288 THE WORLD'S LUMBER ROOM. 



decoration of shops and other buildings, and, as the ma- 

 terials are cheap, he is able to sell them at prices much 

 below those at which any other mosaics can be bought. 



Broken bottles are also ground up to make glass- 

 paper. The common kinds are made of the coarsest 

 materials, of which rough sand and soapers' waste are 

 some of the principal. Dirty water and soapsuds from 

 laundries are used for watering gardens, or the grease 

 is recovered and turned into soap again. The water 

 in which fleeces have been washed yields fatty salts, 

 called " suint," from which potash salts are made, and 

 also soap, used in scouring woollen manufactures. 



Bones are the only other considerable item which come 

 under the head of " household refuse." In Russia they are 

 either exported or simply " wasted," that is so far as man 

 is concerned, being left to Nature to dispose of at her 

 leisure. In more civilised countries they are put to a 

 variety of uses, the majority of them going first to the bone- 

 boilers to have the animal matter, oil and gelatine, extracted. 

 Simply ground to dust, they form a valuable manure, and 

 are imported in quantities from Australia, in the shape of 

 bone-dust tiles. As " bone-meal," they are used for feeding 

 cattle. At a large dyeing establishment in Manchester bones 

 are boiled for the sake of the gelatine or size, which is used 

 for stiffening goods, the fat is sold to the candle-makers, and 

 size, liquor, and bones, are bought for manure. After 

 boiling and bleaching processes which render them more 

 brittle than before bones may go on to the turner, to be 

 made into knife-handles, tooth- and nail-brushes, buttons, 

 and the like. 



