548 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



experience in order to follow a speaker. But one good ope- 

 rator will amply suffice to report legislative debates, word by- 

 word, during the most complicated sittings. If two good 

 operators be placed, with their machines separated from 

 each other by a considerable distance, a complete control 

 upon the exactness of the record of the debate is insured. 

 The reading of the written band is so easy that it is given 

 over to the printer without inconvenience, or to clerks prac- 

 ticed in autographic writing. The bands of paper have not 

 so great a length as may be imagined : a sitting of one hour 

 consuming about seventy feet of a roll whose width is four 

 inches. 13 B, III., 211. * 



THE JAPANESE LEATHER-PAPER. 



The curious leather-paper made by the Japanese, which 

 imitates in a remarkable desrree the leather of Cordova, ex- 



CD 7 



cited much attention at the late Exposition at Vienna ; but 

 the method of its fabrication has, until lately, remained a 

 secret in that country, whence many objects made of it have 

 been imported, such as napkins, clothing, umbrellas, lanterns, 

 etc., all of which have much strength and firmness. Mons. 

 Zeppa, a member of the Oriental Society of Japan, has lately 

 published the processes by means of which this paper is pro- 

 duced. The material employed is bark of the Broussonetia 

 papyri/era, or the paper-mulberry. It is the same substance 

 that the Polynesians make use of in the manufacture of cer- 

 tain vestments, and even for the masts of their boats, al- 

 though their process of fabrication is entirely different from 

 that of the Japanese. The cultivation of the mulberry is 

 very simple ; the roots being placed in the earth, spread and 

 grow rapidly, attaining a length of nine inches the first year, 

 and twenty-seven in the second. At the end of three years the 

 plant has a height of about thirteen feet. On the approach 

 of fall and winter the branches are removed, and cut into 

 pieces two inches long. These are then boiled until the bark 

 can be easily taken off with the hand. The bark is first dried 

 in the air for two or three days, then plunged over twenty-four 

 hours into a current of fresh water, after which, with the aid 

 of a particular kind of cord, the two species of fibres of which 

 it is composed can be separated. The exterior fibres are of 

 a dark color, and are called sara Jcawa. They are employed 



