MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. Ill 



abound in India and other warm countries, and are capable of yielding a 

 very abundant and never- failing supply of sufficiently cheap and very 

 excellent materials for paper making of all kinds. Some may be used 

 without any further process of bleaching, but all are capable of having 

 any color they may possess destroyed by chemical means, as I would not 

 except the jute canvas or gunny bagging, because I have seen specimens 

 of jute of a beautiful silky white, both plain and manufactured into 

 fabrics for furniture, c., as shown at the East India House. As the 

 Chinese make paper of rice straw and of the young shoots of the bamboo, 

 while the Hindoos make ropes of different grasses, (such as Saccharum 

 Munja and Saccharum Sara,) strong enough for their Persian wheels, as 

 well as for towing lines, it is evident that these, and probably many others, 

 contain a sufficiency of fibrous material for paper making. The cultivated 

 cereals cannot well be turned to much account, for their straw forms the 

 chief food for cattle ; but as the country abounds with grass jungles, 

 which are in the autumn of every year burnt down in order that the 

 young blades may spring up and afford pasturage for cattle, it is evident 

 that there are many situations where a sufficiency might be cut down 

 before it has become perfectly dried up, and converted into half- stuff for 

 paper makers. 



Of the sedges, also, some are, in India, employed for making ropes, as 

 the Bhabhur or Eriophorum Cannabuiura, for making rope bridges for 

 crossing some of the hill torrents. The papyrus, we know, was used by 

 the Egyptians for making their paper, but it was by cutting the material 

 into thin slices and making them adhere together under pressure. But 

 others of the genus, as the Cyperus legetum, are used in India for mat 

 making. As these plants, as well as rushes, grow together in large 

 quantities, it would be quite possible in many places to turn them, to 

 profitable account. 



Many parts of the world abound in the lily and aloe- leaved plants 

 which have been alluded to above, and of which the leaves contain much 

 easily separable fibrous materials. These belong to the genera Agave, 

 Aloe, Yucca, Sansiviera, Bromelia, and others, all of which abound in 

 white- colored fibres, applicable to various useful purposes, and of which 

 the tow might be used for paper making, and considerable supplies 

 obtained. Paper used to be made from the Sanseniera in Trichinopoly, 

 and some made of the unbleached agave alone, and also mixed with old 

 gunny bass. 



Among cultivated plants there is probably nothing so well calculated to 

 yield a large supply of material fit for making paper of almost every 

 quality as the plantain, (Musa Paradisaica,) so extensively cultivated 

 in all tropical countries on account of its fruit, of which the fibre- 

 yielding stems are applied to no useful purpose. The plant, as every one 

 acquainted with tropical countries knows, is common near the poorest huts 

 and in the largest gardens, and is considered to yield by far the largest 

 quantity of nutritious matter. Its fruit in many places supplying the 



