PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 411 



By the same opera'^ion the fibrous substance of the button is so compressed 

 as to render it quite hard. The button then rises a few inches to meet a 

 sprinj:: which throws it on a little shovel, which sliovels it out of the way. 

 All this is done with greiit rapidity. A single person will fill the hoppers, 

 and tend half a dozen of these machines. The buttons are now made, and 

 yet thoy can scarcely be called buttons — they still strike the eye as little 

 circular pasteboards. They then receive a dry " tumbling" or " tomming," 

 wliicli separates the dust and smooths tlie rough edges. They are then 

 further hardened, and at the same time colored, by being tumbled in a com- 

 pound, of which linseed oil, benzine and lamp black are the main ingredi- 

 ents. ("Tumbling" is simply the process of revolving in a horizontal 

 cylinder.) After becoming tlius well saturated with the compounds, they 

 are placed in a baking room and subjected to a high degree of temperature 

 for at least twenty-four hours. In this operation there is great liability 

 to fire. Only a few months ago Humiston & POmeroy had several hun- 

 dred dollars worth of buttons burned with the dry house; and the other firm 

 lias sufl'ered several times in a similar manner. The tumbling and baking 

 processes are repeated again and again. At the last tumbling the buttons 

 are put into a Japan compound and come out well varnished. 



Tlie buttons are now completed and are ready for boxing and the mar- 

 ket; and as they now appear, in shining brown or lustrous black, few of 

 the uninitiated would ever guess they were made of plebian strawboard. 



One of the tumbling machines in the factory first visited I must not omit 

 to mention. In the first process of puncliing the strawboard often splits. 

 These split buttons were formerly picked out by hand — a tedious opera- 

 tion. A "tumbler" invented by Mr. Humiston is so contrived as to sift 

 out the split buttons, leaving the complete buttons by themselves. The 

 buttons sometimes adhere to each other; and the same machine is made to 

 separate the compound buttons from the single ones. This " tumbler" is 

 so contrived tliat the planks of which it is made may be separated at any 

 required distance, thus letting pass out of the cylinder dust, split buttons 

 or single buttons, at the pleasure of the operator. 



These paper buttons are said to be quite durable. Boiling in hot water, 

 the manufacturers said, only made them harder. The demand for them is 

 good, and their manufacture remunerative. Some difficulty is however ex- 

 perienced at present in obtaining material, and on this account the first 

 named factory has had to stop a short time the present season. 



The metal face buttons are composed of paper and tin, paper and iron, 

 paper and brass, and bring higher prices, as the process of their manufac- 

 ture is somewhat more complicated. Most of these metal face buttons have 

 one-half the surface of metal; but sometimes the entire surface is metal, 

 while the interior portion is of paper. 



The manufacturers had not accurate statistics on hand, but both firms 

 agreed in estimating that a ton of stravt'board will make about 750 great 

 gross of 27 line or suspender buttons, and as one firm stated used about 

 50 tons of strawboard per year, and the other 25 tons, I conclude that if 

 their buttons average 27 line, they would together turn out annually ninety- 

 seven millions and two hundred thousand (97,200,000) of these indispensa- 

 ble articles. 



