110 PAPER FROM INDIAN CORN LEAVES. 



tinent of Europe, and can be easily cultivated to a degree more than suffi- 

 cient to satisfy the utmost demands of the paper market. Besides, as rags 

 are likely to fall in price before long, owing to the extensive supply of 

 material resulting from this new element, the world of writers and readers 

 would, seem to have a brighter future before it than the boldest fancy woidd 

 have imagined a very short time ago. This is not the first time that paper 

 has been manufactured from the blade of Indian corn ; but, strange to say, 

 the art was lost, and required to be discovered anew. As early as the 

 seventeenth century, an Indian-corn paper manufactory was in full opera- 

 tion at the town of Rievi, in Italy, and enjoyed a world-wide reputation at 

 the time ; but with the death of its proprietor the secret seems to have 

 lapsed into oblivion. The manifold attempts subsequently made to con- 

 tinue the manufacture were always baffled by the difficulty of removing the 

 silicious, resinous, and glutinous matters contained in the blade. The 

 recovery of this process has at last been effected, and is due to the research 

 of one Herr Moritz Diamant, a Jewish writing master in Austria. 

 Having busied himself for some time in experiments on Indian corn, the 

 ingenious discoverer has at -length been rewarded with the desired results of 

 his labour ; and a trial of his method on a grand scale, which was made at 

 the Imperial manufactory of Schlogelmiihle, near Glegnitz (Lower Austria), 

 has completely demonstrated the certainty of the invention. Although the 

 machinery, arranged as it was for the manufacture of rag paper, could not, 

 of course, fully answer the requirements of Herr Diamant, the results of 

 the essay were wonderfully favourable. The article produced was of a 

 purity of texture and whiteness of colour, that left nothing to be desired ; 

 and this is all the more valuable from the difficulty usually experienced in 

 the removal of impurities from the rags. Knots, and other inequalities of 

 surface, so frequent in the ordinary paper, and which give so much trouble 

 in printing, the new product is entirely free from, and this without the 

 material undergoing any special process to attain the desired end. 



Another immense advantage, and this in an economical point of view, is 

 the reduction of the steam power required in the manufacture by one-third 

 of its present amount, in consequence of the material being reduced to pulp 

 by chemical, and not, as at present, mechanical agency. The present pro- 

 prietor of the invention is Count Carl Octavio Zu Lippe, Weissenfeld, who 

 has bought it from the originator, and from several experiments deduced 

 the following results : — 



1. It is not only possible to produce every variety of paper from the 

 blades of Indian corn, but the product is equal, and in some cases even 

 superior, to the article manufactured from rags. 



2. The paper requires but very little size to render it fit for writing pur- 

 poses, as the pulp naturally contains a large proportion of that necessary 

 ingredient, which can at the same time be easily eliminated if desirable. 



3. The bleaching is effected by an extraordinary rapid and facile process, 

 and, indeed, for the common light coloured packing paper the process 

 becomes entirely unnecessary. 



