GLUE 



2515 



GLYCERINE 



industry extensively. It is also used freely in 

 the making of candy and for mixing with 

 cane-sugar molasses for table uses. It is like- 

 wise used as a substitute for malt in brewing. 



Since 1890 the manufacture of glucose has 

 become a great industry in the United States 

 and to some extent in Canada, and the process 

 has so greatly improved that forty pounds of 

 glucose are now made from one bushel of corn, 

 while formerly only twenty-six to thirty pounds 

 were obtained. See CORN. 



GLUE, gloo, an impure gelatin, best known 

 as the substance which holds pieces of wood, 

 such as furniture, together. It is also an ad- 

 hesive for other materials than wood, princi- 

 pally leather and paper, and as sizing it gives 

 glaze to fabrics and paper. The finest in the 

 world, which comes from France, is used by 

 straw-hat makers. The name is sometimes 

 applied to adhesives which do not contain 

 gelatin, especially marine glue. 



Glue is derived from the hides, hoofs, horns, 

 bones and sinews of animals. The very best 

 American glue is from sinews. In England 

 bone-glue making is still important, but in 

 America the more difficult manufacture of hide 

 glue has largely taken its place. After a chemi- 

 cal process which includes boiling, a jelly is 

 obtained, which, with further refinement and 

 drying in rooms of carefully regulated tempera- 

 ture, becomes the brittle glue of commerce. 

 This, when dissolved in hot water, gives a 

 cement that will withstand several hundred 

 pounds of strain. Glue heated too long, or 

 more than once, is weakened. Marine glue is 

 useful principally to shipbuilders. It is usually 

 composed of India rubber, naphtha and pow- 

 dered shellac. 



Glue Industry. The glue industry in Amer- 

 ica began with Peter Cooper in 1827. The an- 

 nual product is worth about $15,000,000, though 

 there are fewer establishments than in 1880, 

 when $4,000,000 was the average annual value. 

 The tendency is for the manufacture to center 

 near the large stockyards of the Middle West, 

 and the larger packing firms have their own 

 factories. 



GLUTEN, gloo' ten, a tough, sticky, some- 

 what elastic and almost tasteless substance of 

 a grayish-yellow color, found in wheat and 

 other cereal grains. It is a vegetable albumin 

 (see ALBUMEN), and its presence in cereals is 

 important because it is almost the only sub- 

 stance in these foods that contains nitrogen. 

 Gluten may be obtained from the flour of 

 wheat by filling a muslin bag with flour and 



kneading it under running water. In this oper- 

 ation the starch of the flour will be washed 

 away in a milky stream, the gluten remaining 

 in the bag as a sticky mass. 



It is the gluten in flour that makes bread 

 dough stick together, and this stickiness is 

 utilized in the making of flour paste. Gluten 

 bread and biscuits are prescribed for those 

 suffering from diabetes (which see). Wheat 

 which contains a high percentage of gluten is 

 used in the manufacture of macaroni (which 

 see). On an average there are eight pounds of 

 gluten in one hundred pounds of wheat flour. 

 See FOOD, subhead Chemistry of Food. 



GLUTTON, gluf'n, the English name for 

 the European carnivorous, or flesh-eating, ani- 

 mal which is known in the United States as 

 the wolverine. It belongs to the weasel fam- 

 ily, but is entirely different in appearance, 



GLUTTON, OR WOLVERINE 



being heavily btuTt and about two and one-half 

 feet in length. The glutton is said to be the 

 most powerful animal for its size in existence, 

 and it is noted for its enormous appetite. It 

 devours large numbers of young foxes and is 

 also an enemy to beavers. The fur is dark 

 brown or almost black, sometimes having white 

 markings, and is of some commercial value. 



GLYCERINE, also spelled GLYCERIN, glis' 

 urin, a colorless, odorless, syrupy liquid of 

 sweetish taste, employed extensively in the 

 arts and in medicine. Glycerine is a by-prod- 

 uct of the candle and soap industries. Its 

 ultimate source is the fats and fatty oils found 

 in plants and animals, such as cottonseed oil, 

 lard and tallow. In the manufacture of stearin 

 for candles, fats are treated with steam at a 

 high temperature, and usually in the presence 

 of a relatively-small quantity of some sub- 

 stance which will accelerate the action of steam 

 upon the fat. (Lime and sulphuric acid are 

 among these accelerating agents.) In soap- 

 making, fats are boiled with alkalies. In the 

 former industry one pound of glycerine is pro- 



