The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1886-11-03

An Important Article That Has Many
Uses.

Uses.
Paper pulp can be made from any sub
stance containing vegetable fibre The
principal materials used are cotton and
linen rags, waste paper, straw, esparto
grass, wood, cane, jute and MANILA. But
besides these, scores of other substances in
the vegetable world have been used for the
purpose with more or less success One of
the recent discoveries of modern science is
the manufacture of very fue quality of
pulp from the thick leaf-stalk of the giant
cactus, which grows in forests on the arid
plateaus of Arizona and Southern Califor-
MIA, and hitherto been regarded as wholly
without value for any use of man. Rags
are made into pulp by first washing, then
boiling for about ten hours in an alkaline
solution. They are then put into the hol-
lander engine, which is an oblong vat hav-
ing in the middle cylinder with blunt
knives all around its surface and beneath it
block covered also with blunt knives.
This cylinder makes about $50 revolutions
a minute. Water runs into the vat at one
side and flows out at the other with equal
rapidity. Meanwhile the rags are carried
by the flowing water around the cylinder,
which is placed near enough to the block to
separate their fbres considerably in move
ment. This process lasts about four hours,
and the rags are then drained and put for
three hours in the bleaching vat, which
contains strong solution of chloride of
lime or other bleaching material, and has
also central revolving cylinder upon
block with knives, SO that the material is
still finer in this vat also. It 10 then put
into the heater, another vat of like con-
struction, in which the revolving cylinder
is placed SO near to the block that it beats
upon it in its revolution, and thus in the
course of four or five hours reduces the
substance to fine pulp. Waste paper is
put into boilers, through which hot solu-
ton of soda passes continually, to remove
printers ink. 1t is then put through the
washing, bleaching and beating engines,
Just as rags are, these processes, however,
in the case of paper, occupying much less
time. Straw, esparto and other grasses are
chopped fine with cutters and then boiled
with strong solution of caustic soda, to
dissolve the gummy matter on them After
this the substance is reduced to pulp in
engines, in much the same way as with rags.
Wood pulp is made by first reducing the
wood to chips, then boiling in very strong
solution of caustic soda under tremendous
pressure. II is then washed and bleached
as the other substances, and in the beating
engine is usually mixed with certain pro-
portion of rag pulp, as paper made of pure
wood pulp lacks cohesiveness. Cane pulp
is made by what is called the Lyman pro-
cess, which consists in putting the stripped
cane in cylindrical boilers, and the intro
ducing steam till the pressure of $50 pounds
to the square inch is obtained. The cover
of the cylinder is then removed and the
escaping steams hurls the cane with such
tremendous force against a surface placed
thirty feet away as to reduce it to mass of
brown pulp. In this form ii is used to
make roofing and wrapping napef and II is
also sometimes bleached and beaten and
made into white paper. Manila and iute
are boiled in rotary boilers, with milk of
lime, if plain brown paper is to be made
with caustic soda If white quality is want
ed. Beside the manufacture of paper,
pulp from any material is devoted to large
variety of uses, such as making paste board,
papier mache, boxes, boards, sheathing for
vessels, boats, furniture, filling for car
wheels, tubs, buckets and other household
articles. A mandatory in the East makes
doors and door frames of paper pulp, also
cupboards and window frames and sashes,
all complete and ready to be put in their
place in houses. A steamboat has boon
made, for experiment, entirely from paper
pulp. In fact, the possible uses Of this
substance are too numerous TO mention.