186 SARAWAK To MrEnrt. 
Both raw sago and sago trees are purchased and worked up ; 
when the former i3 bought it is simply washed and prepared for 
the market, the grain having been previously stamped out of the 
tree trunks by the feet of the natives; when, however, the trunks 
of sago trees are purchased, the process is a longer one. 
The trunks of the sago trees are some thirty to forty feet in 
length and are sold by the cut or krat of three feet, the aver- 
age price being thirty cents per cut. One cut may be said to 
contain a little more than half pasu of sago, though some cuts may 
run higher, even as high as a pasu, but this is rare. 
These krats in coming to the mill are denuded of the outer bark 
and then split with a wooden wedge ; the sago tree being nothing 
but a cylinder of pith, splits with great ease. 
The krats are then placed before a revolving cylinder studded 
with steel points, driven with great velocity and liberally supplied 
with water; this cylinder tears or pulverizes the Arafs imtoa 
pulpy consistency with extraordinary rapidity. 
Placed immediately under the cylinder is a cireular vat in the 
centre of which stands a vertical shaft with revolving wings, which 
agitates the sazo pulp with great velocity and drives it into a hori- 
zontal cylinder of fine wire. The interior of this gauze cylinder * 
is provided with means to propel the fibrous matter forward while 
the pulp is forced through the gauze into a vat or tank beneath ; 
in this the sago flour sinks to the bottom while the refuse is dis- 
charged at the other end of the open cylinder on a tray covered 
with wire-gauze. 
The sago on being removed from the tank is placed in yats 
supplied with clean water in which are revolving agitators. When 
it has been thoroughly stirred up by this process, it is drawn off 
through taps and aliowed to fall on a tray of fine wire-gauze, under- 
neath which are long wooden gutters to receive the sago water, 
while the refuse is thrown off the tray in another direction. | 
* This gauze cylinder works in about five inches of water, and is internally 
arranged with wings or paddles on the Archimedean principle of screw. 
The cylinder at the admission end is six feet in diameter waile the discharge 
-end is but four feet; hence this enables two-thirds of the cylinder to revolve 
in a few inches of water, while the tray at the discharge end is just above the 
“-water level placed there to receive any sagc-flour that may escape from the 
cylinder, of which, however, there are no traces, 
