Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1905-08-02


the capitalist manufacturer. Paradoxical
as il may seem, he is teaching the world
how to keep its cake and eat it, too; how
to cut away the forests and keep them at
the same time.
The logs glide, butt to top, into the
mill as fast as they can be sent, and are
but little msn-handled thereafter. Ma
ehinery does the most OF the rest of it, the
men being present merely to guide and
oversee the machines. A cradlel catches
each log when it reaches the required spot
and passes it up to saws which cut il into
eight-foot lengths. The lengths,roll from
this saw to a moving platform, carrier
which sends them side by side at right
angles to another set of smaller saws
which cut them again into blocks foot
and half or thereabouts in length. Here
another carrier seizes them and slides
them along, end to end, to the barker
room. Here the block is gripped by an
endless chain, which rolls it against a
great revolving disk carrying planning
knives. These plane bark and knots from
the block; and while blower whirls the
chips into bin, the block drops into
stream which carries it'll with hum
dreds of others made clean and
white by the same procession score of
similar machines, to the grinder room, or
to the clippers, as the case may..require.
Here is the making of paper the ways
divide. Two ingredients, both made from
the spruce blocks, go I'M varying proper
ton to the making OF various. grades of
paper. The blocks which Igo to tthe
grinder are to be made into i''ground-
wood" those which pass to the clipper
are for "sulphite". The groundwork is
filieri the sulphite gives Ithe long...fibre
which makes the strength .of the paper,
The proportion in good newspaper is
seventy-five per cent. groundwork to
twenty-five per cent. sulphite. The tale
of the groundwork is soon told. In the
grinder room, the blocks drop into a CYL
inder where hydraulic pressure holds
them against coarse grindstone, until,
mixed with stream OF water, they are
reduced to creamy pulp, which flows
away with the stream through unseen
ducts to screen that takes from the mess
all knots, grit from the stone and foreign
substances, leaving the creamy mass in
tank to await further orders.
In the clipper, the blocks receive rather
different treatment. Here the efforts is to
preserve the fibre, and the machines out
put is a mass OF fine chips, which pass by
an automatic carrier in an endless stream
to the top of great tower in which are
the digestors. These are numerous enough
to Withstand the pressure of several at
mospheres, and lined with cement which
is proof against acid. Through a manhole
at the top the cylinders are filed with
chips.
THE FINAL PROCESSES.
Meanwhile, in another part of the
building, strange ingredients are being
prepared for the broth which is to be
cooked in these lofty caldrons. The be-
ginning of the brew rs in the shell ROOM"
where, in long rows of furnaces, sulphur
is burned. Sulphurous.. acid (So2 in the
nomenclature OF theichemists) is the re-
suit OF this burning. Its.acrid fumes are
conducted into milk OF lime, forming the
sulphite of lime, which gives the process
its name. Enough of the resulting
solution is pumped into the digestor to
cover the chips well; it is then sealed up
and steam heat applied at temperature
OF 800 degrees to 312Idegrees. F. and an
internal pressure of three to. three and a
half atmospheres. From time to time the
broth is tested by opening valve in the
digester and letting a sample blow out.
The minimum time for. cooking is rarely
under forty-eight hours. Often it takes
longer.
When the process is complete, the fine
white fibres OF the spruce, like short
staple OF cotton and almost silk-like in
their texture, have beenl separated from
all extraneous matter byi thei. solvent ac-
ton of the chemicals. They are with
drawn from the digester, automatically
washed ard screened, andathe result is
pure sulphite.
The pure sulphite and equally clean
groundwork are then smixed lin the re-
quired proportions in.large tanks,fwhence
they flow towards the great automatic
machine which is to be their finish. The
leFei stream, DoWlHSl Nith' Prrloct az
curacy, passes first over cunningly devised
metallic screens, which thicken the flow,
but do not impede it, by Withdrawing
surplus water from beneath. Next it
passes onto steadily. moving screens of
felt, which send it beween. carefully..regu-
lated rolls that squeeze out more water,
leaving it a soft sheet, still moist but hav-
ing certain coherency.
Slight as this tensile strength lis, it is
enough to hold it together as it leaves the
felt blanket and passes between steel rolls
heated By internal steam, which.still fur
Their compact its fibres by pressure and
drive off moisture by heat. Over and
under these rolls, twenty-eighti of them,
the machine extending fifty or sixty feet
down long room the sheet passes, ever
growing drier, firmer and smoother, till it
is wound upon an axis at the end of the
machine, perfect sheet of news or book
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