The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1880-09-23
PAPER-HOw 1T Is MADE.

The antiquity of the paper manufac-
ture is probably excelled by but few
other products Of civilization, Chinese
historians carrying it back to q point
far in the twilight of our history. In
England it was tirst introdu ced near the
close of the fifteenth century, and in
this country in 1893, at Germantown,
Pa. The materials from which paper
is produced are numerous, but wholly
OF vegetable origin, neither wool nor
hair possessing the capability of being
reduced to fibrous pulp, prerequisite
to the formation of paper. Linen and
cotton rags. straw, the leaves and
stalks of the okra plant, jute stalks,
MANILA, hemp, and even wood fiber,
are all used in the manufacture of
paper. No substance, however, can
equal good linen rags, of which the
toughest and finest paper is made. Next
in rank are cotton rags from which the
best writing and note paper is made.
In this manufacture great care is taken
In the selection of the material and in
every process.
Gathered from all parts of the coun-
try by tin peddlers and by peripatetic
ragmen In cities, the rags arrive at.the
mill in bags. portion Of the stock, per-
haps, coming in pressed bales from over
the sea- The first process is sorting,
and then the rags are cut, usually by
girls, by means of fixed blade in q
bench, like q short upturned scythe,
the operator picking them ND by hand
fuls and drawing them over the edge of
the blade. Each girl is furnished with
sandstone rifle, and when a large
roomful of girls are at work the sounds
remind one strongly Of a gang of now
ers at work before the days OF the now
ing machine. A second sorting, for
the removal of all buttons, hooks and
eyes, and hard seams, follows, and the
rags are then busted. The duster is a
large cylinder, the surface of which is
of fine woven wire, inside of which is a
shaft carrying arms set around it in a
spiral form, and revolving at a higher
rate of speed than the cylinder. This
difference in speed gives the rags q
thorough stirring, while the spiral ar
rangement of the blades facilitates the
exit of the rags, which traverse the
cylindrical sieve from end to end.
White paper can be made from colored
as well as white rags, and for the re-
moval of the color as we'll as the dirt
they are submitted to boiling with
lime water. The rags are placed in q
large rotating boiler made of half-inch
plate. mounted on journals and driven
by proper gearing. as a worm and
wheel Through the hollow journal
steam is admitted and kept at a press
ure of from forty-five to sixty pounds,
representing heat from 292 to 308 de-
grees. Lime water, in the proportion
of about one part by weight to ten or
twelve of the rags, is mixed with them,
and the boiler is set in motion. Usually
a charge requires from eight to twelve
hours boiling. Even this severe test
does not fully purify the rags, which
are next passed through an engine"
To the uninitiated brief description
of this apparatus is necessary. It is q
tank of oval form. the walls or sides
rising two and half feet from the
dinally by a straight upright partition,
not extending to the ends, however,
but leaving a space between its ends
and the tanks sides, of width corre-
spending to that between the sides of
the partition and those of the tank. On
one side of this partition, across the
center of the tank, is toothed drum,
the teeth or blades of which alternate
with fixed teeth at the bottom, These
teeth tear the rags to tatters, but with
out destroying the fiber. A stream of
water is constantly passing through
tho tank, and is constantly removed.
This is done by q wheel of fine wire
netting that revolves on the side oppo-
site to the toothed drum, taking up the
mass, but OBTAINING the pulp, the water
running of through the shaft of the
wheel, which is hollow. Thus the
water is used only while making sim
gle passage around the tank, the cur
rent being produced and maintained by
the rotary movement of the beater or
tearer. The condition of the rag ma
terial when it comes from this cleansing
engine is that of coarse pulp, techni-
caily known as '.half stuff" which is
subsequently submitted to the action of
another engine, known as a beating en-
gine, but essentially the same as the
cleaning engine.
But still further cleansing is neces-
sary. The material is next mixed with
chloride of lime and again passed
through the engine. 1t is then heaped
upon drainers, and looks like a mass of
half-melted snow. The white, howev-
er. is dead white, having no brillian-
cy. To receive this quality it must lit
orally be colored. As the laundress
blues her clothes to make them winter,
SO must the paper stuff be blued, and
when so tinted it has that same quality
of whiteness as wind driven snow,
which always shows a blush tinge.
This is quite different, however, from
the blue writing paper SO affected by
the fashionable twenty and thirty years
ago. and now the favorite tint in the
South and in England. That is really
blue paper, while our usual white paper
is merely tinted sufficiently to remove
the dead. yellow, lusterless appearance
of absolute whiteness. The bluing is
ultramarine, as used in calico printing
and for other manufacturing purposes,
made from silicate of soda, alumina,
sulphurets of iron, and carbonate of
soda and not from lapis-lazuli. This
is mixed in powder with the half stuff
just before the final heating.
After the final heating the material is
apparently thin, milky fluid, having
no trace, to the unaided eye, of the
fibrous character that it really possesses.
Formerly the paper was formed by
hand, the workman dipping a rectangu-
lar sieve into the fluid pulp, and depos-
iting the sheet of pulp on piece OF felt
to dry. But very little paper is made
so now, the Fourdrinier machine hav-
ing taken the place of the hand work
man. This machine" rs it is called
ndr sexocffe,ace. is q wonderful produc-
ton of skill; it is almost wholly auto
matte in action, and works with mar
velou5 cxactuess. 1t is scarcely posi-
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