BOTANICAL ASPECTS OF PAPER-PULP AND TANNING INDUSTRIES 5 II 



implored the people in this respect. The founding of newspapers, one after 

 another, in addition to the increasing publication of books and even of popu- 

 lar magazines, was primarily responsible for this surge. Among the news- 

 papers that called on the people were the Boston News Letter in 1769, the 

 Boston Gazette in 1798, the Courier of Norwich, Connecticut, the North 

 Carolina Gazette in 1777, and the Cheshire Advertiser of Keene, New Hamp- 

 shire, in 1792. 



In 1800 the 16 mills in Connecticut alone consumed 320 tons of rags. By 

 1829 the 60 mills in Massachusetts were annually using 1,700 tons of them. 

 In 1855, 405 million pounds of rags was reported as needed by the 800 paper 

 mills in the United States. 



The shortage had become so acute, even at the beginning of the century, 

 that by 1812 importation of rags from Europe began. The ultimate in ex- 

 pediency seems to have been achieved in 1856 when the Stan wood and Tower 

 mill in Gardiner, Maine, began importing Egyptian mummies, their woven 

 linen wrapping and papyrus fillings to be converted into wrapping paper for 

 grocers, butchers, and other users of coarse paper. To take advantage of 

 this bizarre source of vegetable fiber, Stanwood had to compete with the 

 Egyptian railroad which for a ten-year period made use of no other fuel 

 than the well-wrapped mummies of the Nile valley — sacred bulls, crocodiles, 

 ibises, cats, and humans. Little wonder that an epidemic of cholera broke 

 out among the rag pickers and cutters in Stanwood's mill. Also in 1856 a 

 manufacturer in Onondaga County, New York, made paper from mummy 

 wrappings. Both he and Stanwood may have gotten the mummy idea from 

 Dr. Isaiah Deck, a New York scientist, who in 1855 compiled a manuscript 

 in which he advocated such utilization, with data on quantities of mummy 

 wrappings available and probable cost. 



Many short-lived efforts to alleviate the shortage in a more orthodox man- 

 ner were made with other plant fibers before a real solution was found. In 

 May, 1789, J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur presented to the American Philo- 

 sophical Society of Philadelphia a printed book, "the leaves of which," in his 

 words, "are made of the roots and barks of different tress [sic] and plants, 

 being the first essay of this kind of manufacture." In 1799 Chancellor Robert 

 R. Livingston held a patent on papermaking improvement based on utilizing 

 the alga frog spittle. Among other early United States patents on paper manu- 

 facture were the following involving vegetable fibers: 



1802 — Corn husks, Allison and Hawkins, Burlington, N.J. 



1809 — Seaweed, Samuel Green, New London, Conn. 



1814— Corn, John McThorndike 



1828 — Sea grass, Elisha H. Collier, Plymouth, Mass. 



1829 — Straw and corn, John W. Cooper, Washington Township, Pa. 



