94 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



In building houses it has become a common practice for the 

 builders to buy the doors and windows alroady made. It is now 

 proposed to supply them in like manner with the walls and ceil- 

 ings, in the form of slabs, to be used as a substitute for lath and 

 plaster. These slabs are made of cane fibre, — a cheap material 

 obtained from the cane of the Southern canebrakes, by disintegra- 

 tion effected by the explosive force of steam, and costing about 

 $10 a ton, mixed witli clay, resin, size, and other cheap materials. 

 The cane fibre is also made into paper of various kinds. 



The followino; advantao:es are claimed for this new buildinof 

 material : In a few hours all the walls and ceilings of a house can 

 be put up by nailing them to the ordinary battens upon which the 

 laths are nailed. The work can be done as well in winter as in 

 summer time, and no drying is required. The fibrous slabs do 

 not warp, crack, break, peel, shell, crumble, nor decay ; and they 

 keep out damp, heat, and cold, better than lath and plaster. 

 They are somewhat similar, but asserted to be superior to the 

 panels or wainscoting found in many palaces and mansions in Eng- 

 land. Their cost is said to be less then half the cost of common 

 lath and plaster. It is proposed to make them fire-proof and 

 water-proof,that they may sei've for the roofs and outer walls of 

 houses better than clajDboards and shingles. 



According to estimates which have been made, the cost of an 

 ordinary cottage house will be very much less than the present 

 cost of a frame house of the same size ; and it is claimed fibrous 

 slab houses can be erected in less than one-fourth of the time now 

 required to erect other houses. 



One of the late uses of paper is its application in the manufac- 

 ture of pails, wash-basins, pans, spittoons, etc. ; and, strange as 

 it may seem, it is nevertheless true that the above artich^s — as 

 made by the American Papier Mache Manufacturing Company of 

 Greenpoint, L. I., from a chemically prepared paper — are supe- 

 rior in many respects to any others before made. The j^aper from 

 which these articles are manufactured is rendered impervious to 

 the action of water or acids ; the utensils can be placed in an oven 

 till water will boil in them ; placed in the sun at the hottest season, 

 or exposed to the severest cold, without the slightest effect on 

 them. Where wood would rot and iron rust, these articles are 

 unaff'ected, and with proper usage would be as good as new. In 

 pails, there is an advantage that water will not taste of the mate- 

 rial and will never soak, and they will not fall in pieces ; they are 

 lighter than the wooden pail, and, being a non-conductor of heat, 

 will keep water cool. The articles are coated with a vegetable 

 composition which, even if it does wear off", does not affect their 

 durability, and does not injure them except in appearance. — 

 American Artisan. 



"Walter Brown of Portland, the "Argus" says, has brought 

 home a new paper boat, of the Waters' patent, from a model of 

 his own. This boat is 31^ feet long, 12 inches wide, and weighs 

 but 22 pounds. The lightest wooden boat ever built of similar 

 dimensions weighed 41 pounds. The niiost singular part of the 

 matter is that the boat is more than four times stronger than one 



