An Hygienic Milk Receptacle.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 5, 1 March 1909, Page 171

An Hygienic Milk Receptacle.

The health authority of the Dominion years ago entered upon a very uphill struggle to secure purity in the distribution of milk. The problem is an extremely difficult one. 80 long as cans and bottles m any shape or form are used, there is the constant danger of imperfect cleansing, in addition to the inconvenience of having to return the empty vessels. An English inventor appears to have overcome the difficulty by the supply of paper milk pails. They have just been put upon the market, and a letter from a Progress correspondent who recently visited the factory of the Mono- Service Vessels, Limited, London, gives a rough idea of the new system. It appears that hundreds of thousands of these paper receptacles are used daily by Dairying Companies all over England The paper milkcan is made of pure wood pulp, with an impervious sterile glaze, and is manufactured so cheaply that it is never used twice, but is destroyed when empty. Milk keeps fresh for a longer period than in the old milk-can, and, therefore, it is said, fewer deliveries of milk need be made. More than 500,000 a day of the new milk receptacles are supplied to provincial dairy companies. Probably some enterprising firm in the Dominion will secure the rights to manufacture this exceedingly ingenious and beneficial invention. It will certainty be heralded with joy by our enthusiastic health authorities.

A Swiss patent has been granted to a Berlin firm for an explosive mixture composed of sulphur, sodium nitiate, small quantities of potassium nitrate and a chromate and a carbonaceous material of fatty or resinous character which melts between 85 and 400 deg. F., becomes plastic and adhesive when heated, and is imp?ivious to water. These ingredients are thoroughly mixed, without the addition of water, and are subjected to high pressure and temperature. The explosive is fired with a fuse, like gunpowder, to which it is claimed to be supeiior in the following lespects: the products of combustion are less voluminous, less irritating to the lungs, and settle more rapidly; the explosive never becomes moist, cannot be ignited under 660 deg. F., burns more quietly, is less sensitive to blows and shocks, and possesses greater explosive power. The same firm has patented a safety explosive composed of ammonium nitrate mixed with one-fifth its weight of dinitro or trimtro compounds of the aromatic series, dissolved in a suitable medium. Potassium nitrate may be substituted foi ammonium nitiate and metallic powders may be added to increase the explosive action.