Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/680



The cutter selects the pattern which will cut to the best advantage, lays it on the sheet of mica, and then, holding the two firmly together, trims off the edges of the mica to make it correspond with the pattern. She puts both mica and pattern in their proper place in the case before her. Then she takes up another piece of mica, and finding the best pattern, proceeds to shape the sheet as before. In this way the rough plates of mica are reduced to uniformity and are sorted as they are cut. When the cutter completes her task, she has all the mica piled away in little bundles under their corresponding patterns, while the scrap falls in a glistening heap on the floor.

The cleaning process comes next. The cleaner sits directly in front of a window and must examine each sheet of cut mica by holding it up between her eyes and the light. If there be any imperfections, and there nearly always are, they must be removed by stripping off the offending layers of mica until a clear sheet remains. The cleaning is done by means of a sharp penknife—and considerable discretion. It is quite easy to tear away the entire sheet and have nothing left for one's trouble. Both the cutting and cleaning are tiresome routine operations, yet there is a certain fascination about tearing the mica to pieces that few have philosophy enough to resist. One soon becomes absorbed in the task of seeing just how thin a sheet of mica can be separated, and before one realizes it an hour or more is gone.

Finally, the cut and cleaned mica is put up in pound packages and is ready for the market.

There is an enormous waste in the processes of preparation. One hundred pounds of block mica will scarcely yield more than about fifteen pounds of cut mica, and sometimes it is even less. The proportion varies, of course, with different localities.

The chief use of the cut mica is in stoves, and its comparative cheapness has made possible the luminous—not to say artistic—wonders which constitute the latest and most cheerful creations of the stove-men. In Siberia the sheets of mica are still