The original “chewing gum” was spruce gum, the exudation of the cut
branches of the spruce or fir tree. Later, pure white paraffin wax,
variously flavored, took its place, but only in its turn to give way to
the “chicle” now almost exclusively employed.
Though its employment in the manufacture of chewing gum is of
comparatively recent date, chicle was used by the Indians prior to the
days of Columbus as a means of quenching their thirst. It was first
commercially imported as a substitute for rubber, but its peculiar
suitability for chewing gum has resulted in the entire product being
consumed by that industry. In 1885 the United States imported 929,959
pounds of chicle. The growth of the chewing gum industry is shown by the
importation of nearly 5,500,000 pounds for the year ending with June 30,
1910.
The trees are “tapped” during the rainy season. The sap, or juice, as it
exudes has the appearance of milk, but gradually changes to a yellow
color and is about the thickness of treacle. The tree drains rapidly,
the full supply of “milk” being generally obtained within a few hours,
but an interval of several years usually elapses before it will yield a
fresh supply. The milk differs from the juice obtained from the sugar
maple, for example, in that it is not the life sap of the tree, and the
flow varies greatly, some trees which show full life yielding much less
than apparently poorer specimens. “Crude chicle” is obtained by simple
boiling and evaporation of the milk, accompanied by frequent kneading.
The product, as pressed in rough molds, is of a light gray color.
The bulk of the crude chicle manufactured is shipped in blocks to
Canada, where it is further evaporated and carefully refined prior to
importation into the United States. When the chicle arrives at one of
the chewing-gum factories it is immediately turned over to the grinding
department. It comes from Mexico in cakes, varying in size from
twelve- to eighteen-inch cubes; these are a putty color, but in
composition chicle is porous and brittle, particularly after it is
thoroughly dried. In the cubical form it is said to contain from
twenty-five to thirty per cent moisture. After it is ground and dried it
is practically free of moisture, but one of the most difficult problems
which the manufacturer faces is to thoroughly dry chicle before he
proceeds to treat it for its introduction as the base of chewing gum.
The cubes are broken by a large steam hammer into irregular-shaped
pieces weighing from a few ounces to a pound. These chunks are then run
through grinding machines, which reduce the chicle to a coarse meal.
Sometimes this breaking and grinding is done in Mexico, but the duty on
ground dried chicle is five cents per pound more than upon cube chicle.
Chicle meal is dried upon frames in a special drying room, which is kept
at a temperature of 80° F. An electric blower exhausts all of the
moisture from the air. The pure meal is then transformed into a thick
syrup under intense heat and passed through a filtering machine, one of
the latest and most expensive pieces of machinery employed in the entire
manufacture of chewing gum. This machine has practically solved the
perplexing problem of separating impurities and foreign substances from
chicle. Before the filterer was invented it was almost impossible for
the manufacturer of chewing gum to produce gum entirely free from
particles of grit.
During the process of filtration the chicle is also sterilized, and
comes from the machine as pure as distilled water.
[Illustration: A BATTERY OF SUGAR-COATING MACHINES]
[Illustration: A CORNER OF THE SCORING ROOM]
[Illustration: THE LABORATORY]
[Illustration: WRAPPING AND PACKING DEPARTMENT]
It is next passed to the cooking department and placed in huge
steam-jacketed kettles, which revolve continually and thus keep the
chicle from scorching. While it is being cooked in these large kettles
sugar is added, and as soon as the gum is done it is placed in a
kneading machine. It is now about the consistency of bread or cake
dough, and after being kneaded and cooled, flavor is added.
Peppermint, spearmint and other oils used are triply distilled and
absolutely free of all impurities. The orange oil comes from Messina and
is always the product of the very latest orange crop.
From the kneading machine it reaches a sizing table, to which are
attached heavy rollers for reducing the mass of gum to a strip about a
quarter of an inch in thickness and twelve inches wide.
At this stage it will be seen the gum begins to take on a ribbon shape.
As it comes from the first series of rollers, it is cut into short
lengths sprinkled with powdered sugar, and these short lengths are
passed in sticks about two feet high on to a second series of rollers.
Under the second rollers each short length of gum is once more reduced
in thickness and extended in length.
The surfaces of the second rollers contain knives running lengthwise and
around. These knives partially cut the gum to its final size. The thin
sheets are then sent to another drying room. They remain in this room
from twelve to forty-eight hours, according to the season of the year,
and are then ready for the wrapping machines.
Machines have also been invented which stamp out little nuggets of gum.
To be finished these pieces are sent to a long room containing a line of
twelve large white kettles, each on a separate base. It is these
machines which coat the nuggets with snowy sugar. The kettles revolve
until a sufficient coating of the liquid sugar has adhered.
The chewing gum wrapping machine is considered by machinery builders to
be one of the most ingenious automatic manufacturing machines in use. It
is about the size of an ordinary typewriter desk and is operated by one
girl. She receives the thin sheet of partially cut gum from the last
drying room. The machine operator drops the slabs of gum into a feeding
chute. Each slab is here automatically wrapped in wax and silver-foil
papers. These papers are fed from rolls, as printing paper is fed to a
newspaper press.
As the slabs are wrapped they slide into a pocket. When five of them are
finished, two steel fingers remove them and put on the final outside
wrapper. The complete, wrapped packages of five slabs slide along a
little runway into boxes.
The same girl who feeds the gum into the wrapping machine closes the
lids of the boxes and places them on a packing table by her side. When
the packing table is filled with boxes a boy removes it to the shipping
room, where it is crated and forwarded to the wholesale dealers.
* * * * *
Where did the Ferris Wheel get Its Name?
The Ferris wheel was named after its builder, George W. Ferris, an able
engineer, now dead.
The original Ferris wheel was exhibited at the Chicago World’s Fair. It
was a remarkable engineering feature.
Its diameter was 270 feet and its circumference 825 feet. Its highest
point was 280 feet. The axle was a steel bar, 45 feet long and 32 inches
thick. Fastened to each of the twin wheels was a steel hub 16 feet in
diameter. The two towers at the axis supporting the wheel were 140 feet
high, and the motive power was secured from a 1,000 horse-power steam
engine under the wheel.
The thirty-six cars on the wheel each comfortably seated forty persons.
The wheel and passengers weighed 12,000 tons.
By the Ferris wheel the almost indefinite application of the tension
spoke to wheels of large dimensions has been vindicated, the expense
being far smaller than that of the stiff spoke.
[Illustration: STEEL RAIL MILL
Interior view of the Bethlehem Steel Company’s rail mill finishing
department, showing the machinery for straightening and drilling
rails.]
What is Done to Keep Railroad Rails from Breaking?
The breaking of rails has been the cause of much attention on the part
of railroad and steel engineering experts ever since the tendency toward
the construction of heavy locomotives and greater train loads became
evident.
The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission for 1915 gave broken
rails as the cause of 3,345 accidents, in which 205 people were killed
and 7,341 were injured, with a property loss of $3,967,188. A steel man
is authority for the statement that one cold winter day in 1913, a
single locomotive, making excessive speed, broke about a hundred rails
in the distance of a mile on one of the leading railroad systems.
Both steel and railroad men were, therefore, much interested in the
announcement made by the New York Central Railroad, in August, 1916, to
the effect that the road’s staff of specialists had discovered the cause
and remedy for the hidden flaws in steel rails. It was said that no
rails produced under the specifications provided by them had yet
developed any fissures.
The process by which those rails were prevented from developing fissures
consisted mainly of rolling them from reheated blooms, and although that
method is said to have been used in a number of rail mills for many
years, no mention had previously been recorded of the prevention of
breakage in that way. The experiments are, therefore, sure to be watched
with a great deal of interest, and it is probable that fewer accidents
will occur from broken rails in the near future.
The technical man will be interested in an outline printed in the _Iron
Age_, which said: “Induced interior transverse fissures in basic
open-hearth rails are due in part to an occasional hot rail being cooled
so rapidly by the rolls or so chilled by the gusts of air before
recalescence on the hot beds as to cause a log of some of the
transformations of the metal in the interior of the rail head. Induced
interior transverse fissures can only develop in the track from the
effects of preceding causes, either of which is no longer a mystery.”
The report of the railroad experts also laid stress on the theory that
“gagging” rails--subjecting them to blows for the purpose of
straightening them--was also likely to cause faults by injuring the
metal.
How does a “Master Clock” Control Others by Electricity?
With the aid of electric currents, one clock can be made to control
other clocks, so as to make them keep accurate time.
By means of this method one high-class clock, usually in an astronomical
observatory, compels a number of other clocks at considerable distances
to keep time with it.
The clocks thus controlled ought to be so regulated that if left to
themselves they would always gain a little, but not more than a few
minutes per day.
The pendulum of the controlling clock, in swinging to either side, makes
a brief contact, which completes the circuit of a galvanic battery, and
thus sends a current to the controlled clock. The currents pass through
a coil in the bob of the pendulum of the controlled clock, and the
action between these currents and a pair of fixed magnets urges the
pendulum to one side and to the other alternately. The effect is that,
though the controlled clock may permanently continue to be a fraction of
a second in advance of the controlling clock, it can never be so much as
half a second in advance.
An electrically controlled clock usually contains a small magnetic
needle, which shows from which direction the currents are coming. The
arrangements are usually such that at every sixtieth second no current
is sent, and the needle stands still. Any small error is thus at once
detected.