90 
THE CHEMIST AND DBUGG1ST. 
March, 1880. 
directions for preparing this cement. Pliny, in describing 
the cork tree, says it is smaller than the oak, and its acorns 
are of the very worst quality. He tells us the cork tree 
did not grow throughout Italy, and in no part whatever 
of Gaul. At the present day it is abundant in France, and , 
Fee states that the acorns of Q. suber are of an agreeable 
flavour, and the hams of Bayonne are said to owe their high 
reputation from the pigs having fed on the acorns of the cork 
tree. Some ancient authors speak of the cork tree as the 
female of the holm oak ( Q. ilex ), and in countries where the 
holm does not grow they used to substitute the wood of the 
cork tree, more particularly in Cartwrights’ work in the neigh- 
bourhood of Lacedaemon, &c. 
The employment of corks for stoppers of bottles appears to 
have come into use about the seventeenth century, when glass 
bottles, of which no mention is made before the fifteenth 
century, began to be generally introduced. Before that period 
apothecaries used stoppers of wax, which were not only much 
more expensive, but far more troublesome. 
In 1553, when C. Stephanus wrote his Prcedium Rusticum, 
cork stoppers appear to have been very little known in France, 
for he states that this material was used principally for soles 
in that country. Another author, writing about the same time, 
tells us that thin glass flasks, covered with rushes and straw 
and with tin mouths, which could be stopped sufficiently close 
without a cork, were used by the higher classes of that period. 
W e do not know when cork and corks began to be generally 
used in this country, but I find in that very amusing and 
instructive diary of Mr. Samuel Pepys the following entry : — 
14th July, 1666, he states, after having written to the Duke of 
York for money for the fleet, he went down Thames-street, 
and there agreed for four or five tons of cork to be sent to the 
fleet, being a new device to make barricados with instead of 
junts (old cable) ; but he does not inform us how the device 
answered. In Evelyn’s time (1664) cork was much used by 
old persons for linings to the soles of their shoes, whence the 
German name for it, “ pantoff elholtz,” or slipper wood. The 
Yenetian dames, Evelyn says, used it for their choppings, or 
high-heeled shoes, to make them appear taller than nature 
intended they should be. The poor in Spain lay planks of 
cork by their bedside, to tread on instead of carpets. Some- 
times they line the inside of their houses, built with stone, 
with this bark, which renders them very warm, and corrects 
the moisture of the air. Loudon relates that in the celebrated 
convent at Cintra (Portugal) several articles of furniture are 
made of this tree, which strangers who visit the convent are 
requested to lift in order that surprise may be excited at their 
extraordinary lightness. The various uses for the common 
purposes of every-day life to which this substance is applied 
are well known. Burnt cork supplies our artists and colour- 
men with Spanish black. It is largely used for lifeboats, for 
stuffing life belts, mattresses, &c., to be used at sea in the 
preservation of life. 
Virgin cork, or the outer bark of this tree, is now very much 
used for window flower-boxes, grottoes, &c. Very thin sections 
of cork are employed in the manufactory of hats ; these 
sections are cut by steam machinery 50 to 120 plates to the 
inch. The shreds and parings of this substance are not wasted, 
but, being ground into powder and mixed with melted India- 
rubber, form the basis of many floor coverings, such as 
kamptulicon — the soft, unresounding material which covers 
the floor of the reading-room of the British Museum, the floors 
of the Houses of Parliament, and various other public and 
private institutions, to prevent the noise occasioned by foot- 
steps, &c. 
Cork was formerly employed in medicine even as far back as 
the time of Pliny, as he tells us that the bark of the cork tree, 
pulverised and taken in warm water, arrests haemorrhage at 
the mouth and nostrils, and the ashes of it taken in warm 
wine are highly extolled as a cure for spitting blood. (See 
Pliny’s Nat. Hist., b. 24.) In more modern time powdered 
cork has been applied as a styptic, and hung about the necks 
of nurses ; it was thought to possess the power of stopping the 
secretion of milk. Burnt cork mixed with sugar of lead and 
lard has been used as an application to piles. (See Pareira’s 
Materia Medica.) 
When rasped or powdered cork is subjected to chemical 
solvents, such as alcohol, &c., it leaves 70 per cent, of an 
insoluble substance, called suberine. This, treated with nitric 
acid, yields the following produces .-—White fibrous matter, 
0-18 ; resin, 14-72 ; oxalic acid, 16-00; suberic acid (peculiar 
acid of cork), 14-2*, in 100 parts. 
Cork contains tannic acid, which makes it an improper 
substance for closing vessels containing chalybeate liquids, as 
the iron is in part absorbed by the cork and blackens it by form- 
ing in its substance tannate of iron. The whole of the water 
may thus become discoloured. 
Cork is a nitrogenous substance which, next to cellulose, is the 
most important constituent of the cell wall. Cellulose, corky 
substance and fatty matters seem to be found in the same cell,, 
and when the cellulose has been absorbed, the corky substance 
alone remains. It forms the outermost part of the cell wall, and 
unites the cells together. (See Balfour’s Class-book of Botany.) 
The bark of many trees resembles cork. There is a variety 
of ZJlmus campestris suber osa, the cork-bark elm, which grows 
in our hedgerows, whose bark assumes something of the ex- 
ternal appearance of cork in its softness and elasticity, as well 
as in its chemical properties ; but as it does not grow to any 
great thickness, it is not of any value for economic purposes. 
The cork tree, Q. suber , and its varieties, are to be found 
growing in many of the botanical, horticultural, and private 
gardens of England. It was introduced in or before 1699 by 
the Duchess of Beaufort, and is readily propagated by acorns. 
In Notes and Queries , series 4, Yol. 5, it is stated that in 
some parts of Lincolnshire it is believed that cork has the 
power of keeping off cramp. It is placed between the bed and 
mattress, or even between the sheets. Cork garters are made 
by sewing together a series of thin disks of this material 
between two silk ribbons and worn for the same purpose. 
Where the bark of Quercus suber cannot be obtained, many 
substitutes have been found to supply its place among the 
spongy bark or wood substances of other trees. The wood of 
Anona Balustris, growing in the West Indies, called the 
alligator’s apple, is of such a soft nature that it is frequently 
used by the negroes, instead of corks, to stop their jugs and 
calabashes. 
The word cork is said to be derived from the Spanish corclio* 
from the Latin cortex . 
The Corkscrew. 
That useful instrument, the corkscrew, was unknown to our 
forefathers two hundred years ago, and was not in common use 
even at a later date. The mode of extracting a cork in those 
days was by winding a cloth or handkerchief tightly round it 
and with a peculiar jerk pulling the stopper out of the bottle. 
Other ways, no doubt, were also adopted— the teeth, for instance. 
There is no record that I can find as to who first invented this 
instrument. It came into use about the beginning of the last 
century, and was for many years called a “ bottlescrew.” The 
earliest mention of the corkscrew is in an amusing poem, 
entitled “The tale of the Bottlescrue,” in a collection of 
poems by Nicholas Amhurst, published in 1723 (vide Notes 
and Queries, 1856, p. 466), in which the poet gives the 
legendary origin of the invention. Bacchus is described in the 
poem, and among other things it is said of him — 
This hand a corkscrew did contain, 
And that a bottle of champagne. 
Yet the bottlescrew at that time appears to have been the 
common name of this useful article, for the poet concludes 
his tale with the following lines : — 
By me shall Birmingham become 
In future days more famed than Rome ; 
Shall owe to me her reputation 
And serve with bottlescrews the nation. 
Corkscrews, like corks, are to be found, in some shape or 
other, in all parts of the civilised world. 
Autumn Leaves. — Prof. Church has discovered the curious 
fact that autumn leaves — brown, red, &c. — may be restored to 
their original green tint by heating in water with zinc powder. 
— Arch. d. Ph. 
Removal of Silver-Nitrate Stains.— Instead of potas- 
sium cyanide, Dr. H. Kaetzer uses a solution of 10 grams am- 
monium chloride and 10 grams corrosive sublimate in 100 
grams distilled water, which must be kept in glass-stoppered 
bottles. It will readily remove the stains from the skin, linen, 
wool, and cotton, without injuring the fabric. — Pliarm. Ztg.> 
\0tli Dec., 1879, p. 767,/?-., Neueste Erf. u. Erfalir. 
Frosted Tin. — By dipping tinned iron , previously heated 
till the tin begins to melt, into a mixture of 16 parts by 
weight of muriatic acid, 8 of nitric acid, 24 of water, and I 
or 2 of bichromate of potassa, rinsing and treating with a 
solution of hyposulphite of soda, very beautiful chrystalline 
designs will be formed. 
