The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1910-07-23

various woods for the usual materials VIII pc
noted at each stage of manufacture.
Both soda and sulphate processes of treat
ment OF the chips will be used and the lab
oratory will make its own sulphite liquor IN
a vat adjacent to the digestors, in which the
wood is cooked by steam until the hgnin is
all dissolved and only the cellulose left.
blast of highpressure steam drives the chips
against the side of the digestor, further d.
viding the cellulose fbers, and then the whole
mass is pumped out by a centrifugal pump
into tank in which it is stirred until the
fiber is still further broken up Over and
over it is run through 'riffier' troughs and
over screens where suction draws out the
fiber to be used and leaves behind the small
chips, splinters and other waste
When the liquor has been washed out OF
it in a washer driven by an electric motor "a
contrivance much like the housewives wash
ing machine) it is put into press and the
water is squeezed out Of it. Such of the pulp
blocks from the press as are not wanted i'm
mediately are then in convenient form to store
away on shelves.
After going through the beating engines
the refined pulp is run on to the screens of the
paper machine and taken up by felt rollers,
from which it goes to wooden rollers and then
between metal rollers to the steam-heated
drying drums, where the wet sheet is run back
and forth until it is ready for the final smooth
finish of the hot steel calendering rolls. Any
grade of paper can be made on this machine,
from the toughest brown paper to fine cor
respondence paper, in a running sheet Is
inches wide and even matchmaking device
is attached, so that the impression can be
made the wet sheet before it goes through
the rollers and on to the winding drum at the
end.
How to make timber last longer by protect
ing it with preservatives from the various
borers and fungous growths which attack
wood will be another important problem to
which considerable time and laboratory space
are to be given.
Beneath the building is great pit, heated
by steam to a temperature most favorable to
rot, and there, in separate glass compartments
all about the walls, are to be samples of tim
bers with the various fungous growths and
animal and insect enemies of the wood at
tached The progress of their effect upon the
wood will be closely watched and compared
with that of the same pests upon samples of
the wood treated with different preservatives,
prepared and applied in the room above
A big skylight and many windows make
the preservatfve laboratory an excellent place
to work and every facility is provided for test
Ing the various forms of preservatiyes and
antiseptics to protect timbers such as those
in mines and waterfront piers, which are
much subject TO the attack Of minute animals
and plants.
Into two great treatment cylinders the tim
bers are showed and steam pumps force the
oil from tanks above at high pressure into the
cylinders When no more oil will enter the
cylinder, even under $50 pounds pressure toer
square inch, it Is drawn of and again returned
to the tanks and measured The difference
between the amount drawn OF and that origi-
nally forced in. deducting the oil collected