84 NEW BRUNSWICK FORESTRY CONVENTION 



special cultivation of the plant has been discontinued, and its range has 

 gradually become more restricted until it ia now found only within narrow 

 areas. The plant is a native, of Egypt and other portions of the Mediterra- 

 nean region, to which it is now almost wholly confined. It nevertheless has 

 numerous representatives in other parts of the world, and the general reed- 

 like habit, with the large terminal, umbrella-like expanse of branches, is well 

 represented in its familiar relative from Florida, the Cyperus alterni- 

 folius, a plant now somewhat extensively used for table decorations and 

 commonly spoken of as the " Umbrella Plant." 



In the manufacture of paper from the papyrus, the most primitive 

 methods were employed. The triangular stem was first of all divested of its 

 hard, outer rind, when the pith so obtained was cut into long and narrow 

 strips. These were laid side by side and carefully cemented together under 

 moist pressure by the application of .a second series of strips crossing the first 

 ^t right angles. An extension of this method permitted the formation of 

 sheets of any desirable size, but it may be observed, that inasmuch as the 

 product was obtained by a simple process of slicing, it could not be regarded 

 as paper in the modern acceptation of that term, i. e., a fabricated material the 

 component elements of which have been separated from their former relations 

 in the original material and recombined by a process of felting. It was, in fact, 

 a product which represented the original material transformed only with res- 

 pect to its external features by the aid of the most simple of mechanical 

 processes. 



For an unknown period of time, the Chinese have employed a 

 primitive paper, which is closely similar to papyrus. Though dif- 

 fering with respect to the plant from which it is derived, it is substantially 

 the same with respect to the part of the plant from which it is taken, with 

 respect to its detailed structure, and also with respect to its mode of prepa- 

 ration. We are all more or less familiar with the so-called rice paper of the 

 Chinese. It is employed as a favorite material upon which to draw 

 brilliantly-colored flowers and costumed figures because of the peculiarly 

 velvet-like surface which it develops when so employed. 



PITH OF AUALIA PAPYRIFERA 



This so-called paper is derived from the very large pith of a kind of 

 aralia ( Aralia papyrifera ) indigenous to the Island of Formosa and now ex- 

 tensively cultivated in China. The voluminous pith is first removed from 



