residue from the modern cracking process is not 

 the same as the asphalt from the older distilling process. 

 Impregnated in the felt it tends to become brittle and 

 to crack, when laid on a roof and subjected in summer 

 to broiling sun and cooling rains and in winter to alter- 

 nate freeze and thaw. Like the rags, the older type of 

 distilled asphalt became more expensive and dwindled 

 even to the point where it was insufficient to meet their 

 needs. To a company jealous of the quality of its finished 

 product this was a grave problem. Again the chemists 

 found a solution. By various heat and chemical treat- 

 ments, they now give the new cracked asphalt the 

 properties required in a shingle. 



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