A great many materials as substitutes for rags in the manufacture of paper have been at different times proposed ; the bark of the willow, beech, hawthorn, and lime, the stalks of the nettle and thistle, the bine of hops, indeed almost every vegetable substance capable of yielding easily an abundance of strong fibre, have been and excellent paper has been made from some of them ; but the introduction of the bleaching proem, and the improvements made in the mechanism for forming the pulp, having enabled the coarsest linen and cotton fabrics to be brought into use, the supply of rags is at present found equal to the demand for paper, immense as that is. The rapidly increasing knowledge of the people in most parts of the world will probably create an increaseddemand for books, and the stock of rags may again become inadequate to supply the paper manufacturer, who must again have recourse to other materials : we pro pose therefore to describe three patented processes for this purpose ; namely, one for making it of straw, another for the employment of moss, and a third for the use of solid wood Mr. Lambert's process for making paper of straw is as follows :—Having collected a quantity of straw, all the joints or knots are to be cut away, and the remainder boiled with quicklime in water, for separating the fibres, and extracting the mucilage and colouring matters. (Instead of quicklime in this part of the process, caustic, potash, soda, or ammonia, may be employed.) It is then to be washed in clear water to get rid of the colouring matter and lime, and afterwards subjected to the action of an hydro-sulphuret, composed of one pound of quicklime, and a quarter of a and of sulphur to every gallon of water, for the more effectual removing of the mucilaginous and silicious matters. After this, the material is to undergo several successive washings in different waters, to get rid of the alkaline and other extraneous matters, which may be conveniently effected by beating in the ordinary paper-mill. When no smell of sulphur is left, the water is to be squeezed from the fibrous material by mechanical pressure, and then to be bleached by chlorine, by exposure on a grass-plot, or any other convenient and well-known means : it is then to be washed again, to get rid of the bleaching ingredients, next to be reduced to pulp by the common apparatus for the purpose in a paper mill, and then moulded into sheets. The subsequent operations are, in other respects, similar
to paper made from the usual substances.
Moss Paper.—Mr. Nesbit, of Upper Thames-street, had a patent in 1823 for the fabrication of a coarse kind of paper, especially applicable to the sheath ing of ships, in the manner that the tarred brown paper is usually applied. The material is a peculiarly soft kind of moss, which grows abundantly in the ditches and low grounds of Holland. In that country, and in several of the northern states of Germany, paper made from this material is employed as a covering to the bottoms of ships, between the wood and copper sheathing, and is found to be peculiarly serviceable in preventing leaks; owing to its absorbent quality it swells up, making a close and firm packing under the copper. The manufac ture of paper from this substance is exceedingly simple. The moss is first to have the adhering earth washed from it, then to be chopped in short pieces (about half an inch long) in a similar machine to a tobacco cutting-mill ; after this it is to be soaked for several hours in water, then formed into sheets in the ordinary way between moulds, placing each sheet between woollen cloths; in this state they are to be subjected to mechanical pressure, afterwards thoroughly dried, and lastly, pressed again between sheets of brown paper, (placed alter nately,) when the manufacture is completed.
Paper from. Wood.—This process is the subject of a patent lately granted in the United States. The shavings of wood are to be boiled in water, with from 12 to 18 parts, by weight, of common alkali, which reduces the wood to a mass of fibres, adapted for conversion into paper by the ordinary means. One hundred pounds of wood, the patentees state, will make from five to seven reams of paper.
Ivory Paper is described under the word Ivoly. Paper hangings being made of ordinary paper, subsequently stained or printed, are noticed under the head STAINING.