Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1892 — AN AMERICAN DRINK. [ARTICLE]

AN AMERICAN DRINK.

Facts About flic Manufacture of Soda Water. Soda water is an American drink. It is as essentially American as porter, Ithi:if wine and claret are distinctively English, tun man and Fronch. The most interesting fact in the manufacture of soda water is that it contains no soda. Tho prominent ingrodionts are inarhlo dust and sulphuric acid, neither of which is regarded us healthful nor palatable when taken separately. Moreover, to render them so in combination requires a pressure of at loast 150 pounds to the square inch a oordithm dangerous to life ami limb excopt under proper safeguards and with the strongest machinery. The generator is, in fnct, made of gunmetai iron tested to 500 pounds to tho square inch. Into this is put the marble dust, to which, from another strong chamber, is led tho sulphuric acid. Then the two are cradled, and the gas generated is passed into steel fountains lined with block-tin, two-thirds full of tho water to be churgod. These fountains are then securely fastened, and, like huge bombs in size and almost as destructive, are carried in wagons through tho streets, to be stored under drug-store counters. Surely in all the history of fairyland there is nothing, more marvellous than tho escape of this sparkling, bubbling, foam-crested liquor, like an enchanted prince from the gloomy death-chamber, to delight and refresh the world. Whiting formerly was used to furnish the carbonate, and whiting and chalk nro still used in England. Tho use of inurblo dust, under the pretty name of “snowflake,” is poculiui to this country. Wo produce our own marble, moreover, and whiting comes under tho provisions of the McKinley bill. The chips of the marble cathedral on Fifth avenue alone supplied twenty-five million gallons of soda-water; thus economically wo drink up unavailable bits of buildings (public and private),tombstone* und monuments. Except in the improvement of machinery and in its method of distribution, the manufacture of soda-water remains much the same, Tho method employed by tho distinguished engineer Hvamah is sfill in use. The man, in fact*, whose name is most prominently identified with the national drink in this country was an apprentice of Hratnah and has developed his method hero. That form of concentration moreover, that all sorts of enterprises now take, was long since a feature of the soda-water industry. Formerly tho actual process took place under tli > drug-store counter. No one has yet estimated the decreased percentage in loss of life since the drug store Imy ceased playing with the vitriol, carbonates uiid force pomp us if ho had a squirt-gun in a hogshead of water under an cave trough. Explosions of soda fountains do now sometimes occur, hut they have ceased to be a national feature, ns on rending old English catalogues of rival manufactures they seem oneo to have linen.- [Harper's Weekly.