The New York herald., 1922-12-24
Continued from Page Two.


into the manufacture of synthetic oil
Of wintergreen (methyl salicylate)
and has been used in prefumery and
confectionery In the production of
methyl cinnamate. and in medicine
in the form of methyl gallate. Crude
methanol also has been used In rem
dering grain alcohol unfit for drink
ing purposes" In other words, 1t Is a
denaturdnt and this fact has led to
the widespread publicity and evil
reputation of wood alcohol.
A year or two ago, when methanol
began finding its way into bootleg
whisky and incidentally into the
"innards'' of few Of our citizens, a
hue and cry was raised against It's
manufacture. Luckily, in view of its
tremendous Importance, this propa-
ganda has not persisted. 1t is quite
true that methanol is not potable.
1t cannot be taken internally without
furnishing a kick that may well result
in eliminating the eXperimenter 1t
may cause blindness; it may cause
death. But so will many products of
other industries which are a positive
boon to humanity. The manufacture
of methanol is entirely legitimate. Its
use In cocktails is to be condemned.
Paper Production RevoIutionized
by Utilization of Wood Pulp
At just what time the first hand
sheet of paper was produced will prob
ably remain mystery. although the
art must be credited to the Chinese,
and presumably to a gentleman named
1saiLun. who lived about 100 A. ID.
This artist succeeded in using a
variety Of raw materials (such as
bark. tow. old linen and fish nets) In
the manufacture of his product. Like
many other arts. papermaking filtered
into Western civilization by way of
the Arabs. who had previously cap
tured their knowledge of the subject
from a group of Chinese captives who
fell into their hands early in the
eighth century. The Arabs used cot
ton and linen almost exclusively as
their raw material, and so, until late
in the nineteenth century cotton and
linen remained the substances, par
ercellence. from which paper was
made.
Soon after the civil war an Ameri-
can, Benjamin Tilghman. observing the
action of solutions of sulphurous acid
and it's acid lime salt on a group of
soft woods, discovered that a type
Of excellent paper pulp could be
obtained. 1t was thus that the "sul-
phite" pulp industry came into being
which so rapidly exploited our mag
nificent evergreen forests. What u
vast field for the chemical utilization
of wood was opened up by these Two
discoveries is so obvious that 1t should
require little comment. and yet in 1874
the Grape hangers of the paper indus
try gave vent to the following bit of
optimism: Great endeavors have
been made to introduce wood pulp as
fiber, but practical paper makers
deem it a tdilurci" CThe italics are
our own) Let us hope that these
pessimists were still alive In the lean
year Of 1921, when American pulp
mills were at low ebb and this coun-
try produced over a quarter million
tons os soda" pulp, and well over a
million tons Of "sulphite" pulp. Be-
sides this we imported vast amounts
Of chemical pulp from Europe.
In 1883 new and highly impor-
tant, but very odoriferous chemical
process for wood pulp manufacture
was discovered in Germany. This be-
came known as the sulphate process,
and is In fact a blood relative of the
soda process. The discovery of sui
phate pulp has been instrumental in
saving the waste wood in millions of
stumps left behind by the numbering
operations in our Southern pine for
ests and in converting this wood into
an excellent grade OF wrapping paper.
To-day, roughly 80 per cent. of the
pulp used in paper manufacture Is de-
rived from wood. and the pulping
operations include the mechanical and
three chemical processes.
But the chemist has not said the
last word about pulping wood. He Is
eternally at it--quietly studying the
chemical and physical properties of
his raw materials. and gathering all
available experimental data on the
processes now in use. New chemical
processes may we'll take their places
with the old. Not long ago an italian
scientist published the results of large
scale experiments involving the action
Of the poison gas chlorine on poplar
and hemp-and reported the industrial
production of another high grade of
chemical pulp.
We cannot leave the question OF
pulp production without calling atten-
ton to several interesting facts con-
nected with the "sulphite pulp" indus
try. Some 1900. 900 cords of our most