The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-12-12
Book Leaves
 Made Of Steel
Edison Predicts Use of Metal
 Sheets in Place of Paper

0PNA
 At the present rate Of depletion of our forests the time is not far away when the pulp supply for the manu- facture of paper will have reached its end, says the New York Tribune. Leading lumber men say that the vis- ible supply of standing timber in the United States and Canada will last only from thirty to fifty. years more, and unless .reforestation is carried out on a large scale publishers will then have to look to some other ma tertal to serve as substitute for paper for books and periodicals.
 But take, heart; the danger is not so imminent as it appears. If pro- phecy made by Thomas A. Edison to me the other day comes true the books of the future will not be printed on park confidently expects that the books of the coming ages will be print ed on pages of nickel or steel
 A prophecy by Mr. Edison is not a wild dream. The famous inventor generally knows what he is talking about before he makes a prediction. The assertions made by him are pre- ceded by experiments which he quiet ly conducts in his laboratory. He works secretly for weeks, months and sometimes years. on problems before he takes; the pub bile into his conf dence, and when he has made dis cOvery he derives real pleasure from letting the world know about it. Il came to this conclusion the other day, as I sat in his laboratory study dis cussing with him the European trip from which he had just returned and his plans for the future.
 Among the questions I asked him was this:
 Gan we everS expect a good Substi- tute for paper in the printing of books and periodfcals?'
 Why. yes; steel, copper Or nickel will dO.''
 And MT. Edison said this in as com mon place a way one man would tell another that trip from Manhat- tan to New Jersey could be made through the Hudson tunnels as well as in ferryboat.
 Steel, copper Or nickel can take the place of paper then. And that means that the material for the books that will line the shelves of libraries of fu-1 +ture generations will be taken out of the bowels of the earth instead of from the forests which adorn it's sur face.
 Continuing to discuss this subject, the inventor of the phOnograph said: By an electro-chemical process I can make sheets of steel, copper or nickel that will absorb printers ink. Of the three metals I consider nickel to be the best substitute for paper. It is possible to produce sheets of this me- tai one twenty-thousandth of an inch in thickness and make it cheaper, tougher and more flexible than ordin- ary book paper."
 As he said this MT. Edison strolled over to one of the shelves and return ed with a book with a thickness of about two inches. He held the volume out to me, saying: ssIf the leaves of this book were made of nickel, it would contain 10000. and it would only weigh about 8 pound"
 I marveled at his assertion, because it dawned upon me what this would mean to the publishing business of the world, which now can, by using fine India paper, crowd barely 1,5O0 pages into the thickness of an inch, while ordinary book paper runs $50 pages to the inch. For some time MT. Edison has been making these thin nickel sheets for another purpose, and meanwhile he has experimented with their use for printing purposes.
 '"The nickel sheets,' he continued, twill absorb ink the same as paper. The ink would possibly have to be of somewhat different ingredients than that in use at present, although the latter makes perfectly good impress sion on nickel. but that would be only minor problem which the ink manufacturers could easily solve. The nickel sheets can absorb any color, and it would bring out the same shades as half tones do on fine cal endered paper. So whatever is print ed on paper, be it type, illustrations or color work. can be printed on nickel"
 .How long does it take to make this paper substitute and what would be its cost of manufacturer" I asked.
 He replied: "It takes one minute and a half to make a sheet of five square feet of this product, and with the limited facilities we have here, we can turn out one-fourth of a ton a day. In order to produce this nick el on a large commercial scale it would be necessary to build machines that would manufacture the nickel in rolls, like large paper rolls made in the mills, instead of sheets of limited size.
 ''The cost of manufacture on a small | scale is $1.75 a pound, but I believe that this could be reduced to $1 a | pound were the nickel sheets to be manufactured in rolls in large quan- tities."
 Then MT. Edison described the pro- cess of making nickel sheets and how they are made so thin. The op- eration is performed by electrolysis, 1 and the process is accurate to a high degree. The electrical current de- poslts on a prepared base one twenty thousandth of an inch of nickel in a minute and a half. No more, no less, because there is an absolute law that governs this.
 Books of nickel leaves could have1 covers of the same materials or of