6205. To Make Fire Kindlers

6205.    To Make Fire Kindlers. Take a quart of tar and 3 pounds of resin, melt them, bring to a cooling temperature, mix with as much coarse sawdust, with a little charcoal added, as can be worked in; spread out while hot upon a board; when cold, break up into lumps of the size of a large hickory nut, and you have, at a small expense, kindling material enough for a household for one year. They will easily ignite from a match and burn with a strong blaze, long enough to start any wood that is fit to burn.

6206. To Loosen Ground Glass Stoppers

6206.    To Loosen Ground Glass Stoppers. Sometimes tho ground glass stoppers of bottles become, from one cause or another, fixed in the neck, and cannot be removed by pulling or twisting. An effectual method is to wrap a rag wet with hot water around the neck and let it remain a few seconds. The heat will expand tho neck of tho bottle, when the stopper can be removed before the heat penetrates the stopper itself. Or, wind a string once or twice around tho neck, and, holding the bottle between the knees, pull alternately on one and the other end, thus creating friction, and consequently heat. Or a little camphene dropped between the neck and stopper of the bottle will often relieve the stopper.

6207. To Remove a Glass Stopper

6207.    To Remove a Glass Stopper. The most effectual mode of removing stoppers, especially those of small bottles, such as smelling-bottles, is as follows: Take a piece of strong cord, about a yard or 4 feet in length, double it at the middle, and tie a knot {Fig. 1, 6) so as to form a loop (a) of about 4 inches

Fig. 1.

in length; at the doubled end, bring the knot close to one side of the stopper, and tie the ends tightly together on the opposite side, as at Fig. 2 (e) so as to fasten the string securely round the neck of the stopper; now pass one of the ends through the loop (a), and then tie it firmly to the other end; the doubled cord is then to be placed over a bar or other support, then if the bottle is surrounded by a cloth, to prevent accident in case of fracture, and pulled downwards with a jerk, the force of which is gradually increased, it will be found that in a short time the stopper is liber-

Fig. 2.

ated. Two precautions are requisite - one is, that the strain on both sides of the stopper is equal; the other, that care be taken that when the stopper is liberated, it is not dashed by the rebound against any hard substance, which would cause its fracture.

6208. To Keep Up Sash Windows

6208.    To Keep Up Sash Windows. This is performed ay means of cork, in the simplest manner, and with scarcely any expense. Bore 3 or 4 holes in the sides of the sash, into which insert common bottle-cork, projecting about the sixteenth part of an inch. These will press against the window frames along the usual groove, and by their elasticity support the sash at any height which may be required.