salting rooms, the canning rooms, and the packing rooms, where choice
meat was prepared for shipping in refrigerator cars, destined to be
eaten in all the four corners of civilization. Afterward they went
outside, wandering about among the mazes of buildings in which was done
the work auxiliary to this great industry. There was scarcely a
thing needed in the business that Durham and Company did not make for
themselves. There was a great steam power plant and an electricity
plant. There was a barrel factory, and a boiler-repair shop. There was a
building to which the grease was piped, and made into soap and lard; and
then there was a factory for making lard cans, and another for making
soap boxes. There was a building in which the bristles were cleaned
and dried, for the making of hair cushions and such things; there was a
building where the skins were dried and tanned, there was another where
heads and feet were made into glue, and another where bones were made
into fertilizer. No tiniest particle of organic matter was wasted in
Durham's. Out of the horns of the cattle they made combs, buttons,
hairpins, and imitation ivory; out of the shinbones and other big bones
they cut knife and toothbrush handles, and mouthpieces for pipes; out of
the hoofs they cut hairpins and buttons, before they made the rest into
glue. From such things as feet, knuckles, hide clippings, and sinews
came such strange and unlikely products as gelatin, isinglass,
and phosphorus, bone black, shoe blacking, and bone oil. They had
curled-hair works for the cattle tails, and a "wool pullery" for the
sheepskins; they made pepsin from the stomachs of the pigs, and albumen
from the blood, and violin strings from the ill-smelling entrails. When
there was nothing else to be done with a thing, they first put it into a
tank and got out of it all the tallow and grease, and then they made it
into fertilizer. All these industries were gathered into buildings near
by, connected by galleries and railroads with the main establishment;
and it was estimated that they had handled nearly a quarter of a