LOCAL INDUSTRIES.

Evening Star, Volume III, Issue 786, 11 November 1865, Page 2

LOCAL INDUSTRIES.

BCJTEMESTT BROTHERS' DERATED WATER MANUFACTORY.

This establishment is the largest of its class in Dunedin. It covers the area of a quarter-acre section in Rattray Street, and is fitted up in the most convenient manner for the manufacture of non-inebriating liquors, such as syrups, eordials, lemonade, soda water, and ginger beer. To a visitor, making a systematic inspection of the building, probably the first object to attract attention would be the huge bottle trough, into which, as the several carts return from their deliveries a vast number of bottles, is thrown.— Here they are thoroughly cleaned, drained, and passed on to the syrup bucket, where a boy is continually employed, with a small measure, pouring the necessary quantity of syrtxp into the bottles, previous to their being filled "with the rerated water. The bottler then receives them, and by means of an ingenious apparatus fitted with a jet and lever the bottles are rapidly fdled with liquid, and tightly corked. In this part of the process there is often some loss incurred by the bursting of the bottles, owing to a superfluity of liquid which sometimes passes into them. The Bottler can fill and cork from 49 to 60 dozen per hour. In bottling soda water, the highest pressure is employed,—from 100 to 200 lbs. on the square inch ; for lemonade 80 lbs. ; and for sarsaparilla, 60 lbs. to the square inch. If four bottlers are engaged, the machine is capable of bottling 1,600 dozen per

day ; and the firm has sent out as many as 800 dozen in one clay, with only one pump working. They are passed to a man for fastening the corks, and if the bottles contain, soda water, -wire is employed for the purpose, but if lemonade, slight twine is found to answer tsuffici litly well.

The 'works are supplied with a four horsepower eugine, oua of Samson. Bamett s, which took a prize medal ax the Exhibition of 1863. It gives motion to two pumps, and has a, regulating-guage attached to regulate tho quantities of gas and water which are necessary in the manufacture of lemonade and soda-water. In order to bring the water and gas continually together, there is a cylinder attached fitted with a revolving agitator, precisely on the principle of the common butter-churn. The purifier (to which we shall hereafter refer) is a copper receiver lined with silver, and is capable of bearing, with the greatest safety, a pressure of 2501b5. on the square inch. Altogether, this exceedingly pretty little engine may be pronounced as the most effective of its class ; and we are assured by Mr Butexnent that there is not another of the same kind in the Southern Hemisphere. In addition to the duties of preparing the material for bottling, the engine works a force pump, by which the water employed is raised to the tank, above what is termed the gas-generator. The generator is made of lead, and is charged with carbonate of lime. In connection with it is a receiver supplied with sulphuric acid. The result is, that the chemical action which goes on between these two elements disengages the carbonic acid gas, to be employed on the works. This is the artificial means resorted to for obtaining the same gas which beer, champagne, &c, generates in the process of fermentation, and which occurs as a natural component in Seltzer water. After the carbonate of lime has done its duty, the residium is employed for white-washing walls, &c.

In the ginger beer department there is a boiler which is also used for the manufacture of syrups, having a capacity for 80 gallons, while the vat in which the ginger beer is poured, has a capacity for 100 gallons. At the time of our visit, ginger was being infused-for a new brew, and we had the satisfaction of seeing that the firm employs the best Jamaica for the purpose. In this part of the building where there is a wash trough appropriated especially for washing the returned ginger beer bottles, there are employed one bottler and one corker. After the bottles have been filled and corked, they are then stacked in the bins until they have acquired sufficient age for consumption. There is one point to which Messrs Butement have directed particular attention, that is the importance of having the purest water. To effectually obtain this, they use numerous filters in their operations, and in the manufacture of syrups, and they have adopted felt as the best material. We must say in conclusion that we were much pleased with the couple of hours we spent in this establishment, and we have no doubt that the proprietors are daily achieving the success adequate to the outlay they have incurred.