gallons of ethyl alcohol, together with fuel sufficient 

 to meet the requirements of all these industries. 



Despite the prevailing opinion to the contrary 

 among lumbermen, and even among papermakers, 

 long-leaf yellow pine lends itself admirably to the manu- 

 facture of paper. It is too pitchy for the sulfite 

 process but is readily reduced to pulp by the soda 

 process. Much the best results are, however, ob- 

 tained by the sulfate process, which, when carried out 

 under proper conditions, yields an excellent kraft 

 pulp and paper. The pulp bleaches with some diffi- 

 culty but may with care be brought to good color 

 without serious impairment of strength. The bleached 

 pulp makes good wood writings and when mixed 

 with pulp from gumwood can be run off into good 

 book papers. A cord and half of round waste makes 

 a ton of paper as against about two cords of spruce 

 costing northern mills from $9 to $13 a cord. 



The production of ethyl alcohol from yellow pine 

 waste by the Ewen and Tomlinson process has been 

 fully demonstrated as a technical proposition, about 

 90,000 gallons of high-grade 95 per cent alcohol having 

 been made in the plant of the Standard Alcohol Com- 

 pany at Fullerton, La. The commercial merit of 

 the proposition remains to be demonstrated since 

 this company is now in the hands of the receiver for 

 reasons altogether apart from the technical merit 

 of the process. It may, however, be said that every 

 technical man familiar with the process believes that 

 it is capable of producing 95 per cent alcohol at a cost, 

 including cooperage and all fixed and manufacturing 

 charges, of not more than 20 cents a gallon. Such alco- 

 hol is worth to-day about 56 cents a gallon. The 

 yield per cord of sawdust or hogged wood waste con- 

 taining 50 per cent water is 10 gallons in large scale 

 operation, but yields much higher have been ob- 

 tained in the laboratory. 



The process is based, of course, on the observation 

 of Braconnot in 1819 that cellulose, by treatment 

 with mineral acid, is converted into reducing and fer- 

 mentable sugars. For nearly 100 years experimenters 

 have endeavored to develop this observation into a 

 commercial process. With the exception of Ewen and 

 Tomlinson all have failed to produce alcohol in com- 

 mercial quantities. Simonsen in Sweden, in 1889, 

 began a series of brilliant researches which cleared up 

 many points of difficulty and ultimately enabled him 

 to secure very satisfactory results on the large labora- 



(5) 



