Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-24
RICHES FROM INDIA.
The Inventor Can Have Them BY
Meeting the Needs of the Country.
A NEW MATERIAL FOR PAPER.
Eggs Sunk in the Tay at New York We're
Preserved by the Salt.
THE ODDS AND ENDS OF sCIENCH
WRITTEN FOR THE prsPArcH.1

WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH.1
A Calcutta lawyer has written a pamphlet
with the object of showing what a splendid
field India offers for the utilization of the
inventions of countries more advanced in
the scale of civilization. He dwells partic-
ularly on the necessity for appliances and
contrivances for the conversion locally Of
raw materials, whether vegetable or min.
eral, into manufactured articles in the least
possible time and with as little waste as 10
compatible with efficiency and thorough
ness; and also on the need for improved
machinery and apparatus for the various
stages in the preparation. manipulation and
manufacture of tea, indigo, cotton, silk,
jute and hemp. In the manufacture of tea,
from its initial stage to the time it is ready
to be consigned to trade centers for export
or disposal, many machines are already in
use for rolling the leaf after withering, and
for firing, sitting, etc, but tea garden pro-
prietors would gladly welcome such ma
chinery as would reduce the expense of pro-
duction and import. With regard to in
digo, there is no doubt that the manufact-
ure, which is now comparatively crude, can
be greatly improved by chemical and other
processes. Complaints have become so COM
mon in England as to the adulteration of In
dian grown cotton that effective cotton
pickers and cleaners would soon become
popular. A device for these purposes has
been already tried, but 1t was so complex
that its main result seems to have been to
emphasize the necessity for a practical ma
chine.
The writer of the pamphlet, after dis
cussing this branch of his subject. adds
significantly: American inventors might
with advantage take up this subject" In
the silk industry all efforts have shown the
impossibility of getting native spinners to
produce, by spinning, anything like an even
thread, for they prefer to dab on to the
spinning thread Jumps of the ends of say
six cocoons at time in order to complete
their task speedily, and an inequality OF
thread is the natural result of such hasty
and clumsy handling. Thi, uneven thread,
full of fluff and rough joins, is, and will
continue to be, the bane of Indian silk until
some practical remedy can be introduced.
Improved methods of converting the stems
of plantains and the leaves of agave and
Pineapple plants into material for textile
fabrics, and the PREPARATION, degumming and
decorticating of rance, rhea and q host Of
other Indian fbres without sleeping in water
or requiring skilled labor, would be sure Of
adoption on a large scale.
At present the Indian paper mills utilize
principally wheat anu rice straw, jute and
hemp cuttings and old gunnles. Some Of
the mills, however, use grasses, old ropes
and canvas and only one mill in the whole
country employs wood pulp, as compared
with 6)0 wood nulp mills in GERMANY An
other process which is successfully used in
other countries would prove peculiarly ac-
ceptable in India, viz, the method by
which, after removing the thorns and steep
ing in suitable solution, the large and sue
culent leaves of the cactus plant are adapted
as food for cattle. According TO the data
given, it would appear difficult thing to
mention good, sound industrial invention
that cannot be pro6tably introduced in the
country from which the tboughttully writ
ten and exhaustive pamphlet emanatea