A METHOD "OF MAKING PAPER OF VARIOUS DESCRIPTIONS FROM THE BULLEN OR LIGNEOUS PARTS "PRODUCED FROM CERTAIN TEXTILE PLANTS IN THE PROCESSES OF PREPARING THE "SAME TEXTILE PLANTS BY THE RURAL MECHANICAL BRAKE
Year: 1827

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, AUGUSTUS
Count DE LA GARDE, of St. James Square, Pall Mall, in the County of
Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth,
by His Letters Patent under the.Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Twentieth day of February, One thousand eight hundred
and twenty-seven, in the eighth year of His reign, did, for Himself, His heirs
and successors, give and grant unto me, the said Augustus Count De la Garde,
His especial licence that I, the said Augustus Count De la Garde, my exors,
admiors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Augustus Count De la Garde,
my exors, adiiors, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others,
from time to time and at all times during the term of years therein expressed,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England,
Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, the Invention of "A METHOD
"OF MAKING PAPER OF VARIOUS DESCRIPTIONS FROM THE BULLEN OR LIGNEOUS PARTS
"PRODUCED FROM CERTAIN TEXTILE PLANTS IN THE PROCESSES OF PREPARING THE
"SAME TEXTILE PLANTS BY THE RURAL MECHANICAL BRAKE," for the exclusive use
of which I have already applied for a Patent, and which substances are to be
employed alone or mixed with other suitable materials in the manufacture of
paper (communicated by a certain Foreigner residing abroad);" in which said
Letters Patent is contained a proviso obliging me, the said Augustus Count
De la Garde, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, particularly
to describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, and to cause the same to be inrolled in His

page_text: Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in
and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large
appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Augustus Count De la Garde, do hereby declare that the nature of the said
Invention, and the manner in which the same is to, be performed, are particu-
larly described and ascertained in the manner following, that is to say.
The new method of making paper of various descriptions is to employ (as a
principal material for making such paper) the ligneous parts of the stalks of
hemp or flax, nettles, hops, or such other textile plants as will yield fibres
or filaments proper for spinning into coards or threads when such stalks are
prepared (without previous rotting), by means of a machine called the Rural
Mechanical Brake, for the exclusive use of which I have already obtained His
said Majesty's Royal Letters Patent, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-
fourth day of November, One thousand eight hundred and twenty-five, and
the said machine, together with the manner of preparing hemp or flax and
other textile plants by the same, is fully described in my Specification, executed
in pursuance of that Patent, and bearing date on or about the Twentieth day
of May, One thousand eight hundred and twenty-six, and which was inrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery on or about the Twentieth day of
May, One thousand eight hundred and twenty-six.
The ligneous part of the aforesaid textile plants, which I call bullen, is the
same substance that is called boom or core of the stalks of hemp or flax,
when such stalks have been rotted by the operation of steeping or dim rotting
previous to undergoing the ordinary process of dressing hemp or flax, in order
that by such dressing the boon or core may be broken into small fragments
and be separated from the fibrous filaments which are proper for spinning.
But when the stalks of hemp or flax or other textile plants are prepared by
means of the aforesaid rural mechanical brake without previous rotting, the
ligneous parts which are separated from the filamentous parts by the operation
thereof I call bullen, which is a substance capable of being made into paper
by the present Invention. According to the following process or treatment of
such bullen to make white paper fit for writing or printing from the bullen
or ligneous parts separated as aforesaid by the rural mechanical brake from
the stalks of hemp or flax which have not been previously rotted, such bullen
must be first macerated by soaking it for at least twenty-four hours in water
which is continually changed and renewed. The bullen may be known to
be sufficiently macerated when the pieces are become soft and flexible so. as

page_text: to. bend easily without breaking when pressed between the fingers; the water
is then drained off, and the macerated bullen thus softened is put into a
wooden or stone mortar, and mashed by repeated blows of a wooden, pestal
until it is broken and reduced into small narrow fragments or grains, like a
very coarse paste, from which the water is strained completely, and it is then
placed in heaps to undergo fermentation. To facilitate the fermentation the
bullen is to be lightly sprinkled with warm water which has been boiled
with one twentieth of its weigh with bran during a quarter of an hour. This
water is strained from the bran, and when its temperature is about one hundred
degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer, it is sprinkled over the heaps of bullen
in sufficient quantity to wet the whole mass slightly, and the sprinkling with
the same water is repeated from time to time so as to keep the bullen in a
moist state until the fermentation takes place and is so far, advanced that
the centre of the heap will acquire a temperature: of at least one hundred
degrees. The fermentation must be continued entirely through the stage of
acid fermentation, and until the putrifactive fermentation commences. The
fermentation must then be stopped by opening the heaps, and washing, the
bullen with cold water till all the heterogenous parts are carried away, and
the water runs away clean and without any acid or putrifactive taste or smell.
The bullen thus fermented and washed is to be soaked for twenty-four hours
in a tub of lime water and then removed in another tub and washed with a
solution of caustic soda; this gives the bullen a slight tinge of a yellow color.
The bullen is then to be worked in a cylinder engine to cut it into a coarse
pulp by a similar process to that by which rags are converted into half stuff
in preparation for making paper. This coarse pulp being freed from all the
water that can be expressed from it by a press, such as is employed in paper
manufactories, is then to be bleached in a large tub, of which it should only
occupy one third part of the capacity. The tub must have a cover made in
three segments to fit as closely as possible; the middle part of the cover
extending across the center from one side to the other, and. this part, which
is fixed fast, has a stuffing-box through the centre to admit the upright axis of
an agitator to stir up the pulp. The two side segments of the cover can be
lifted up in order to put the pulp into the tub or to take it out when bleached.
The upright axis must be turned slowly and continually round during the
bleaching process, and it has several arms projecting horizontally from the
lower part of it which occupy the whole space within the tub when they
circulate round within it, and they turn over and stir up the pulp which is
contained at the bottom part of the tub. When the pulp is put into this tub.
and the cover shut close, the space above. the pulp is filled to within two or

page_text: three inches of the cover with bleaching liquor, or water impregnated with
oxymuriate of lime, the said liquor being poured through a leaden funnel in
the cover. The agitator is kept in continual motion to stir up the pulp, and
subject every portion equally to the action of the bleaching liquor during twelve
hours, or from that to twenty-four hours, until the pulp has become sufficiently
white. Its color must be examined from time to time, and if the bleaching
is not sufficiently performed by one bleaching liquor, the liquor must be drawn
off into another bleaching vessel placed on a lower level and containing fresh
pulp which requires bleaching, and which will be partially whitened by that spent
liquor after it has lost so much of its strength that it will no longer act upon
the pulp that is more whitened. Another bleaching liquor of the same kind
as the first is then to be poured into the first tub to complete the bleaching of
the pulp contained therein, and when it is become quite white, all the bleaching
liquor must be carefully drained and compressed from it and transferred to the
lower tub which contains the unbleached pulp. All the remaining liquor
must be very completely washed away from the pulp by washing it with a
great quantity of water until all trace of the oxymuriate acid is removed. If
the highest degree of whiteness is required, the tub containing the pulp may
be filled with a weak solution of sulphuric acid in water in the proportion of
one hundredth to two hundredth part of acid by weight; the solution should
be heated to a temperature of one hundred and eighty degrees of Fahrenheit's
thermometer before it is poured on the pulp, which must be kept agitated
during three hours at least, and then the solution must be removed and all
the acid washed away from the pulp by a great quantity of clean water until
none remains, as may be known by the pulp not giving a red tinge to the tinc-
ture of turnsol. The pulp thus bleached is put into the engine and ground to a
sufficiently fine pulp to be made into paper by the usual process of making
paper from rags. The paper made by the above process will have a semi-
transparency when dried, but this tendency may be prevented by mixing the
pulp with one fifth of its weigh of white linen rags previously ground in a
cylinder engine, and reduced to the state of half stuff according to the usual
process of making paper, and such rags may be bleached when in the state of
half stuff if necessary; this half stuff is to be added to the pulp when it is put
into the engine, whereby the mixture will be made very complete, and a
uniform pulp will be produced fit for making paper. Or, instead of rags, the
pulp may be mixed with one fifth part of its weight of the substance called
in France Thianean chalk or Montereau chalk, reduced to an impalpable
powder and mixed, with the pulp of bullen by the operation of the cylinder
engine until the mixture is reduced to the state of pulp fit for making paper

page_text: in the ordinary manner. For making brown paper from such bullen the
process is the same as above directed, except that the bleaching operation is
omitted, and the paper will have the natural colour of the bullen; or if other
coloured paper is required, suitable colouring matter is added to the pulp
when it is worked in the engine. The above process is that which is followed
in France in conformity to the usual practise of making paper from rags in
that country; but the details of the process may be greatly varied to suit the
machinery and vessels used in English paper manufactories without departing
from the essential particulars of the Invention, which consists in treating the
refuse bullen separated by the rural mechanical brake from the stalks of textile
plants as a material for making paper either by itself or mixed with a small
proportion of rags or chalk or other suitable matter.
In witness whereof, I, the said Augustus Count De la Garde, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Twentieth day of August, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven.