irregular Blue bottle

[Harry Pristis]

Thank you for thinking of me, Mabel. I just haven't had much to add recently.

Your cone-shaped Bixby bottle is interesting. These cones all shared one thing: a low center-of-gravity. This is an obvious advantage in a container for ink, shoe-polish, or mucilage -- stuff you really want to avoid spilling.

I have believed for a long time that these bottles (cones) may have contained mucilage more often than is realized. That plain "cone ink" in its useful life may have been a glue bottle.

Here are three cones from my shelf. One is certainly an ink bottle, one is a mucilage bottle, and one is unidentified. Can you tell me which is which?

---------Harry Pristis

 

[Maine woods Digger 2]

looks like an ink container

 

[olddump]

Ink, glue, ink is what I see the last being the easiest it saying ink and all but 120 years ago [if they are'nt marked] people could have put bubble gum in them [just kidding] for all we know. Ink being less dense than glue it would make sence it would be in the shorter squatier bottles and the glue in the taller one [crazy glue not showing up for a hundred years yet][]
Good night all, Tom Olddump

 

[Harry Pristis]

In this trio, at least, Tom is correct.

The taller (middle) bottle is the mucilage. It still has a label which reads:
SUPERIOR ADHESIVE
MUCILAGE
PREPARED FOR
BOOKSELLERS, STATIONERS,
&C.

------Harry Pristis