FRANCE. 469 



FRANCE. 

 MARSEILLES. 



Although I can not find that wood pulp is utilized by any local 

 manufacturers, I am informed that it is used very largely in other 

 parts of Europe, the manufactured products finding ready sale here. 

 Leather is very successfully imitated with this material and made 

 sufficiently tough and durable to answer for chair bottoms and backs. 

 The imitation leather can be decorated elaborately, and furniture of 

 this sort sells at reasonable prices. Children's games, balls, nine- 

 pins, and a thousand and one novelties are also put on the market 

 by manufacturers whose ingenuity is taxed to produce something 

 cheap and attractive. 



The woods used to make the pulp are pine and beech. Beech is 

 preferred, and beech pulp is made in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and 

 Germany. The pulp itself seems to be most successfully employed 

 in Austria. Pulp from pine is made in Germany, Norway and Swe- 

 den, and Russia. The residue of the pulp that is, the knots and 

 hard pieces which do not become entirely soluble is compressed into 

 bricks weighing about 2 pounds each, and these are used for fuel. 



This suggests another matter. In Europe, the vast quantities of 

 sawdust which one sees in the timber country of the United States 

 would be carefully prepared for market, just as coal refuse is here 

 compressed into briquettes. Thousands of tons of coal briquettes 

 can be seen at any time on the wharfs of Marseilles, made of no bet- 

 ter material than goes to waste at many an American coal mine. 



ROBERT P. SKINNER, 



MARSEILLES, October 18, 1898. Consul. 



RHEIMS. 



My investigations have been confined to the establishment of Mr. 

 A. Arnoult, in the town of Sezanne, Department of Marne. 



Mr. Arnoult says that he controls the manufacture in France of 

 the "bois durci," or wood pulp hardened by chemical manipulation, 

 and that he knows of no other house engaged in the fabrication. 



It is very difficult for consuls of the United States to obtain 

 information from French manufacturers, because they are jealous 

 of the fast-growing importance of our country as an exporter of 

 manufactured goods. I have had considerable correspondence with 



