The Press., 1898-02-03
From the New York Evening Post.] WOOD PAPER IMPROVED.

Paper-makerS are beginning to d1Scred1t | the doubts about the durability of their modern product. "I find" said one of them in Reade street yesterday, ''that from the beginning of paper-making people have questioned it's lasting qualities. Yet the old Italian and German papers have endur- ed to this day; and, although we have used new processes and materialsi in the last | 15 or 20 years, we know of nothing which | really makes the durability of present pa- pers problematical. Recently in England | a commission was appointed to finally re- port upon the question, after using all means of investigation and applying all possible tests. N Of course the interest in this question | has been owing to the other question in solved. Was printing soon to be deprived of it's character as the art preservative ?" 1t was feared that wood could not, as we'll as rags, withstand the influence of air and time, especially after chemicals had been used in turning it into paper. But in this country wood has served as the basic ma terial for 30 years, and is more and more es- teemed. In Germany it has served dur ing longer period-since Keller discovered that wasps made their nests of stuff wov- en from wood fibers, and Voelter invented machine that would reduce wood to an ele mentary state as we'll as wasp could do it.
 Better paper is made to-day in America than ever before anywhere, and for books f i1 fo ho
 Wood papers are of two kinds; ground and chemically prepared. Ground wood paper is brittle, the grinding being fatal to the fl- ores, and, as it discolors quickly is used ly for newspapers and books not meant to last. Of the chemically prepared there are two varieties sulphite and the so da. These chemicals seperate the wood into fibre and the soda, though manufactur- CTS are not so sure regarding sulphite produces a lasting article. Nearly all New York newspapers use ground-wood paper; that of the Evening Post, however, J is only 15 per cent ground-woOd, the re- mainder sulphite fibre. Lately an all-wood serviceabl book, magazine and Autograph ing paper has been produced with a mix ture of sodo and sulphite. It isn't as tough as though made partly of rags, for wood fi- bres at best are straight, and lie almost parellel instead of intertwining, as linen or cotton flores will do.
 Rags are chiefly used now for writing and bond papers. Old linen rags and new cotton clippings sized with animal glue combine in the finest paper known, and they are not made by hand, but by ma chine. Holyoke being near the cotton fac tories of New England, turns out most of the finepapers: Niagara Falls, Glens Falls,
 a valley in Wisconsin, points near the
 Maine rivers-places to which the spruce
 timber can be easily transported, and from
 which the finished product can be shipped
 in many directions-are famous for wood
 papers. The largest paper-machine in the
 world is in Schuylerville, of this state, and
 the smallest in Newark, N. J.; the one, if
 erected in straight line. as is the custom,
 measuring 27j feet in length, and the oth-
 CT, used for getting out samples being only
 13 feet-even toy paper-machine being a
 considerable monster as machines go. Not
 withstanding the increase of fine papers inn
 ports are comparatively small. Russian
 linen rags have almost stopped coming,
 Catania and Trieste, Salonica and Con-
 stantinople have ceased to furnish any rags, though 20 years ago they sent here thous- ands of tons. It must have been observ- , ed by many that the bu-iness of rag-collec- ting has fallen off at home, and thereby we l III ;o%,, features of our country and city roads the tin-peddler's cart, and the Irish hand cart ragman, with his strings of bells. In spite of the size and alacrity of the present production, one of the problems o1 , the paper makers is how to increase the output. Not long ago the staff of paper machinery firm were called to the office o , the senior partner, who reminded then r that years ago he had urged them to try } to get out a machine that would make 300 feet of paper minute; that later he hac } appealed to them for a machine with ca pacity of 500 feet minute, that now
 speed of 512 feet had been achieved, anC maintained day after day and week afte l week; and he ended by saying that ''th' 3 new century mus tfind dpaper-machinesm mak , ing sheets of newspaper successfully 1O0( feet long every minute of the day!"
 Doubtless the home demand will no g keep pace; indeed, it is not expected to; bu
 the export trade is all the time growing
 in volume. Between 1890 and 1895 W,
 had doubled our paper exports, whil'
 Great BrItian and Germany had lessenet
 theirs. Germany is still a great dea ahead of us in quantity of exports; tha n she is not 50 in quality and price constitut . es our hope in the future. Great Britial
 and Japan buy our paper machines, ye
 even were th-y to use American machines P exclusively: it is declared by an expert ii i a recent Paper Trade Journal that |" it ii ! safe to say that the cost per pound for la
 Dor in the paper mills of the United State
 is little, if any more than in the mills O.
 the Old World" Paper-making. at leas r is not among the American industries tha !, cry for protective tariff" It can holt it's own just by virtue of the country's nat ural resources and the energy and inven
 tiveness of it's people.