MECHANICAL AND USEFUL AETS. 105 



was thin, and very elastic, and easily stretched, and seemed to be of 

 uniform thickness. Another process exhibited was the converse of 

 the first, namely, reduction : but in this case it happened to be the 

 reduction of a portion of a page of the Times of that day. The 

 rubber sheet in this case had to be stretched beforehand, and relaxed 

 after the impression was stamped on its elastic coating. The dimi- 

 nished copy was quite as vivid as the original. In this case another 

 process, wiiich we did not witness, was said to have been used in 

 obtaining the first impression : of course it was not from the Times 

 types. A piece of a copy of the Times had been cut out and sub- 

 mitted to a simple process of maceration in a bath ; an impres- 

 sion was then taken off it on to a lithographic stone, and thence it 

 was impressed upon the stretched rubber sheet for the reduction. 

 This process is, however, not quite new." 



PAPEK-MAKING. 



Me. T. Eoutledge has patented certain improvements in the 

 manufacture of Paper. These consist in the preparation of half stuff 

 (paper pulp) and paper from esparto or Spanish grass (comprising 

 the plants Spartum Tigeum, Stipa Tenecissima, Dis or Alpha), com- 

 mercially so denominated, by an improved and economical process of 

 manufacture, the same being applicable to straw and other raw 

 fibrous substances. On the 31st of July, 1S56, a patent was granted 

 to the present patentee for the treatment of the above, and other raw 

 fibres, by a process consisting of boiling the same in a caustic ley 

 composed of soda, with more lime added than was necessary to render 

 the same caustic ; and secondly, by a subsequent boiling in carbonate 

 or bicarbonate soda solution. He has found that not only does the 

 excess of lime in the ley so prepared, but even the use of lime beyond 

 a certain point in caustic ley, as ordinarily employed, set or regu- 

 late the silicious, albuminous, glutinous, and gummy resinous com- 

 pounds or matters ; but it fixes or dyes the colouring and extractive 

 matters combined more or less with all raw fibres, and which it is 

 necessary to render soluble before the fibres can be efficiently sepa- 

 rated from each other, and so constitute a finely-divided fibrous half 

 stuff. He finds that by employing a ley in which the lime is not, 

 as it were, so prominent, he obtains a better practical result. — 

 Mechanics' Magazine. 



Mr. Richard Herring, the author of several works on the paper 

 manufacture, has published an important letter on the svpply 

 of paper-making materials. He says there are more rags wasted, 

 burnt, or left to rot, than would make our paper manufacturers in- 

 dependent of all assistance from abroad. A regular communication 

 ought to be formed by country carriage, and by railways for the 

 conveyance of the rags to London, or to those paper-mills in the 

 country which enter largely into the trade. A plan is proposed which 

 will place the whole subject plainly before the public, offer proper 

 pledges, establish proper means, and give the whole movement the 

 degree of activity and regularity which may render it profitable to 

 individuals and the country. 



