40 



ON THE DECOMPOSITION OF ROCKS, &c.— MATERIALS FOR PAPER MAKING. 



[1854. 



ing rags ; secondly, the ability to read, and the power of purchasing 

 newspapers, books, &c., arc so universal, that the demand for paper is 

 much great'jr than can be met by any possible internal supply of rags. 

 I could wish the European nations were similarly situated, and should 

 be willing to risk the probable effects on the price of paper. 



From the best estimate I can form, I think we shall not err in setting 

 down the cost at which manufacturers now produce the 177,633,009 

 lbs. weight of paper, which it may be assumed will be made this year, 

 at £1,000,000 more than the same weight would have cost in 1852. 

 In 1832 only 6i, 93.5, 65.5 lbs. of paper were manufactured in Great 

 Britain, so that in twenty years the manufacture has nearly trebled 

 its production, in 18.53 the quantity being 177,633,000 lbs. 



If the manufacture should keep at its present point only, the high 

 price of material is likely to be permanent, but as the demand for 

 paper will probably go on increasing, it well becomes the Society of 

 Ai'ts to prospect, if I may use the expression, for raw materials for 

 this commodity. That the supply of paper will ever fail I have no fear, 

 inasmuch as nearly a century ago paper was experimentally made from 

 upwards of thirty different materials, and more recently attempts have 

 been made, not without some success, to manufacture it on a large 

 scale from plantain fibre, peat, wood shavings, hop-bines, straw, &c. 

 Some specimens made a year or two ago from plantain fibre, were undis- 

 tinguishable from good printing paper made from rags ; I am not 

 aware of the cause of suspension of operations. Experiments are still 

 going on, I believe under a recent patent for the mnavifacture of wood 

 paper. A patent has also been recently taken out for the manufacture 

 of paper from hop-bines. I fear the cost of reducing several of these 

 substances to pulp will be found too great to allow of the preparation 

 being remunerative, even at the present high price of rags. 



According to the views propounded en Wednesday evening. Dr. 

 Eoyle and the speakers generally seemed to regard the various fibres 

 then described as sources of ample supplj' for the paper-makers. In 

 quantity and quality I will not for a moment dispute the point, but, 

 with every desire to see the price of paper materials low, and, in my 

 opinion, it is second to " clieap bread " only in importance, I am 

 certain we shall not accomplish the object by self-deception on any one 

 important fact ; and neither hopes, wishes nor experiments can over- 

 come market price ; and on this ground I venture to express my 

 doubts of the present availableness of the substances so ably pleaded 

 for by Hr. Royle. 



I find on inquiry this day, that the present market price of 

 Manilla hemp is from 70s. to 76s.; jute, 27s. to 32s.; per cwt. ; 

 for plantain fibre I could not obtain the quotation. Now the 

 best white-English and foreign cotton and linen rags, suit- 

 able for making writing paper, do not range above 34s. per 

 cwt., and these suggested raw fibres would require much more chemi- 

 cal treatment than the rags of the same price. The rags have been 

 brought into a textile condition from original fibrous state at a cer- 

 tain cost, v^hich has been defrayed by the use to which rags were ap- 

 plied whilst in the state of garments, &c. ; if, therefore, the substances 

 mentioned on Wednesday could be used in lieu of the best rags it 

 would only be a case of substitution — no advantage in price would be 

 gained. The greatest rise, be it observed, has occurred in the lower 

 quality of paper materials, and it is additional supplies of this de- 

 scription which are needed. If these new fibres be introduced for 

 this pui'pose the case is still worse, manufacturers would be using 

 a 32s. article for the production of paper, the ordinary materials 

 for which are now only 10s. per cwt. It is not the original cost of 

 fibre merely which must be considered, but also waste in manufac- 

 ture, chemical cost of power, wear and tear and replacement of ma- 

 chinery, wages, duty, and profit, truly a formidable list of obstacles 

 to cheapness. 



Having offered these remarks on the various propositions which have 

 been brought forward for removing the difficulty, I may be allowed 

 to direct attention to what I conceive to be the true source of relief. 

 1 had hoped to have celebrated the repeal of the duty long ere this, 

 but under present circumstances this happy event must be considered 

 as indefinitely postponed; the repeal, however, come when it may, 

 will be equivalent to an average reduction in price of about 20 per 

 cent. The repeal of the duty, although it would to a certain exten t 

 lower the actual price of paper would, I have no doubt, have a ten- 

 dency to raise the price of materials by increasing the demand 

 for the manufactured articles. I should not, however, trouble you 

 with these remarks if I depended principally upon the repeal of the 



duty for a reduction in price, but I am of opinion that an nnlimited 

 supply of a cheap and a suitable material exists in our own country. 

 I refer to straw. The sheet upon whicii I write is made entirely from 

 straw, and leaves little to be desired for ordinary uses, and for many 

 purposes it is preferable to paper made from rags. Moreover, less 

 power is required to prepare the materials, the process being more 

 chemical than mechanical, an important matter, when the high price 

 of coals in some parts -f the country is considered. Why, then, has 

 this manufacture been comparatively neglected? Solely, I believe, 

 from the circumstance that the large quantity of alkali required to 

 prepare straw for pulp, by combining with its resinous and silicious 

 matters, causes that article, the alkali, to become a more important 

 element of cost in the manufacture than the straw itself. To reduce 

 the cost by recovering a portion of the alkali, an expensive mode of eva- 

 poration has been hitherto adopted. It has long been my decided convic- 

 tion that this alkaline solution could be used as 'the raw material of some 

 other manufactures, such as soap making, or for common glass, pro- 

 bably both, thus saving, at any rate partly, the expense of evaporation ; 

 and the great point I wish to bring before the Society is the desirable- 

 ness of ascertaining to what uses this residuum can be profitably 

 applied. If the expense of evaporation could be saved, the manufac- 

 ture of paper from straw would be rendered more profitable, and a 

 large supplj"- would be the result, the rag market particularly for the 

 inferior description of goods suitable for the manufacture of printing 

 paper, be kept low, and the desired object would be thus accomplished. 

 The proprietors of the following straw-paper mills, I believe all at 

 present in existence, would, I have no doubt, supply some of their 

 "black liquor" to any soapmaker, glass manufactui-er, or chemist 

 who might be disposed to try experiments with it, viz : — Tovil Mills, 

 JIaidstone, Kent ; Quenington Mills, Fairford, Gloucestershire ; Burn- 

 side Mills, Kendal, Westmorland ; Golden Bridge Mills, near Dublin. 

 I understand Mr. Simson, of Maidstone, has patented some process 

 connected with this subject, but with the particulars I am not acquainted. 



Irisli Peat Compaiiy. 



At a meetins of the shareholders of the Irish Peat Company, (July 

 1, 1854,) the following report of Mr. Powell, the temporary manager 

 was read : — 



In compliance with your request, I forward a short report 

 on the working of the factory at Kilberry, from the period that the 

 furnaces were lighted up to the present period. 



TuKF Consumed. — The turf consumed in the furnaces since the 18th 

 March, the day on which the fui'uaces were first lighted, up to this 

 day, amounted to 19,674 wagon loads, such as are used in charging 

 the furnaces. Six of these wagon loads average 1 ton, giving the 

 total amount of turf consumed as 3279 tons. 



Tar PRODtjeED. — The quantity of tar collected up to the present 

 time amounts to a little more than 70 tons, in addition to whicli there 

 is now in the various tanks about 10 tons not yet collected, giving a 

 total of 80 tons, or, as near as possible, 2|- per cent, on the amount of 

 tui-f consumed. 



Tar Distilled. — 47,518 lbs. of tar have now been distilled, which 

 has yielded 730 gallons of rough oil, and 21, 950 lbs. of rough paraffine 

 and oil mixed, the whole of which is in coui-se of separation and puri- 

 fication. 



Naphtha. — From the ammoniacal liquor has been distilled, up (o 

 the present time, 223 gallons of rough naphtha, averaging more than 

 45 degrees above proof, and which, when re-distilled, and reduced to 

 37J degrees, the usual marketable strength, will yield more than the 

 same amount of rectified spirit. 



r Sulphate of Ammosia — We have further obtained fropi the am- 

 moniacal liquor distilled 1 J ton of sulphate of ammonia, fit for market, 

 and about J ton more i" course of draining and evaporation : 6000 

 gallons of ammoniac, jiquor yield, on an average, 10 gallons of 

 naphtha and 200 lbs. of sulphate of ammonia, and we have at present 

 about 30,000 g.allons not yet distilled. These are the simple statisti- 

 cal facts relative to the products obtained from the tui'f hitherto 

 consumed, but I dc dot consider that they are a fair cri- 

 terion of what we have a right to expect from the same amount of 



