Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Feb.,  1886. 
Whiting  and  Its  Manufacture. 
79 
they  had  remained  on  storage  from  previous  years,  and  also  used; 
making  the  total  sum  used  about  45,000  tons. 
After  importation  into  Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore, 
or  New  Orleans,  it  is  there  purified  and  prepared  at  "  Whiting  Works." 
Of  these  there  are  in  Philadelphia  eight  in  active  operation,  with  an 
estimated  yearly  capacity  of  22,000  tons,  or  50  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
product  manufactured  in  the  country. 
The  source  of  supply  is  not  necessarily  limited  to  England,  since 
France  exports  from  her  shores  a  much  finer  crude  product;  the  only 
objection  to  whose  employment,  in  certain  cases,  being  its  lack  of 
body,  yet,  if  desired,  the  English  article  and  it  may  be  mixed  with  the 
best  of  results.  In  our  country  an  inferior  quality,  and  apparently 
limited  supply,  is  furnished  by  the  states  of  North  Carolina,  Colorado, 
and  the  interior  of  Dakota,  which  has,  as  yet,  failed  to  receive  any 
especial  attention,  or  whose  development  has  not  been  deemed  of  suffi- 
cient importance  to  prosecute. 
On  its  reception  in  the  yards  of  the  refining- works,  the  crude  chalk  is 
stored  in  wooden  bins,  from  whence,  as  needed,  it  is  placed  on  wheel- 
barrows and  shoveled  from  there  into  large  cylindrical  tanks,  through 
which  a  stream  of  water  is  constantly  rushing,  where  it  is  ground  in 
water  by  massive  rotating  disks  of  iron,  weighing  from  4  to  5  tons  each. 
From  these  tanks,  by  the  current  of  running  water,  through  an 
outlet  on  the  side,  flows  the  milky  stream  of  suspended  chalk,  the 
impurities  of  silica  and  flint  having  to  a  large  extent  remained  in  the 
tank,  from  whence  they  are  removed  as  occasion  may  require;  the 
liquid  is  conducted  through  irregular,  snake-shaped  conduits,  in  order 
to  separate  the  heavier,  coarser  particles  of  partly  crushed  chalk  that 
may  have  been  forced  along  by  the  current  of  liquid  into  a  larger,  longer 
and  straight  conduit,  leading  in  succession  to  enormous  wooden  settling 
bins,  having  a  volumetric  capacity  of  over  5,000  gallons  each  of  water. 
In  the  establishment  visited,  there  were  sixteen  of  these  bins,  placed 
successively  along  the  whole  side  of  the  building.  Now  the  running 
stream  slowly  flowing  from  the  first  to  the  last  bin,  through  the  long 
wooden  channel  provided  for  it  and  connected  with  each  bin  in  its 
passage,  gradually  deposits  by  gravity,  on  standing,  the  coarse  grade 
in  the  first,  finer  in  the  second,  still  finer  in  the  third  and  so  on  until 
the  last  bin  is  reached,  where  the  deposit  is  very  slow  and  the  product 
obtained  correspondingly  fine. 
At  the  base  of  each  of  these  ivooden  bins  are  sluice-gates  opening 
