GRIMSLEY. | Technology of Gypsuin. 111 
acter of the buildings of the different Kansas mills. If a gen- 
eral criticism should be offered, it is that they are too expensive. 
In several instances, at least, it is quite apparent that too much 
money has been irvested in the buildings themselves. ‘The proc- 
ess of manufacture is so simple that elaborate buildings are 
never. required. 
Again, it may be called a mooted question regarding the 
number of buildings to be employed, as with some mills the 
power house, the kettle house and the store house are all in one 
building, while at other mills two or more buildings are em- 
ployed. The Western Plaster Company, of Chicago, has two 
enormously large buildings, so arranged that it would seem 
more than twice the amount of money has been invested in 
buildings that necessity would demand, and probably a much 
larger floor space is provided than is necessary. In Kansas the 
largest individual building at any mill is that of the Agatite 
Company, at Dillon. Here all the parts are kept in one build- 
ing, a large structure with an enormous floor space, as well as 
_ a great volume of room overhead. 
Internal Arrangements of Calciners and Machinery. 
The operations to be performed in a gypsum cement plaster 
mill are: Ist, obtaining of the raw material; 2d, calcining the 
same; 3d, intimately mixing the plaster with fiber, as the mar- 
kets now demand; 4th, packing the finished product in bags or 
barrels, ready for shipment; and 5th, storing the same ready for 
shipment. With mechanical devices as highly developed along 
other lines of manufacturing enterprises as they now are, it is 
desirable that a plaster factory should be constructed so that 
the handling of the material throughout all stages of the proc- 
ess should be done by machinery. There is no more reason 
for handling any of it by hand than there is for our common 
flouring mills to handle the grain by hand —an old process which 
is entirely unknown to modern milling. The material should 
be brought from the mine by mechanical appliances to the 
greatest possible extent. If it is rock gypsum, some handling 
will be necessary at the mines, as the mining methods require 
it. But after it is loaded into the car there is no reason, under 
