Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-09-18

vessels, with quantities or lime, water IS
run in, and the mass allowed to remain,
sometimes many weeks, until decomposed.
The material is then washed, pounded in
mortars until sufficiently pulped and after
further manipulation the pulp is run into
square, sievelike molds of bamboo. When
the surface water has drained off the sheets
are dried in the sun. The entire operation
sometimes covers period of six months, and
the paper, naturally, is of low grade. This
is practically the method of all Eastern
countries where paper is still handmade,
whether from bamboo, soft bast from trees,
or other material.
Japan's Up to Date Methods
CONTRAST with this the up to date
methods of new Japanese company at
Formosa, which proposes to turn out three
hundred to six hundred tons of bamboo
paper month. The stages of manufacture
are: % The preparation of the bamboo by
chopping into two-inch pieces; (2) cooking
in an improved digester with sulphite of
calcium; 60 washing with water; az
bleaching with electricity and washing again
90 drawing through a machine to press into
the form of web; co. steam drying; (7)
rolled by winding machine or cut into
sheets. Perhaps the Orient will eventually
supply the world with the pulp from which
to make its paper; for the Formosa bamboo
forests alone are almost inexhaustible.
One of the most delicate and beautiful
papers in the world is Formosa rice paper
so called; for the plant is in no sense
a rice. 1t is produced from the snowy white
pith of a small tree, the larger part of the
stems of which are filled with a compact
mass of cellular tissue. After partly crush
ing the stalks the unbroken cellular mass is
pushed out. A section of pith is firmly held
upon large tile, or piece of smooth hard
wood, and with sharp knife, aided by a
rolling movement, the operator skilfully
cuts round the circumference of the piece,
deity rolling it as he goes on, until the CEN
ter is reached, thus pairing off large thin
sheet. The sheets as produced are put under
heavy pressure to fatten and dry them.
The finished product, which is glistening
white and of feathery lightness, is used for
making artificial flowers, and by Canton
artists for painting exquisite pictures of
birds and flowers.
Many tropical trees supply natural pa
per which is used for cigarette wrappers.
An example is the monkey pot of Brazil,
from piece of bark of which hundred lay
ers of bast can be separated by beating
yielding sheets of tissue paper thinness and
of satiny texture. The famed tapa cloth of
TdClllC lSldlluS, DedLe1 lIO1n Inc DARK OF paper
mulberry, is practically a coarse paper.
Similar paper cloth is made in the same way
in Africa and South America.
Among unusual materials from which pa
per has been made may be named cornhusks,
sawdust, stems of the castor oil plant, sum
flower stalks, banana stalks, lint remaining
on cotton seed after ginning and refuse
stems from stripping leaf tobacco.
Five Different Glasses
FIVE classes of paper fibers are recognized
by the fiber expert:
% Spinning fibers, such as cotton, flax,
hemp, jute, ramie, manila hemp, etc. all of
which hre too valuable to use direct, but
find their way into paper stock in the form
of rags, waste, old rope, etc. Jute butts and
reflections, from their cheapness, are, how
ever, used direct for paper stock.
(2) Soft basis, as the paper mulberry, the
mitsumata, the Streblus, and other small
trees having thick fibrous bark, highly priced
in Japan and the East for paper stock. The
mitsuma has lately been introduced here for
trial.
(3) Palms, the only American example
of which is the palmetto. The saw palmetto
covers thousands of acres in the South At
lantic States, and from it has been produced
experimentally paper of bond quality.
A. IL .,o1..I H.