No. 31. — 1885.] 



PLUMBAGO. 



233 



called into requisition to produce the highest order of steel 

 guns and steel armour for war-ships, but it is good for polish- 

 ing the sportsman's powder and shot. Gunpowder used for 

 blasting operations is also greatly improved by receiving a 

 glaze or varnish of graphite, the philosophy of the operation 

 being that thus the grains are prevented from absorbing 

 the moisture which exists in mines and quarries. 



Graphite enables the electrotyper to prepare and present 

 to the world, cheaply and at will, casts of coins, woodcuts, 

 copperplate maps, &c, equal in the most minute and intricate 

 detail to the most highly prized and costly originals. But 

 next to the boon which the real discovery of anthracite or 

 natural coke in Ceylon would be, is the certainty, of which 

 we are assured, that in our teeming supplies of plumbago 

 the tea planters of Ceylon can get a paint for their stores, 

 equal in its fire-resisting properties to asbestos paint. If 

 this should prove to be correct, and we see no reason to 

 doubt the statement, the prospect is that Ceylon will be 

 speedily exporting, instead of importing, fireproof paint. 

 Mr. Walker may well say in conclusion :— 



" The growth of the graphite industry has kept pace with the 

 age, each new development in metallurgy and engineering offer- 

 ing some new field of usefulness for graphite. For instance, it 

 furnishes the pots for the manufacture of cast steel, and the 

 nozzles and stoppers used in the Bessemer process. It is used in 

 the manufacture of electrical supplies, &c. Fifty years ago 

 graphite was little known and mis-named. Now it is of constantly 

 increasing importance. From an insignificant beginning in the 

 present century the industry lias grown to its present proportions." 



A list is then given of twenty-five American firms 

 engaged in the plumbago industry, of which The Joseph 

 Dixon Company of Jersey City, New Jersey, takes the lead, 

 employing 500 hands in the manufacture of everything for 

 which graphite is used. The same number of hands finds 

 employment from the Eagle Pencil Company; while A. W. 

 Faber, probably an immigrant or descendant of an immi- 

 grant from Nuremburg, employs 150 persons in his pencil 

 factory. Others employ lesser numbers, six firms giving 

 crucibles as their exclusive manufacture ; three, lead pencils; 

 four, foundry facings and lubricants ; seven, stove polish 

 and lubricants. It will thus be seen that except in the 



