_MATERIALS USED IN PAPER-MAKING._
Raw Materials.--Rags.--Disinfecting Machine.--Straw.--Esparto
Grass.--Wood.--Bamboo.--Paper Mulberry.
In former days the only materials employed for the manufacture of
paper were linen and cotton rags, flax and hemp waste, and some
few other fibre-yielding materials. The reduction of the excise
duty, however, from 3d. to 1½d. per lb., which took effect in the
first year of Her Majesty's reign--namely, in 1837--created a
greatly increased demand for paper, and caused much anxiety amongst
manufacturers lest the supply of rags should prove inadequate
to their requirements. Again, in the year 1861 the excise duty
was totally abolished, from which period an enormously increased
demand for paper, and consequently paper material, was created
by the establishment of a vast number of daily and weekly papers
and journals in all parts of the kingdom, besides reprints of
standard and other works in a cheap form, the copyright of which
had expired. It is not too much to say, that unless other materials
than those employed before the repeal of the paper duty had been
discovered, the abolition of the impost would have proved but of
little service to the public at large. Beneficent Nature, however,
has gradually, but surely and amply, supplied our needs through the
instrumentality of man's restless activity and perseverance.
The following list comprises many of the substances from which
cellulose, or vegetable fibre, can be separated for the purposes of
paper-making with advantage; but the vegetable kingdom furnishes
in addition a vast number of plants and vegetables which may also
be used with the same object. We have seen voluminous lists of
fibre-yielding materials which have been suggested as suitable
for paper-making, but since the greater portion of them are never
likely to be applied to such a purpose, we consider the time wasted
in proposing them. It is true that the stalks of the cabbage tribe,
for example, would be available for the sake of their fibre, but
we should imagine that no grower of ordinary intelligence would
deprive his ground of the nourishment such waste is capable of
_returning to the soil_, by its employment as manure, to furnish
a material for paper-making. Again, we have seen blackberries,
and even the pollen (!) of plants included in a list of paper
materials, but fortunately the manufacturer is never likely to be
reduced to such extremities as to be compelled to use materials of
this nature.
Raw Materials.
Cotton rags.
Cotton wool.
Cotton waste.
Cotton-seed waste.
Linen rags.
Linen waste.
Hemp waste.
Manilla hemp.
Flax waste, etc.
Jute waste, etc.
China grass.
Bamboo cane.
Rattan cane.
Banana fibre.
Straw of wheat, etc.
Rushes of various kinds.
New Zealand flax.
Maize stems, husks, etc.
Esparto grass.
Reeds.
Woods of various kinds, especially white non-resinous woods, as
poplar, willow, etc.
Wood shavings, sawdust, and chips.
Barks of various trees, especially of the paper mulberry.
Peat.
Twigs of common broom and heather.
Mustard stems after threshing.
Buckwheat straw.
Tobacco stalks.
Beetroot refuse from sugar works.
Megass, or "cane trash"--refuse of the sugar cane after the juice
has been extracted.
Fern leaves.
Tan waste.
Dyers' wood waste.
Old bagging.
Old bast matting.
Hop-bines.
Bean stalks.
Old canvas.
Old rope.
Gunny bags.
Waste paper.
Binders' clippings, etc.
Old netting.
Sailcloth.
Sea grass (_Zostera marina_).
Fibrous waste resulting from pharmaceutical preparations.
Potato stalks.
Stable manure.
Silk cocoon waste.
Oakum.
Flax tow.
Rag bagging.
Leather waste.
Tarpaulin. Etc., etc.
=Rags.=--Linen and cotton rags are imported into Great Britain
from almost all the countries of Europe, and even from the distant
states of South America, British South Africa, and Australasia. The
greater proportion, however, come from Germany. The rags collected
in England chiefly pass through the hands of wholesale merchants
established in London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Bristol, and
these are sorted to a certain extent before they are sent to the
paper-mills. By this rough sorting, which does not include either
cleansing or disinfecting, certain kinds of rags which would be
useless to the paper-maker are separated and sold as manure.
Woollen rags are not usually mixed with cotton rags, but are
generally kept apart to be converted into "shoddy." The importance
of disinfecting rags before they pass through the hands of the
workpeople employed at the paper-mills cannot be over-estimated,
and it is the duty of every Government to see that this is
effectually carried out, not only at such times when cholera and
other epidemics are known to be rife in certain countries from
which rags may be imported, but at all times, since there is no
greater source of danger to the health of communities than in the
diffusion of old linen and cotton garments, or pieces, which are
largely contributed by the dwellers in the slums of crowded cities.
Respecting the disinfecting of rags, Davis[11] thus explains the
precautions taken in the United States to guard against the dangers
of infection from rags coming from foreign or other sources.
"When cholera, or other infectious or contagious diseases exist
in foreign countries, or in portions of the United States, the
health officers in charge of the various quarantines in this
country require that rags from countries and districts in which
such diseases are prevalent shall be thoroughly disinfected before
they are allowed to pass their stations. Rags shipped to London,
Hull, Liverpool, Italian, or other ports, and re-shipped from such
ports to the United States, are usually subjected to the same rule
as if shipped direct from the ports of the country in which such
diseases prevail. It is usually requisite that the disinfection
shall be made at the storehouse in the port of shipment, by boiling
the rags several hours under a proper degree of pressure, or in a
tightly-closed vessel, or disinfected with sulphurous acid, which
is evolved by burning at least two pounds of roll sulphur to every
ten cubic feet of room space, the apartment being kept closed
for several hours after the rags are thus treated. Disinfection
by boiling the rags is usually considered to be the best method.
In the case of rags imported from India, Egypt, Spain, and other
foreign countries where cholera is liable to become epidemic, it
is especially desirable that some efficient, rapid, and thorough
process of disinfecting should be devised. In order to meet the
quarantine requirements, it must be thorough and certain in its
action, and in order that the lives of the workmen and of others
in the vicinity may not be endangered by the liberating of active
disease-germs, or exposure of decaying and deleterious matters, and
that the delay, trouble, and exposure of unbaling and rebaling may
be avoided, it must be capable of use upon the rags while in the
bale, and of doing its work rapidly when so used."
=Disinfecting Machine.=--To facilitate the disinfecting of rags
while in the bale, Messrs. Parker and Blackman devised a machine,
for which they obtained a patent in 1884, from which the following
abstract is taken.
Formerly rags and other fibrous materials were disinfected by being
subjected to germ-destroying gases or liquids in enclosed chambers,
but in order to render the disinfecting process effectual, it was
found necessary to treat the material in a loose or separated
state, no successful method having been adopted for disinfecting
the materials while in the bale. "This unbaling and loosening or
spreading of the undisinfected material is absolutely unsafe and
dangerous to the workmen, or to those in the vicinity, because of
the consequent setting free of the disease germs, and the exposing
of any decaying or deleterious matters which may be held in the
material while it is compressed in the bale. The unbaling and
necessary rebaling of the material for transportation also involves
much trouble and expense and loss of time. Large and cumbrous
apparatus is also necessary to treat large quantities of material
loosened or opened out as heretofore."
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
It is specially necessary that rags coming from Egypt and other
foreign countries should be thoroughly disinfected by some rapid
and effectual means, which, while not endangering the health of
workmen employed in this somewhat hazardous task, will fully meet
all quarantine requirements. The apparatus devised by Messrs.
Parker and Blackman,[12] an abridged description of which is given
below, will probably accomplish this much-desired object.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
In the illustration, Fig. 1, A is the disinfecting chamber. At one
end is an opening A^1, and a door B, hinged at its lower edge and
adapted to be swung up, so as to close the opening tightly. For
supporting and carrying the bale C of material to be placed in the
chamber is a carriage C^1, consisting of a platform supported upon
wheels or castors _c c_. While the carriage is wholly within
the chamber A, as shown in Fig. 2, these wheels rest upon the
false bottom B^2; when the carriage is rolled back and out of the
chamber, as shown in Fig. 1, they roll upon the upper face of door
B swung down. The carriage is provided with a clamping device D
to hold the bale firmly and immovably. To cause the carriage to
move into and out of the chamber, the inventors provide upon the
under side of the platform a fixed sleeve E, interiorly threaded to
fit the screw E^1, journalled at one end near the opening in the
chamber end in a stationary block E^2 fixed upon the false bottom
B^2. From this end the screw extends along under the carriage
through the screw sleeve and to the other end of the chamber. A
collar _e_^2 on the screw bears against the inner end of this
journal-bearing, and upon the end of the shank _e_ bearing against
the other end of the journal is fixed a pinion F, which is to be
driven in either direction as desired. Above this journal-bearing
is a series of similar bearings (five being shown), G G, passing
through the wall of the chamber. Of these the middle one is in
a line with the centre of the bale, supported and held on the
carriage. The others are arranged at the corners of a square.
Journalled in these bearings are the hollow shanks H H of the
hollow screws I I pointed at I^1 I^1. Each screw is perforated,
_i i_, between the threads _i_^1 _i_^1 from the fixed collar K K.
Upon the tubular shanks H H of the screws are fixed the gear-wheels
L L. At a short distance from the end of the chamber, A is the
hollow chamber or receptacle M, into which is to be forced the
disinfectant liquid or gas. The tubular shanks H H of the screws
project through the wall M, passing through stuffing-boxes _m m_,
and their bores communicate with the interior of the chamber, the
shank of the middle screw being continued through the opposite
wall and a stuffing-box, its solid or projecting end being provided
with two fixed pulleys, N N, and a loose pulley O. When a gaseous
disinfectant is used, it can be forced by any desired means through
the pipe S into the chamber. Where a liquid disinfectant is used,
an elevated tank R containing the fluid may be used. As most
fibrous materials, and especially rags, are baled so as to be in
layers, it is preferable so to place the bale upon the carriage
that the perforated screws may penetrate the material at right
angles to the layers by which the gas or liquid issuing through the
holes in the screws passes in all directions throughout the mass
within the bale.
In the upper part of chamber A are perforated shelves V V, upon
which, if desired, the material can be spread out and subjected to
disinfecting gas or vapour. On the top of the chamber is a tank
W nearly filled with disinfecting liquid. A passage W^1 extends
from upper part of the chamber up into the tank above the level of
the liquid therein, and is then carried at its end down below the
surface of the liquid. At its other end the tank is provided at its
top with a discharge opening X and a suitable pipe X^1, forming a
continuation of the opening; by this means all foul and deleterious
vapours or gases passing out of the closed chamber A through the
passage W must pass through the disinfecting liquid in the tank
before escaping through the opening X and stack X^1 into the air,
and are thus rendered harmless.
When a sufficient amount of the disinfectant has been forced into
and through the bale, the disinfectant is turned off, and cold dry
air can be forced through chamber M, and out through the nozzles
and bale, whereby the material within the bale becomes cooled and
dried, and all the foul air from the chamber A driven out, so that
it may be opened and entered with safety. Any suitable disinfectant
may be used with this apparatus, as, for example, sulphurous acid,
in gas or solution, superheated steam, carbolic acid, or any
solution or vapour containing chlorine.
=Straw.=--Very large quantities of this material are used in the
manufacture of paper, but more especially for newspapers, the straw
from wheat and oats being mostly employed. Although the percentage
of cellulose in straw is about equal to that of esparto, the severe
treatment it requires to effectually remove the silicious coating
by which the fibre is protected, and to render the knots amenable
to the action of the bleach, greatly reduces the yield of finished
pulp. Many processes have been introduced for the treatment of
straw for paper-making, but the most successful of them appear to
be modifications of a process introduced in 1853 by MM. Coupier and
Mellier.
=Esparto Grass.=--This important fibrous material is largely
imported from Algeria, Spain, and other countries, and constitutes
one of the most valuable fibre-yielding materials with which the
manufacturer has to deal. Some idea of the amount of esparto and
other fibres which find their way to our shores may be gleaned
from the fact that while the import of cotton and linen rags in
the year 1884 was 36,233 tons, of the value of £487,866, that of
esparto and other fibres amounted to 184,005 tons, of the value of
£1,125,553.
=Wood.=--As a paper-making material, the fibre obtained from
various kinds of wood now holds an important position, since
the sources of supply are practically inexhaustible. The first
practical process for manufacturing pulp from wood fibre was
perfected and introduced by the author's father, the late Mr.
Charles Watt, who, in conjunction with Mr. H. Burgess, obtained
a patent for the invention on August 19th, 1853. The process was
afterwards publicly exhibited at a small works on the Regent's
Canal, when the Earl of Derby (then Lord Stanley), many scientific
men and representatives of the press, were present, and expressed
themselves well satisfied with its success. Specimens of the wood
paper, including a copy of the _Weekly Times_ printed thereon,
were exhibited, as also some water-colour drawings which had
been produced upon paper made from wood pulp. Failing to get the
process taken up in England, an American patent was applied for and
obtained in 1854, which was subsequently purchased; but with the
exception of an instalment, the purchase-money was never paid to
the inventor! Thus the process "got" into other hands, the original
inventor alone being unbenefited by it.
It has been repeatedly stated,[13] no doubt unwittingly, that a
person named Houghton first introduced the wood paper process into
this country; but considering that his patent was not obtained
until 1857, or four years after the process above referred to was
patented and publicly exhibited in England, it will be seen that
the statement is absolutely without foundation. The first knowledge
Mr. Houghton received concerning wood as a paper-making material
was from the author's father, and he (Mr. Houghton), in conjunction
with Mr. Burgess, introduced the Watt and Burgess process into
America in the year 1854. These are the facts.
=Bamboo= (_Bambusa vulgaris_).--The leaves and fresh-cut stems of
this plant are used for paper material, but require to pass through
a preliminary process of crushing, which is effected by suitable
rolls, the second series of crushing rolls being grooved or
channelled to split or divide the material, after which the stems
are cut to suitable lengths for boiling.
=Paper Mulberry= (_Broussonetia papyrifera_).--The inner bark of
this tree, and also some other basts, have long been used by the
Japanese and Chinese in the manufacture of paper of great strength,
but of extreme delicacy.