MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 89 



hemp or flax, and afterwards broken up and the bark separated from the 

 wood of the stalk. 



The following is the claim for a patent recently granted for improvements 

 in making paper to William Clark, of Dayton, Ohio : " I do not claim the use 

 of lime or other alkalies in the preparation of vegetable material used in the 

 manufacture of paper. But I claim .the boiling of coal tar with the straw 

 or other vegetable material for the manufacture of paper, in the manner and 

 form set forth, and for other similar purposes, or purposes substantially the 



same." 



Improvement in preparing Paper pulp from the Fibres of Endogenous 

 Plants. The object of this invention by Francis Burke, of Montserrat, West 

 Indies, is to convert the fibres of vegetables into pulp, without having recourse 

 to the process of separating the fibrous matter from the other component 

 parts of vegetable substances ; and to effect this object, he adopts means for 

 simultaneously or in one process reducing the fibres to pulp, and separating 

 the pulp from the gummy and other vegetable matters with which they are 

 combined. The vegetable substances to which the process is applicable, are 

 the plants known as the plantain, the banana, and the aloe, and any other 

 vegetable substances containing fibrous matters, from which the other matters 

 contained therein can be separated by water, whilst undergoing the operation 

 hereinafter described. 



When necessary, the vegetable matter to be operated upon is first cut, 

 crushed, or bruised, for the purpose of reducing it to such a state of division 

 as will permit of its introduction into a mill to be ground. If the vegetable 

 be plantain, banana, aloe, or any other similar vegetable substance in a green 

 state, it is preferred to crush it between rollers, so as to deprive it of its fluid 

 matters. To reduce the vegetable matters to pieces of a convenient size, a 

 chaffcutter, saw, or other convenient means may be used, according to the 

 nature of the material. The material thus prepared, is ground hi a mill 

 made of a pair of plain stones, similar to those of an ordinary flour mill, with 

 the eye of the runner or upper stone somewhat enlarged, so as to facilitate 

 the admission of the material. Either the upper or the lower stone of the 

 mill may be made the runner ; but it is most convenient to have the upper 

 stone the runner, and motion may be given to it in the same way as hi 

 ordinary flour mills. The material to be ground is fed simultaneously with a 

 stream of water into the eye of the mill; the supply of water being sufficient 

 to convert the vegetable material when ground into a fluid pulp. 



The water used may be either hot or cold, but cold water is preferred, and 

 when necessary, any chemical agent may be dissolved in it to facilitate the 

 separation of the fibres from the other vegetable matters with which they may 

 be mixed. The vegetable fibres, as they are ground to a pulp, are thrown 

 out at the periphery of the stones, round which a trough is placed to receive 

 it ; from whence it runs into suitable sieves, by which the fibrous pulp is 

 separated from the water, which passes away carrying with it the soluble 

 matters, and also many minutely-divided insoluble or non-fibrous matters 

 which may have been separated from the fibrous matters by the action of the 

 mill. 



