644 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



who was bound apprentice to me and worked in the outer room, I always 

 kept the key of the private room, and allowed no one to enter but myself. In 

 1833 I dismissed John, and gave up his indentures to him. Father and 

 son soon afterwards went to England, and I heard but little of them, until 

 after my arrival there in 1836. On going into a machine shop in London, 

 I saw hanging on the wall, an extract drawing of my engraving machine, and 

 was told that it belonged to a man name Johnson from New York, who had 

 received orders to build the machine, but had failed to make it work. It 

 was then that I learned that the gas meter had been sold to Mr. Thomas 

 Edge of Poultry, Cheapside for £3,000 — I also found that he had patented 

 my eccentric mill, and sold it to Sharp, Roberts, & Co., of Manchester for 

 iE2,000. He also, sold, another important invention of mine, called the 

 ring spinner, for which I had a patent here, I could not ascertain what he 

 got for it. After my return home, I met the very man who had made the 

 drawings of the engraving machine. 



Respectfully Yours, 



JAMES BOGARDUS. 



The regular subject of the evening was taken up and examined as 

 follows : 



Utilization of Waste Products. 



Dr. D. D. Parmelee opened the discussion by remarking that if the subject 

 included the employment of spent products in an illegitimate way for adul- 

 teration, as well as the reworking and useful application of refuse articles, 

 a wide field would be opened, but not the less interesting for its extension, 

 for it would embrace that class of facts which lead us to attend to a per- 

 sonal examination of our diet, clothing, and the various articles of domestic 

 consumption and use. As an illustration of the perversion of spent pro- 

 ducts, he alluded to the statement of Dr. Mahew of London. From trust- 

 worthy data, he estimates that about 78,000 pounds of exhausted leaves 

 are dried and mixed with cheap tea, and sold to the poorer classes as a 

 genuine article. Beet and turnip leaves are also largely used for adultera- 

 tion in the manufacture of cigars. 



However, of the other class, he stated that the waste made by the sawyer 

 and turner of wood had several economies. Mahogany dust is valuable 

 for smoking fish; box dust for cleaning jewelry; the shavings of cedar for 

 extracting its aroma, 100 pounds producing 28 ounces of the essence. The 

 sawdust of mahogany, birch and rosewood, is used by furriers in cleaning 

 and dressing furs. Spent tanbark from tanneries, pressed and dried, has 

 been used for fuel in making steam. A compound consisting of 27.5 parts 

 of refuse tanbark, 52.5 parts of nitrate of soda, and 20 parts of sulphur 

 has been used as a powder for blasting. It may be interesting to know 

 that there are woolen rags not good enough to be used as " shoddy;" these 

 are found to make a very eflScient manure. Many other waste products 

 have the same useful application by cultivation. The speaker then gave a 

 minute description of how every part of the dead horse is used in the arts. 

 Ice, once regarded as a waste product of nature, has become a great article 

 of commerce. The amount annually used in ten cities of our union is 

 745,000 tons. As an illustration of what may be saved by sweepings, a 



