PAPER MATERIALS.

MANY attempts have been made from time to time to furnish new raw materials for paper, but hitherto with only partial success. The failure, according to Dr. Playfair, generally results from one or more of three causes: 1. Some fibres require so much cost to bring them to the state in which they are offered to papermakers, in the form of rags or cotton waste, that in point of economy they cannot enter into competition with the latter; 2. Certain fibres lose so much weight in bringing them to this state, that they cease to be economical; 3. Certain fibres, which are well adapted on account of their texture for the paper trade, present so many difficulties in bleaching them as to render them unfit for white paper. The Surat bass, in which cotton has of late years been imported into this country, offers an example of this difficulty.

The price of 2d. to 24d. per lb., which was mentioned in a Treasury letter lately issued for a partially-prepared pulp, is generally considered by most makers to be too high; they think that materials to be of benefit should be looked for at the price of 1d. to 1d. per lb. The latter price refers to roughly-prepared pulp; but should the pulp be offered in a bleached state, or in as far an advanced state with regard to colour and texture as cotton or linen rag, then 24d. to 4d. per lb. might be obtained. The quantity of any promising material sent home for experiment should not be less than half a ton in weight.

At one of the recent Exhibitions of the Society of Arts, a case of vegetable fibres for paper-making was shown, consisting of straw deglutinated and fibred, but not bleached; secondly, half bleached and fibred; thirdly, the same straw brought into a pulp, so as to require to be placed in the beating engine but a very short time, thereby effecting a considerable saving of time and mechanical labour. There was also exhibited new jute, and gunny-bag, or old jute bleached and partially pulped, a red bark from the East Indies, called by the natives Lituria Bark,—sugar-cane trash, or the refuse crushed stalk after the saccharine has been extracted, and vegetable silk or silk cotton. These were not shown as new materials for paper-making, because paper was made from straw in Germany in the year 1776; in Belgium from wood, grass, reeds, moss, &c., in 1786; and Matthias Koops took out a patent in England for making paper from straw in 1800. Du Halde tells us that paper was made in China from the bark of trees by a mandarin of the palace in the 95th year of the Christian era.

They were exhibited to show that they were really fibrous materials, from whatever vegetable produced, when prepared by the inventor's process, and not mere pasty pulps, as the greater part of such materials are when prepared by other processes, and therefore fitted to make papers of much greater strength and durability than paper from such materials usually possesses when brought into the market. The inventor's method of preparing the pulp is one-third to one-half less than the actual cost incurred in paper-mills generally in preparing such substances.

The sugar-cane trash is admirably suited for the manufacture of fine papers of great strength and beauty, whilst, on account of the other rich matters obtained therefrom, the cost of such paper would actually be £5 per ton less than the common white straw paper.

The silk cotton, on account of its price, cannot be employed as a paper material; but should it ever be introduced as a fabric or material for female dress, it would then, as a worn-out article, become a valuable addition to paper-making substances.

That there is a war of prices now raging in the printing world between the producing and consuming interests is a fact which for some time past has been obvious to every observer; and indeed has been, to a certain extent, felt directly or indirectly both by publisher and purchaser; it is, moreover, indicated to the latter by the alteration in quality of the material on which newspapers and other periodical works are printed. Little did the Times conceive, when advocating so warmly the extension of cheap literature and railway reading for the million, how soon the public appetite, which grows apace by that on which it feeds, would create a literary famine in the land. The ravenous maw of the insatiable printing press is never satisfied, and the cry is still, "give, give," whilst the paper-makers are at their wits' end for raw material. With the reduction of the excise duty from 3d. to 1 d. per lb., the average annual make of paper increased more than cent. per cent. ; namely, from 70,988,131 lb. in 1830-34, to 151,234,175 lb. in

I

1849-53. The entire removal of duty has given a further stimulus to its manufacture and employ

ment.

The quantity of paper manufactured in this country in 1858 was 182,847,825 lb. ; in 1859, 217,827,197 lb. ; in 1860, 223,575,285 lb.-a considerable increase in each year. So recently as 1848 the quantity was only 121,820,229 lb. The net produce of the duty was £1,103,754 in 1858, £1,258,464 in 1859, and £1,321,105 in 1860. The net produce of the Customs duty on paper imported into this country was £9,886 in 1858; £14,841 in 1859; and £27,236 in 1860. The paper duty brought in more than half as much as the income-tax on trades and professions at its original rate of 7d.

It is not alone in the mother country that the deficiency and increasing price of paper is felt. Our colonies, particularly the southern and western ones, derive their chief supplies of paper from England. In the Australasian settlements and the Cape colony newspapers have lately been increasing rapidly, both in number and circulation. In Sydney and Melbourne, the daily journals, of which there are now several, have a circulation, in some instances, of 10,000 to 15,000 per diem, and to the high wages they have to pay, in order to retain compositors and pressmen, is now superadded the difficulty of getting paper at any price. In South America the same dearth prevails, for in a Lima journal, not of the brightest texture, "Shipmasters and others who have on hand old unserviceable sails, or pieces of old sailcloth, white rope, &c., applicable to paper-making," are informed that they "can

dispose of the same for cash at a fair price per pound, by applying to the advertiser at Callao."

A strange feature in journalism is the gigantic strides which the Times has made; its average daily issue being 45,000 to 50,000 copies. As it always has a supplement (single or double sheet) and frequently an additional half sheet, its consumption must be, at least, seven or eight tons per day, and this is exclusive of the Evening Mail, its tri-weekly issue, which uses about 800 tons in a year. The enhanced price of paper to the Times is, therefore, a matter of serious moment; and we cannot be surprised at finding in its columns, a few years ago, an offer of £1,000 for any new material calculated to cheapen the cost of paper, by supplying a pulp which can meet the present deficiency of rags. The weight of material now required for the manufacture of paper in England has been computed at upwards of 130,000 tons.

There are now numerous journals of considerable circulation in the metropolis that, from the low price at which they are sold, have a deep interest in the price of paper, which, as it rises, trenches largely on their small marginal profits.

Vegetable substances which might be used for the cheap manufacture of paper abound in India and our colonies. The bamboo makes an excellent coarse paper, and is much used for that purpose in China, and the wood of all the hard convolvolus family is admirable for the purpose. Every tree on the river banks of British Guiana is festooned with the latter, and, by rolling them into bundles, they might claim as dunnage exemption from freight. The plantain yields an