Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-03-31

vania railroad from Washington to New
york and pave the New York Central from
enc latter city to far beyond Albany. One
years output of that mill. estimat ting three
hundred working days to the year would
carpet track, six feet wide, four times
around the world and across our continent
and back again.
From Tree to Newspaper.
1t is several centuries since Shakespeare
found
snongnes In trees, books in the running brooks.
sermons IN stones aud good in everything
1t remained. however, for our age 20
make these tree-tongues speak, and preach
their sermons to all the world. 7 felt mar
as went through the big pulp mill watch
ing the machines yank newspapers out OF
saw logs. The spruce timber is cut in the
forests during the winter and fioated down
the rivers to Lake Superior and thence
brought to the Sault
The logs are of various dtameters. Those
worked during my stay were foot or q
loot and a half thick. The bark was
taken off by planning machines and they
were carried on endless belts to the mill.
All the machinery moved BY water
and the books really fioated In the running
brooks on their way to their readers
The mills in which these logs are ground
are about eight feet in diameter and not.
more than eight feet high. Each has a.
great grindstone In It, against which tho
logs are pressed by machinery in such a
way that they are gradually pulverzed as
the stones move around at the rate of 200
revolutions per minute AS the wood gTinds
off the dust falls down into the water In
side the MILL and when 1t comes out 1t
looks like chewed paper. 1t is now wood
pulp. and has only to be purified and dried
into sort Of q cardboard before II Ia
ready for the market. l opened one OF
the mills and took up a handful OF the
pulp. then grinding. 1t was clean, but hot;
and | asked the engineer whether hot water
was needed for making it. He replied that
the water went into the mill Ice cold, but
that the friction of grinding was so great
that il soon boiled and steamed.
After the pulp comes from the mill It IS
forced through wire strainers and then car
ried over wide belts OF the finest wooden
felt 1t is so, thrown upon these belts that
1t coats them. The particles stick to-
gether. forming a kind of card board,
which dries as it goes on 10 the various
machines. and finally comes out In great
rolls ready for shipment over the world.
TO be made into the newspapers which we
have served up to US every Sunday morn
ing at our breakfast tables.
Chemical Pulp.
The best wood pulp, however, is made by
a chemical process. In this manufacture
there is no grinding whatever. The logs
are cut into chips and put into an enor-
nous steel tank which is filed with sui
phurous acid and steam. This works or
the wood as the stomach works on food,
and finally digests It into pulp. The diff
ference between chemical pulp and mechan-
ical pulp is about the same as the differ,
ence between short staple cotton and
long staple Sea Island cotton. The chem
ical pulp has longer fiber and It makes a
stronger paper. The tank used for max
ing chemical pulp at Sault Ste. Marie Is
almost 100 feet high, and the most COM
plete of its kind IN existence.
A large part Of the wood pulp of Canada
is shipped in roll to different parts OF the
United States, and there manufactured into
newspapers. Some of our newspapers have
their own paper mills for this purpose. IN
deed several of our Sunday papers each
consume as much as q hundred tons OF
paper for a single issue, an amount which
eats up something like hundred cords OF
wood and clears off about six acres of we'll
grown spruce land. AS you read this
paper, you may hence know that this days
issue alone has consumed cords upon cords
of wood and necessitNted the Telling or
several acres of substantial trees.
o FRANK G. CARPENTER.