Document 85zOao83v31JyE9xdV463DnoZ

THE CHAMELEON A magazine for employees of The Sherwin-Williams Company. Published at Cleveland headquarters since January, 1S9S 601 Canal Road, Cleveland. Ohio VOL. 25, NUMBER Edited by N. M. Collart MARCH, 1924 The Country of Brazil, South America -4s Seen by Mr. L. R. Sansom, Sherwin-Williams Representative The followin article has been written by our representative in Brazil, Mr. L. R. Sansom, who has been visiting Newark and other factories of our company for the last few weeks. Mr. Sansom's insight into the economic and trade conditions, as well as the social iards and other nationalities predominate, Strong temperamental differences are noticed among the people from the differ ent parts of the country, greater energy and activity being displayed by the dwellers in the most southernly parts. The most advanced and progressive dug out from a single tree Picture No. 5 shows the writer's little daughter being driven in a small carriage drawn by goats. And, picture No. 2 gives an idea of the primitive ox cart used in some parts of the country; this cart has solid wooden wheels. side of Brazil life is very interesting. state, out of the twenty into which the re The plantation in which these photo The Chameleon staff would like to take public is divided, is the State of Sao graphs were taken has only about half a this opportunity to thank him for his in Paulo, with a population of four and a million plants, but it takes about 1000 terest in preparing this article and to. say half million today and a capital, called also people to take care of it. The place has that we of the Newark office have enjoyed his stay among us very much. We have decided that this the City of Sao Paulo, which has rapidly grown in size. Thirtu-five years ago electriclights, a luxurious residence, swimming pools, beautiful gardens, orchards, etc. article by Mr. Sansom is so Coffee is not the only well put and contains so much information that it production of the State of Sao Paulo. It produces would be best to issue it in also cotton, sugar, corn, parts, the first part being as cattle, and it is also the most follows: important manufacturing It is both a pleasure and a center in South America, privilege to be able to write with modern factories a few words for The Cham wherethe most up to date eleon, whose very interest systems are followed in op ing pages give me, when I erating efficient machinery. am in Brazil, a fascinating Even the natives of Brazil picture of the many activi frequently ignore the man ties of the members of the ufacturing activities of the Sherwin-Williams Company State of Sao Paulo, and in five thousand miles away many instances serious mis from my own camping takes have been made by ground. In writing these American exporters in at words. I am making an at tempting to ship to Brazil tempt to cover matter of a articles that are manu varied character, so as to factured in Sao Paulo just try and have something of interest for the readers of the magazine in their differ This is the Port of Santos. State of Sao Paulo, Brasil. 8o% of the offee imported into the L'nitcd States is shipped from this port. as well as they are in the United States, and at a much lower price. ent spheres of action. that city had a population of 30,000 and Some of the readers of this paragraph Brazil is a country 100.000 square miles today it is slightly above 700.000. The may wonder if any paints are being manu larger than the territory of the United State of Sao Paulo is the biggest producer factured in Brazil, and will be interested States, extending more in a northern and of coffee in the world. Eighty per cent lo know that in the city of Rio de Janeiro southern direction than it does in an east of the total coffee imported into the there are at least six factories actively ern and western direction. Colonized United States today comes from Sao engaged and in the city of Sao Paulo originally by Portuguese. it has been de- Paulo. It is entered from the Port of three or four more. The product turned veloped later by extensive Santos, which is shown in picture No. 1. out bv these factories is not a very high from many different lands. And today, the extreme southern part of the country has a very large colony of Germans, while in the more central part Italians, Span- A coffee plantation is a very beautiful place as a rule, as rolling land is the kind best adapted for the cultivation of this plant. The biggest plantation in the State has about 12 million trees. It would be worth today at least 10 million dollars. Smaller plantations are very numerous, and pictures of some of them are shown which represent respectively the gathering of the coffee bean by native labor--and some more personal views of the writer and his family during a few days spent in one of these smaller plantations. Picture No. 3 gives an outline in the distance of Xo. Mr. Sansom. with Mrs. Adams ami Mr. Mon'beiro de Barros, Sr., at the faceudii. i. <>tfce hill in the distauee. A coffee plantation is a eery beautifjtl place, as a rule. Ohscrec the trees .4 primitive ox cart, used in some parts of the country. the perfectly aligned coffee plants. Picture No. 4 shows a river trip made in a canoe eo-eering the distant ele-eatiou in perfect alignment. 6 THE CHAMELEON Marc! History of Sherwin-Williams Products The use of paint as a protective coating lias come down to us from remote an tiquity. Even Noah "pitched the Ark within and without with pitch" and the Xoah Pitched the Ark. mother of Moses placed him in an ark of bulrushes which she "daubed with slime and with pitch." At later periods the Jews evidently used paint on their houses, as in Jeremiah appears, "Woe unto him that sayest, I will build me a wide, house --ceiled with cedar and painted with ver milion." (Even then it was had taste to paint a nouse with vermilion.') Its use for decoration and picture paint ing began very much earlier. Pictures of bison, wild boar, reindeer and other animals have recently been found in some caves in Spain. These were evidently the work of cavemen and date from the Pale olithic age. probably 50,000 years ago. These prehistoric pictures are real master pieces and are far superior to pictures of battles and hunting scenes on the walls of Babylon erected about 2500 years B. C., and wall paintings found in tombs in Thebes dating from 1500 B. C. In the British Museum are many mummies elaborately decorated, the old est of these is that of Menkara, who lived Picture of a buffalo in full colors found in a cave in Spain, probably 50,000 years old. about 4000 years B. C. Many beautifully painted things were found in the tomb of King Tutankhamen where they had lain undisturbed for 3300 years. These refer ences seem to establish the use of paint at least 4000 years before the coming of Christ. The art of painting developed much more slowly than did sculpture. This was. By \Y. R. Sie p l e ix undoubtedly, due to the crude nature of painting materials available rather than to the skill of the artist. Greek sculpture attained a high state of development as early as four or five centuries B. C,, but the art of painting was not fully developed until the remarkable work of the Italian masters in the fifteenth century. Ancient Galleys being coated with colored wax. The materials used by the ancients were probably all minerals, natural earth colors, organic dyes from plants, and waxes. The old Greek philosophers are the first to give any definite reference to detail. Theophrastus writing about 350 years B. C.. refers to "cerussa" a native mineral carbonate of lead found in small ouantities in Europe and Pliny, who lived A. D. 23 to 79. writes of the mode of boiling wax and painting ships with it after which--"neither the sea, nor the wind, nor the sun can destroy the wood thus protected." (First reference to "Save the surface and you save all.") The Romans being essentially a warlike people never brought the decoration of buildings to the high plane it reached with the Greeks, though the ruins of Pompeii show many structures with mural decorations in very fair condition. The colors used are glaring, usually a b'ack background with bright red, yellow and blue. The black was, undoubtedly. Lamp Black; the red was the mineral Cinnabar, natural vermilion, referred to by Theophrastus and Plinv. This has stood for these centuries with little change of color. The yellow, no doubt, was Yellow Ochre, as pots of Yellow Ochre were found at Pompeii and the blue, un doubtedly. was Lapis Lazuli, the true ll 'as this an c<irly attempt at a "movy" l>}1 dir part of some prehistoric cave man t' native ultramarine blue which is in Persia. The earliest reference to the 1 facture of any paint material is by ` phrastus, who described white lead a pared from lead and vinegar evape to dryness. Pliny again mentions i is not known when the white lead of was first made or to what country it its birth, but tradition assigns diset of the method to the Dutch and to a named Stratingh. It must be over years old. as a patent for a method the present Old Dutch was taken 01 England in 1622. The length of tim volved encouraged effort to develc more rapid method and the first q process on record is the Chamber pro patented by Sir James Creed in Eng, in 1749. Many other processes have 1 Portion of an Egyptian Mitral. invented, but the most satisfactory on now in use is the Carter process, patentei in July, 1889. Zinc white seems to have been sug gested first by Curtois of Dijon, France in 1782 and after several unsuccessful attempts to use it for a paint material, Leclair in 1845 found a method to use it for oil paints. Up to this time all zinc oxide was made by the French process from vapors given off by a bath of zinc metal. Zinc oxide has always met with much favor in France and recent legislation has been enacted prohibiting the use of lead carbonate in paints. In 185o Wetherill patented the American process of making zinc oxide directly from the ore. mixed with coal, by volatilization on a grate. In 1879 the Lewis patent for making sublimed lead was taken out. A vein of lead and zinc ore was discovered in 1870 and smelting it by the Lewis method de veloped leaded zinc like the Ozlo pigment made by The S-\\ Co. March. 1924 THE CHAMELEON Lithopone was first patented in 1874 tinder the name of Orr's White. There are many variations in the manufacturing process now in use but all produce a material essentially the same. made artificially by Christian Gmelin in France in 1828. Prussian Blue was first made in 1710 by a color maker named Diesbach in Berlin. The S-W Co.'s first connection with the industry was through Lewis Steigenberger, who came to Lon don in 1760 and started the manufacture of Prussian Blue in England. He was the founder of Lewis Berger & Sons, Ltd., our present English connection, and the formula used by us today in making Prussian Blue is modified only slightly from his method. 7 One of the Early Crude Methods of Producing White Lead. pigments used for decorative purposes. The earliest red pigment about which we have any information is the native Cinna A portion of a mural from the ruins of Pompeii bar, mercuric sulphide, used by the ancients and Chinese. This is now pro Black appears to be the earliest coloring duced artificially and has been made by pigment used as from time immemorial Lewis Berger & Sons. Ltd., our English soot has been used by savage tribes to connection, for over 125 years. Red pig paint fheir faces and color other objects ment using organic dye derived from the they wished to beautify in this way. Black substantially the same as our present Lamp Black, was made by the Chinese at Primitive method of producing Lamp Black icith smoking lamps. madder plant, a native of Greece, was made in Europe in the 13th century, though madder was used by the Greeks least 2000 years ago by burning oil in Malachite, green copper mineral, was and Romans for dyeing long before it small earthenware lamps with a limited employed by the ancients. Verdigris was used for painting. Many other or supply of air and collecting the soot thus was used by the Romans as a pigment ganic dyes have been used but these have condensed. Asphalt or bitumen found on and has been detected in the wall paint of been largely displaced by aniline dyes first the shores of the Dead Sea were used by Pompeii. Paris Green or Emerald Green discovered by Dr. William Henry Perkin the early Egyptians on mummy cases. At was discovered in 1S14, though Scheele's in 1856. He made in that year a mauve a much later date, in Europe, Ivory and Green, very similar to this, was made in dve used to dye silk for a dress for Queen Bone Blacks were made by burning ivory 1778. This pigment is little used as a Victoria. For this he was knighted. cuttings or bones in closed retorts and grinding and refining the charred residue. Frankfort or Vine Black was made by a similar method using vine cuttings, stones from plums, olives, almonds or similar fruits. Carbon Black made by the incom plete combustion of gas, was first made in this country in 1864. paint material now. Chrome Greens, es sentially the same as those now used, were first made in France in 1838. Yellow Ochre, one of the most ancient pigments, was used by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Naples Yellow which is basic lead antimoniate, has been found on Babylonian bricks at least 2500 The history of paint vehicles and varnishes can be presented much more simply than that of pigments, and will be handled in the April Chameleon. The pitch that Noah used was, undoubtedly, a form of crude petroleum and it is remarkable that no other substance has been discov ered that is so well adapted to protect sur The earliest blue on record is Indigo, years old. Chrome Yellow, lead chromate. faces against moisture. (Ebonol may used in India and Egypt and mentioned well be proud of its ancient ancestry.) by the ancient Byzantine writers, as well as Pliny and others. It is named in the Marseilles tariff of 1228. Natural Ultramarine Blue. Lapis Lazuli, was used many centuries ago, but ultramarine was first Waxes were first used as the vehicle for colored paints. Excellent examples of the use of melted wax as a binding medium for pigments, executed in the second and third centuries, are shown in London museums. Later evidently a mix ture with oil or animal fat was used to lessen the inconvenience of heating the wax. For interior decoration a size made with fish glue, gum arabic or similar gum or the white or yolk of egg. were the earliest mediums used. (To be continued in next issue) "Nothing is to be feared but fear." Early Method of making White Zinc by "fn mint/.'' in common use today, was first made about 100 years ago, though some is found in nature. The browns, such as umber, sienna, iron oxide, etc., are natural earth colors, which probably were some of the earliest "Mr. Stanton, can you get Chicago from Cleveland ?" Answer: "No, but T get Davenport very often," and he seemed pleased. Now how anyone could want Chicago and with a "beaming smile" express satisfaction at having got Davenport is beyond the belief of the un instructed. 7 SUP 052262