Chips and Slips. 375 



trees in London. The plane trees of the Temple have been but little pruned 

 at any time, and they contrast in striking manner with the lean, systematically 

 pruned trees on the Embankment. — Gardener's Magazine. 



FoKESTS IN Europe. — If there is any change in the climate of Europe, it 

 can hardly be from the disappearance of forests. Recent statistics say that 

 about twenty per cent, of the whole area of Europe is covered with forest, ao-o-re- 

 gating 500,000,000 acres. We do not, however, regard these floating fio-ures 

 as always reliable, but give them as they come to us. There is a great deal of 

 loose calculation going on in the world. — American Horticulturist. 



The Products of Oak Timber.— The following extract shows the incidental 

 profits that may be made from the produce of an oak plantation, although 

 we doubt whether for paper-making purposes any timber tree will be found so 

 profitable as poplar, which comes so quickly to a useful size. Dr. Mitscher- 

 lich, of Dramstadt, has invented a method of making paper-stock (cellulose) 

 from wood by a chemical process, which differs somewhat from those previously 

 in use. The chief peculiarity of this process, which is in use already in 

 Prussia and Saxony, says the Hesse Gewerhehlatt, consists in this, that the 

 incrusting substance of the wood is not destroyed, but only separated from the 

 cellulose, and eventually rendered soluble. 



" In this process it is not necessary to cut the wood up very fine, as in the 

 Sinclair process, but only to split it up like ordinary firewood for a parlour 

 stove. A chemically prepared solution of lime is boiled for six hours with the 

 wood under a pressure of three atmospheres. After the boiling, a portion of 

 the incrusting material is found dissolved in the liquor, and part of it in the 

 pores of the wood, from which it is extracted by a suitable squeezing 

 apparatus. 



" If it is desired to make a very valuable paper-stock, which shall be as 

 ■white as possible without bleaching, they only employ white wood as free 

 from rosin as possible, like poplar, linden, &c. These kinds of woods are 

 not decolourized any farther in this process, and the albuminoid and gummy 

 substances are mostly dissolved. The success of this process depends less on 

 the pressure during boiling than on the temperature, which must not exceed 

 248^ Eahr. 



" The use of oak wood for paper-stock offers one advantage, namely, that 

 the tannin contained in it is obtained as a by-product, and the solution thus 

 obtained can be very profitably employed for tanning, as experiments in this 

 direction have abundantly proved. The solution which runs off' from the 

 wood, or is expressed from it, in this new process, is already so concentrated 

 that evaporation seems superfluous, and is only undertaken when a very con- 

 centrated solution is required either for transportation or for keeping. The 

 other chemicals contained in the lye are in no way a hindrance to the tanning 

 process, but rather aid it. Experiments show that hides prepared in the 

 usual manner, when simply laid in this liquor, were perfectly tanned in ten days." 



Pine Tree Oil. — In the vast sandy and marshy plains called " Landes," 

 extending along the shores of the Bay of Biscay, and far inland, between the 

 Garonne and the Adour, the Tinus pinaster is extensively cultivated on 

 what was a dieiry barren waste less than a h^^ndred years ago ; and besides 

 sheltering the country and preventing the drifting of the loose land, this pine 

 yields a lucrative produce in tar, resin and pitch, which the inhabitants 

 carefully collect and prepare for the market as their chief means of earning a 



