The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-24

ice this amount used every issue. Sermons in stones, and good in every l thing.
 That was several centuries ago, but mills like this are now making the tree tongues speak and preach their 1 sermons to all the world. Moreover 1 through the waterpowers which move
 the mills we are finding books in 1 the running brooks" and are yank-
 ing newspapers out of the sawlogs which that power grinds.
 | The logs used for making paper are | of various diameters. It takes about a | cord of wood to make ton of pulp, and a roll which weighs that spread out ] like carpet would cover any city pave- l ment for the length of three and half miles. The logs ground during my stay were about foot thick The first process
 was taking off the bark. This was done by blaming machines, and the wood thus stripped was carried endless belts to the factory and dropped into round, box like mills of steel about eight feet in diameter and eight feet in height h. side each mill was a grindstone against which the logs were pressed by machin- cry in such a way that they were grad ually pulverized as the stones moved
 around at the rate of 2000 revolutions a minute. The machinery is such that the wood rests obliquely against the stone, and it is ground across the grain. AS
 the wood particles fall into the water they are turned to pulp and when they come out they look much like chewed paper. This is screened in wire strainers to remove the Jumps, and then dropped upon wide belts of the finest of wooden felt. The particles fall upon the belt
 in such a way that they coat it and
 become felted, forming a cardboard or paper, which passes through other ma
 chimes and finally comes out in the great rolls of newsprint ready for shipment
 to the publishing houses all over the country.
 Leaving this great mill, in which ground pulp is made, I went to high tower of steel, where wood pulp is man. ufactured by chemical processes In this there is no grinding whatever. The logs are cut into chips and dropped into enor- nous steel tanks filled with steam and sulphurous acid. The acid works upon wood. It digests it into pulp produc- ing pure cellulose forming an excellent paper. The tank I saw making chemical pulp was as tall as an eight-story flat and it contained a large amount of wood The process is known as the sulphite process It is used for tough board and wrapping paper, a large amount of which is so manufactured in Sweden.
 During my stay at the wood pulp mills tried to get some idea of the extent of the forests being consumed by our Sunday newspapers. I was told that a single large issue ate up as much as 100 tons of paper, and necessitated the clear ing of six acres of good sized trees From this it will be seen that the de- mand for newsprnt is rapidly eating up our forests of certain trees, and the ques- ton arises as to the supply for the fu- ture. According to the forestry depart ment, we have vast amount of pulp wood on the government reservations, and this is especially so in the western states and Alaska. The government has laboratory for testing such woods at Madison, Wis. and it is making fine paper of many varieties of wood that have not been used before. The scientists say that almost any tree can be used for newsprint, and that vast deal of wood pulp can be created from those parts of the tree now wasted in the manufacture of lumber. MT. Henry Graves, the chief forester of the United States, says that one-fourth of the average tree is left il the woods in getting out timber, an that Tn turning sawlog into lumbe. about one-half of it's contents go to waste. This waste is going on all over the United States and it equals the con- sumption of something like 60000,000 cords of pulp wood per annum. This means a waste of that many tons of wodd pulp. We are now consuming something like 1,SO0,000 tons of wood pulp per year, so that the waste in lumber alone is equal to almost 50 times the amount we are uslng.
 MT. Graves estimates that we have left sn the national forests 4,000, 000,000 feet of hemloelS, 105,oOe 00O.00O feet of western yellow pine, 42,0Q0 00o,000 feet of lodge pole pine and 20,000, ,0o0,0o0 feet of Stka spruce all of which will make pulp He says that some of the best pulp making sites of the future will be in Alaska, and that we shall soon be consuming Alaska pulp wood in the shape of newspapers at our breakfast tables. Much of this product Twill come from southeastern Alaska
 where waterpower is plentiful and the trees are close to the sea.
 There promises to be great increase in the use of wood pulp after the war closes not only for newspapers and books.
 but also for the many new products that are being produced from it. The Germans are using wood cellulose to make explo-
 sives, and they are trying to make it take the place of cotton in clothing of one kinA or another. They make a yarn of paper which they weave into cloth. and they have paper yarns which are waterproof and are used for waterproof clothing They combine the wood yarn with cotton and jute and weave; vests which are windproof and moisture proof l Such vests are made for afrnen. We are using great deal of wood pulp ir our hospitals. It is employed for sponges pads and bandages of one kind or an
 other. The Red Cross has sterilized lwood-pulp paper for dressing.
 | Wood pulp is largely taking the place ] of leather It is used to make car wheels
 water mains and even telegraph poles
 The pulp poles are hollow, and mucl