234 RICHMOND. 



A. D. Little, official chemist of the American Paper and Pulp As- 

 sociation, has discussed this subject at full length. 2 



He has emphasized the "growing scarcity of pulp wood, the continually rising 

 price and longer haul with which paper makers using this material are now 

 contending, and the coming competition of new and better stocks which even 

 now can be produced more cheaply than any bleached wood fiber. 



"Wood, as a raw material, has proved so available, convenient, compact, easily 

 handled, and heretofore so cheap, that we have been led to overlook or ignore 

 the immense sources of other and better paper stocks which easily lie within our 

 reach. 



"We are not dealing with the perennial suggestions of visionaries who see 

 a paper stock in everything which has a fiber, but are, instead, concerned with 

 the serious proposals of capable technologists whose conclusions are based on 

 careful study." 



While opinions differ as to the growing scarcity of suitable pulp 

 woods, it is safe to assume that spruce wood is becoming exhausted. 

 Spruce forms at least two-thirds of all the wood converted into pulp 

 at the present time. The supply of this material was formerly considered 

 to be j>ractically inexhaustible. 



The importance of searching for a suitable substitute for wood is 

 realized when it is considered that the world's annual production of 

 paper has reached 8,000,000 tons, with an estimated increase of 25 per 

 cent every ten years. Six and a half million tons of this output are 

 made from wood. Therefore, wood is the controlling factor in the paper 

 world to-day, and influences which tend to increase its cost are the 

 direct cause of the recent systematic search for a cheaper substitute. 



BAMBOO FOR PAPER PULP. 



The trend of recent investigation in the direction of bamboo fiber 

 is especially noteworthy, and the serious consideration of this material 

 at present is largely the outcome of the spasmodic attention which it 

 has received since 1875, the date of its first introduction. This revival 

 of interest in bamboo as a source of paper stock is- largely due to the 

 investigations of E. W. Sindall and William Eiatt, two English paper 

 manufacturers and pulp experts, who, independently of each other, have 

 studied the material in British India. 



Sindall, in a report 3 to the government of India, sums up his con- 

 clusions on the suitability of bamboo fiber for paper making and the 

 practicability of its commercial use as follows : 



In point of texture and strength the pulp obtainable is of excellent quality. 

 With bamboo costing three dollars and twenty-four cents per ton, the value of 

 the raw material required for a ton of unbleached pulp works out at a reason- 

 able figure. As it would take about 2\ tons of bamboo to make 1 ton of paper 



2 Chem. Eng. (1909), 7, 106. 



3 Report on the Manufacturing of Paper and Paper Pulp in Burma. (1906.) 



