Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/252

218 heat, and having its transparency improved by oil, is split into thin layers, and forms a substitute for glass, in lanterns of the commonest kind.

3. The tip of the horn is used by the makers of knife-handles, and of the tops of whips, and for other similar purposes.

4. The interior, or core of the horn, is boiled down in water. A large quantity of fat rises to the surface; this is put aside, and sold to the makers of yellow soap.

5. The liquid itself is used as a kind of glue, and is purchased by cloth dressers for stiffening.

6. The insoluble substance, which remains behind, is then sent to the mill, and, being ground down, is sold to the farmers for manure

7. Besides these various purposes to which the different parts of the horn are applied, the clippings, which arise in comb-making, are sold to the farmer for manure. In the first year after they are spread over the soil they have comparatively little effect, but during the next four or five their efficiency is considerable. The shavings which form the refuse of the lantern-maker, are of a much thinner texture: some of them are cut into various figures and painted, and used as toys; for being hygrometric, they curl up when placed on the palm of a warm hand. But the greater part of these shavings also are sold for manure, and from their extremely thin and divided form, the full effect is produced upon the first crop.

(271.) Another event which has arisen, in one trade at least, from the employment of large capital, is, that a class of middle-men, formerly interposed between the maker and the merchant, now