Transcriber’s note
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
In this version, the illustrations are placed differently on the page than in theoriginal. This was done to keep them on the same page as the original.
Copyright, 1909
by
Armstrong Cork Company
PITTSBURGH
U. S. A.
Cork
Being the Story of
the origin of Cork,
the processes
employed in its
manufacture &
its varied uses in
the world to-day
1909
Armstrong Cork Company
of
Pittsburgh
U.S.A.
Few things in general use in the great worldto-day have the hall-mark of approval of twothousand years set upon them. New materials,new processes, new commodities havefollowed the train of advancing civilization and the ensuingmultiplication and alteration of man’s economic needs.Even where the demand for a certain material to fulfilla particular function has continued through the centuries,widening knowledge of natural resources coupled withmodern invention has usually found some substitute cheaper,more efficient, and better adapted for the purpose inquestion. Not so with cork. Recognized by the ancientsas peculiarly suited for certain uses, time has vindicatedtheir verdict; nothing has yet been discovered to supplantit in its wide sphere of usefulness.
Theophrastus, Greek philosopher and writer onbotany, who flourished in the fourth century beforeChrist, was evidently familiar with the material, for hementions the cork tree as being a native of the Pyrenees.For decades before the time of Horace cork was used forstoppers for wine vessels. In fact, the poet tells one ofhis friends, about 25 B. C., that on the occasion of a cominganniversary banquet he expects to “remove the corksealed with pitch” from a jar of the rare vintage of forty-sixyears previous, the first but not the last proceeding ofthis character of which history makes record.
[Pg 6]