Miscellaneous Intelligence. 291 
the joints or knots in the stalks are then so hardened that they will re- 
sist all bleaching agents. To produce paper pulp from them they must 
be cut green before the grain appears, and this would probably not be 
advantageous. Many grasses contain from 30 to 50 per cent of fibre, 
not very strong, but easily bleached. Of indigenous grasses the Rye 
grass contains 85 per cent of paper pulp; the Phalaris 30 per cent, 
Arrhenatherum 30 per cent, Dactylis 30 per cent, and Carex 30 per 
cent. Several reeds and canes contain from 30 to 50 per cent of fibre, 
h : 
for paper pulp. I made this discovery accidentally in 1851, when I 
was making flax cotton in my model establishment at Stepney, near 
London. I remarked that the pine wood vats in which I bleached were 
rapidly decomposed on the surface into a kind of paper pulp; I col- 
Si: 
40 per cent pulp. The cost of reducing to pulp and bleaching pine 
wood will be about three times that of bleaching ra 
~ 
aw. 4 
n the Hancornia speciosa, Artificial Gutta Percha and India 
Brit. 
one of the most delicious fruits known, and is regarded by the B 
(who call it Mangava) as superior to all other fruits of their 
