Copyrighted, 1880, by MURPHY & CO., Newark, N. J., and Cleveland, O. THE HISTORY OF A POT OF VARNISH. Together with their love of the practical in the industrial arts, Americans have a ready faculty of discovering an interest touching almost on the romantic in the origin and production of what pass ordinarily for useful and prosaic things. Herein lies a part of the secret of their great success in mechanical pursuits. This inborn mechanical curiosity has led many a young American to take apart his mother’s self-winding tape measure, or the family sewing machine, just “to see how the thing was made.” We seldom, any of us, lose the desire to visit machine-shops and factories, and see with our own eyes how the work of creation, in a limited way, is carried forward, by men who, from habit, look upon their work as dull routine, while to our fresh eyes, every deft movement is filled with grace, and each stage in the transformation of the material into the manufactured object is a new wonder. [Illustration: Murphy & Co.’s Varnish Factory, Newark, N. J.] Everybody knows something about the bright, amber-colored fluid called varnish, but few persons, probably, know how varied and interesting a story is wrapped up in this subtle substance, which lends beauty and durability to almost every product of the workshop and studio. Varnish factories are comparatively few, and their doors seldom stand wide open. But there is nothing secretive about varnish. It speaks to the nostrils of close companionship with turpentine,--the pungent aroma of which some affect to like, and most persons find very disagreeable. The linseed oil in the varnish cannot be detected by a novice; and thousands who are not practical painters, and only use the fluid as household amateurs, have doubtless wondered what could be the nature of the illusive material that gives to the varnish its sticky quality and elastic body. This third ingredient is the resinous juice of a tree. It is analogous to the little lumps of pitch that boys sometimes find on a pine board that has been exposed to the sun, and once in their lives discover to be a very sticky substitute for chewing-gum, which, in itself, is a kind of resin. Varnish resins are few in number compared with the vast number of resins of one kind and another. They are not got from the tree that produced them, but are mined a little below the surface of the earth, where they have lain and ripened for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. This is true especially of gum copal, the commercial name of the most valuable of the varnish resins. These three ingredients, gum copal, linseed oil, and turpentine are brought to the door of the varnish maker. It is his province to mix them by applying formulas which are the result of years of experiment and hard-earned experience. [Illustration: Murphy & Co.’s Varnish Factory, Cleveland, Ohio.] Varnish making is one of the new and growing industries of the United States. This is as it ought to be, for Americans use more artificial varnish than any other people, and even before they have reached the point of fully supplying themselves, begin to think seriously of providing their neighbors and transatlantic friends with a better article than can be sold abroad for the same money. Fifty years ago we relied mostly upon England and France for the vast quantities of varnish employed in the industrial arts of this country. Varnish manufacture was somewhat understood, but for many years the Americans were content to make for themselves only...