Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1905-02-20
FROM TREE TO PAPER.
Spruce Logs Put in One End of Ma
chine Come Out in Rolls of Paper in
Few Hours.

Few Hours.
SO great has New York City become
as a news paper center, that it now con-
sumes enough paper in single do to
stretch in five foot strip from New
York to San Francisco. In one week
this ribbon might be heightened to
grid the world at the equator. in ten
weeks all the New York papers if put
together in this way, would reach to
the moon, and in year, If they We're
cut up into a five inch tape line. they
might connect the earth with the sun.
OF all the paper produced in the
United States New York uses one
eighth for its newspapers. 1t is es-
timated that all the paper mills of
this country turn out about 1000 tons
each day, and of this tho newspaper
presses of It's chief metropolis consume
500 tons Most of this comes from the
Adirondacks, and in being unloadei
from cars of the New York Central
railroad at SiXtieth street and the
Hudson river, is loaded on barges and
then floated down stream to the freight
piers at Barclay street. Here 1T Is
rolled onto trucks and hauled to the
newspaper offices.
Were it not for the tremendous ca
pacity of the modern papermaklng ma
chine, the newspaper of today would
have been unable to attain it's present
size Some of the largest mills run
at a speed of 500 feet of paper min
ute, or about as fast as horse trav-
cling six miles an hour. The width of
newspaper varies from GO to 100 in
ches. One roll of paper from the mill
of the International Paper Company,
which was exhibited at Buffalo, and
which was said to be the largest ever
made, measured 1872 inches in length,
weighed two tons, and, if unrolled,
would have reached from Grace church
to Grants tomb, distance of some six
miles. One of the largest paper ma
chimes in the world, which is in OPP
GRAFTON in Rumford Falls, Me-, turns
out eighty miles of paper in twenty
four hours weighing nearly half a ton
to the mile.
So far have mechanical devices
usurped the work Of human hands in
the manufacture of paper that at the
present time machine will feed itself
with logs at one end and turn out the
finished roll of paper at the other end.
So gigantic is such a machine that 1t
takes only from eight to twelve hours
to transform, the raw material into the
finished product. 1t first saws up the
logs of spruce, which have been floated
down the stream to the mill, takes or
their bark and then grlnds them lhto
pulp under flow of water. The pres
sure of the grindstone on the WOOD is
sometimes as great as 5O0 morse power
or ne-fourth that of the most power
full locomotive built.
The manner in which the machine
later weaves the paper out OF what
seems to be a stream Of running water
at first mystifies the onlooker. Before
reaching this stage of the process the
pulp has been boiled lin q solution OF
suphuric acid, which has destroyed the
woody fibre and it has also been mix
ed with clay to give a smoothef sur
face, rosn to size it and prevent the
ink when printed on 1t from spreading,
and bluing to whiten it. l'he pulp,
mixed with three times it's amount OF
water, flows along till it reaches an
endless ribbon of wire, which is ut
tie wider than the intended width or
the paper The spread of the PUPPY
water sideways is prevented by two
endless rubber straps, one at each edge
of the wire.
1t is while the stock" as the pulpy
mass is called, is being drained on the
rapidly moving wire ribbon that to it
is given the watermark, which one may
see by holding up "a piece of paper to
the light. Resting on the wet mass
and revolving as it passes along under
it is the dandy roller" light cylinder
covered with wire. Whatever design
it may have on it's surface it imparts
10 the wet mass on which 1t rolls. 9th
er rollers now press out more water,
so that soon the paper can carry ltself
and on huge cylinders heated by steam
inside 1t is dried. 1t then passes thru
a stack Of chilled iron rollers, piled up