Darrow School - Shaker Post Yearbook (New Lebanon, NY)

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The Peg Board 1936 VACUUM PAN AND CRUSHING MILL Reprodured from Harpefs Magazine, XV Cjuly 18571, 174 TUE HYDRAULIC PRESS. Erplamrtzkm of the Press.-A, the cylinder: B, the platen: C, the hopper into which the herbs are placed, and fall through the platen upon the movable bed,A turned by eogsg D, a. plunger which presses the herbs: e, the orifice in the platen through which the plunger drops: h, another plunger that pushes the preued herb-cake through the lower bed, i, into the trough, K: n, m, apparatul con- nected with the power below: 0, the driving-wheel. Reproduced from Harper's Magazine, XV Uuly 18573, 172 38

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1936 if 4 TT if iiiTheiiPieig Board ix THE LABORATORY Reproduced from Harpefs Magazine, XV Cjuly 18575, 173. thus expressed are then put in copper pans, inclosed in iron jackets, in such manner that steam is introduced between the jackets and the pans and the liquid boiled down to the proper consistency for use. Some juices, in order to avoid the destruction or modification of their medical properties, are conveyed to an upper room, and there boiled in a huge copper vacuum pan, from which, as its name implies, the air has been exhausted. This allows the liquid to boil at a much lower temperature than it would in the open air. In a room adjoining the vacuum pan are mills for reducing dried roots to impalpable powder. These roots are first cracked to the size of samp in the room below, by being crushed under two huge discs of Esopus granite, each four feet in diameter, a foot in thickness and a ton in weight. These are made to revolve in a large vessel by steam power. The roots are then carried to the mills above. These are made of two upper and a nether stone of Esopus granite. The upper stones are in the form of truncated cones, and rest upon the nether stone, which is beveled. A shaft in centre, to which they are attached by arms, makes them revolve, and at the same time they turn upon their own axes. The roots ground under them by this double motion are made into powder almost impalpable. In a building near the Extract House is the Finishing Room, where the preparations, already placed in phials, bottles, and jars, are labeled and packed for market. This service is performed by two womeng and from this room those materials, now so extensively used in the materia medica, are sent forth. These extracts are of the purest kind. The water used for the purpose is conveyed through earthen pipes from a pure mountain spring, an eighth of a mile distant, which is singularly free from all earthy matter. This is ofinfinite importance in the preparation of these medicinal juices. They are, consequently, very pop- ular, and the business is annually increasing. During the year 1855 they prepared at that laboratory and sold about fourteen thousand pounds. The chief products are the extracts 37

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1936 Theimgindarid Ti 1 i 3' THE TANNERY Reproduced from Harper's Magazine, XV Uuly 18575, 175 of dandelion and butternut. Of the former, during that year, they put up two thousand five hundred pounds, of the latter, three thousand pounds.1' One of the most important industries at Mount Lebanon was that of tanning leather. In the first year of the community's organized existence, says Dr. Andrews, a small building was utilized for finishing leather. Here Root, the tanner, ground his hemlock bark by horse power on a simple circular stone. This primitive method was employed until after the turn of the cent- ury. 12 The development of the tanning business is described thus in the Mangfesio: . . . .After the introduction of a cast-iron bark mill, which was driven by water power, the business was greatly facilitated. In 1807 more additions were made to the buildings, and machines added for rolling the leather. In 1813 a machine was added for splitting leather. The business had so much increased by the year 1834 that still larger buildings were needed and more ample provisions made to meet the growing demand. By this change the vats were placed in the basement of the building and numbered not less than thirty-two. Every thing on the premises was made to correspond with the amount of the business, as well as the quality of the work demanded. The hides at this date were softened in a common fulling mill, but in 1840 a wheel or cylinder was used and considered a great improvement. As the sales increased, the old process of tanning leather in cold vats was by far too slow to suit the sellers and buyers of this: fast age, and a steam boiler was in- troduced in 1850 for heating the vats and leaches, in order to force the hides more ex- peditiously through the process of making leather.1' 11. Harper? Magazine, XV Uuly 18573, 173. ff. 12. The Community Indsutv-in of Nu Shaken, p. 121. 18. The Manifesto, XX QMsy 18903, 97. 39