MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 113 



corchorus capsularis, the leaves of both of which are used as a vegetable, 

 yield the large supply of jute imported into this country, as well as the 

 gunny cloth and bass exported even to America. Several species of 

 greivia yield edible fruit, on which account they are cultivated. Others 

 abound in the jungles, and most would yield a valuable fibre, as some of 

 them already do, for commercial purposes. Some paper is made from 

 gunny bass. Some of the leguminosa also abound in valuable fibre. 

 Crotalaria juncea yields the common sunu of India. Scebania cannibana 

 yields the drauchi of Bengal, while banlirnia racemesa is used for making 

 rope bridges in the Himalayas. The fibre of Parkinsonia aculeata was 

 sent to the exhibition in 1851 expressly as being fitted for paper making ; 

 though colorless, it wants strength. 



Several plants produce large quantities of a silky cotton-like substance, 

 not applied to any use, such as the silk-cotton tree, the nradar of India, 

 and several species of saccharum, which might be collected where labor is 

 cheap, and would no doubt be well fitted for conversion into pulp for 

 paper. 



Among the nettle, the mulberry, and bread fruit tribes of plants, there 

 are many which seem well calculated to yield material for paper making. 

 The Chinese, we know, employ the inner bark of morus, now Bronpone- 

 tia papyrifera. This, no doubt, produces some of the Chinese paper, 

 which is remarkable for toughness. I believe that the refuse cuttings of 

 the bush cultivation of the mulberry in Bengal might be turned to 

 profitable account. The barks of many stinging (Urtica) and cf stingless 

 (Bochmeria) nettles abound in fibres remarkable for strength ; the tow of 

 these might be converted into paper stuff, if not required for mixing with 

 wool. 



The weeds of tropical countries which grow in such luxuriance, and 

 among which are species of sida, of greivia, of corchorus, of triurnfelta, 

 and of many other genera, might all yield an abundance of fibrous 

 material if the refuse of the above cultivated plants was found not to be 

 sufficient. Some simple machinery for separating the fibre would greatly 

 facilitate operations, while the expenses of freight might be diminished by 

 compression, or, as suggested, by packing the material as dunnage ; and 

 the cheapness of labor, as of every thing else, in many of these countries, 

 would enable material for paper making to be brought here in great 

 abundance and at a sufficiently cheap rate, if ordinary pains were taken 

 by the consumers "in Europe to encourage the planter or colonists of a 

 distant region." 



As has been already remarked, it has been found impracticable to 

 convert many of the East India fibres, gunny and manilla, into white 

 paper, on account of the difficulty experienced in bleaching. The cause 

 of this difficulty, as ascertained by a course of careful experiments by the 

 writer, is this : The fibres contain a vegetable acid coloring matter, united 

 to a salt of iron, existing naturally in the plant, and probably set free and 

 changed in character by the course of preparation, and by the decompo- 



