m A SUPPLY OF PAPER MATERIAL FROM THE MUMMY 

 PITS OF EGYPT. 



BY DR. ISAIAH DECK, CHEMIST, ETC., NEW-TfORS:. 



At a time when the leading journals, and the mass of the read- 

 ing public of the Old and New World are invoking the aids of 

 their respective governments and scientific investigators to de\ ise 

 some means for remedying the scarcity and increasing price of 

 rags, and those materials hitherto adapted to the manufacture of 

 paper, it is presumed a few practical facts, founded upon the 

 author's experiments and observations in relation to sources of 

 supply of linen for this necessrry fabric, for many years will be 

 acceptable, and ultimately available. 



Having been interested and engaged some months in investiga- 

 ting, through all its details, a most ingenious and valuable patent 

 process for the manufacture of pulp and paper from a material 

 hitherto waste, and as abundant as it is effectual, and which, in 

 its present infancy, I can thus for obvious reasons only briefly 

 allude to, I have taken pains to acquire exact paper statistics 

 from the sources within my reach and observation. 



A brief summary of these up to the end of 1853 and '54, and 

 upon which calculations for the future may be safely founded, 

 will not be uninteresting here, and prove that the average con- 

 sumption of paper in the United States, is fully equal to 15 lbs. 

 per head per annum, or three hundred millions of pounds 

 (300,000,000 lbs.) to meet this demand. There are in the States 

 about 800 paper mills at work, consuming 405,000,000 lbs. of 

 rags, the assumed product being 75 lbs. of paper from 100 lbs. of 

 rags, and the imports and exports of the article being pretty 

 nearly equal ; the average va,lue of these rags at four cents per 



