The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1881-12-29
WOOD PULP.
HOW THE GREAT FOREST TREES OF TO-DAY
BECOME NEWSPAPERS To- MORROW.

Wood pulp enters largely into the COM
position of printing paper nowadays.
One of the largest, if not the largest,
mills in the United States is situated at
Markleton, on the Baltimore & Ohio r.
R., about ninety five miles from Pitts
burg. Near by is spruce and hemlock
forest about 5000 acres in extent, into
which tramway extends from the mills.
in cutting down trees there. They quick
ly bore q hole in the base of spruce or
bemlock with an inch auger-boring in
about ten inches-and insert dynamite
cartridge. The dynamite used comes in
sticks like candle, and resembles moist
brown sugar. A fuse is attached to the
charge, and, after it is lighted, the ope-
rators seek place of safety and wait.
In few seconds, there is a mighty roar
and the great tree is lifted into the air
about ten feet, when, with swoop ard a
crash, it comes to the earth, splintered
half way up the trunk. The trees are
cut up into four foot lengths and split up
into pieces like cord-wood. Then they
are hauled over to the storage yards be-
side the factories. Almost any kind of
timber could be used for making pulp,
but the fibre of spruce and hemlock is so
straight and soft that it can be worked
more speedily and economically than
any other available wood in the mill.
The process is briefly this. The sticks
OF wood are thrown into large funnel
which feeds clipping machine. This
machine consists of large wheel fur
nished with five knife blades, and the
blades clip the wood off just as the knives
of fodder machine cut straw. The
chips are conveyed by an elevator to the
second story of the mill and are dumped
into "digestors." There are eight di-
gesters in this mill. They resemble ver-
tical boilers. The chips are fed into the
digestors from openings in the top and
then preparation Of soda, ash and lime
is poured upon them and they are boiled.
The pressure of the chips as they spread
apart and the fibres separate is immense,
and the dieestors have to be made to re-
slst pressure of $50 pounds to the inch.
In a short time the chips become q
stringy pulp and the liquid is run off by
pump and conveyed to the evaporator.
The pulp next goes through wet ma
chine, where it is strained and cooled.
1t then passes between rollers, and is
made into sheets like pasteboard. In
deed, to the uninitiated, the sheets seem
to be pasteboard OF fine and strong
quality. The evaporator is supplied
with long battery of small furnaces
above which are the retorts into which
the alkali is pumped from the mill. It is
then evaporated until soda ash is the
result, and this ash is again used in pre-
pairing pulp. There is but trihe loss in
evaporation and the same alkali is used
again and again. The capacity of the
mill is 10000 pounds of pulp daily. A
cord of wood will make 1900 pounds of
pulp. This pulp is worth $l40 ton.
About five tons of the pulp will make
about three tons of paper. it is said. The
pulp is transported to the Markle paper
mills at West Newton and there it speedi-
ly becomes paper. The firm has invest
ed over a quarter of million of dollars
In its works at Markleton, but they will
be amply repaid for their outlay. This
mere outline of this great enterprise gives
but a poor idea of its merits, but it shows
how, as Capt. Markle remarked, "a tree
that waved its branches in the forest
wind at noon on Monday may be sold on
Tuesday morning by the newsboys of
Pittsburg, who shout, Here's your morn
ing paperp"