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THES PHILIPPINE 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 
VoL. I JUNE, 1906 No. 5 
PHILIPPINE FIBERS AND FIBROUS SUBSTANCES: 
THEIR SUITABILITY FOR PAPER MAKING. 
By Grorce F, RicHMmonp. 
(From the Chemical Laboratory, Bureau of Science.) 
RAW MATERIALS FOR PAPER MAKING. 
Introduction.—From the earliest Egyptian papyrus to the paper of 
to-day, the predominant characteristic of this material is that it consists 
of the enduring portions of vegetable growth known as cellulose, although 
animal and mineral fibers such as wool, silk, and asbestos are occasionally 
employed. ‘The art of modern paper making consists of uniting or felting 
together any fibrous material so as to form a continuous sheet. Linen 
or cotton rags are no longer exclusively employed; indeed, these sub- 
stances at present constitute but a small fraction of the raw material of 
the paper-making industry. Any vegetable matter possessing sufficient 
fibrous structure can be utilized. 
Notwithstanding the great variety of available cheap materials, rags 
of various kinds continued to form the chief substances for paper mak- 
ing both in Europe and America, until the middle of the nineteenth 
century, at which time they ceased to be obtainable in sufficient quan- 
tities to supply the demand and paper makers began to search elsewhere 
for a cheaper and more inexhaustible material for their rapidly growing 
industry. In 1854 wood-pulp was first used in the United States, and 
*“TIn order to give some idea of the variety of materials from which paper can 
be and has been prepared, we may cite a book published in 1765 at Regensburg, 
Germany, by Jacob Schaeffer, the paper of which was made from about sixty 
different sources, among which the following are curious and interesting examples: 
Sawdust, hop vines, hornets’ nests, peat, straw, cabbage stumps, moss, and thistle 
stalks.” Thorpe: Dictionary Applied Chemistry, 3, 105. 
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