September, 1911.] 



209 



Fibres. 



the rest of the day far into the night in 

 eating, smoking and story-telling of the 

 weirdest sort. 



The gathering being done at the 

 beginning of the rainy season, as the 

 milk flows best then, great care must 

 be exercised to avoid the frequent 

 showers, as water injures the product 

 and often stops coagulation. The dry- 

 ing or coagulation is very simple. The 

 tank is set out in the sunlight for several 

 hours, and a thin skin soon forms on 

 the surface of the milk. After a time 

 when this is thick enough it is peeled 

 off and hung up to dry. This film looks 

 like raw hide and is of a dark red colour. 

 The dishonest gatherer will fold the wet 

 sides of the sheet together before it has 

 thoroughly dried out, and by so doing 

 gets greater weight. Normally, the 

 drying continues for about a week, but 

 the product shrinks for a month or 

 more. The average gatherer brings in 

 from 400 to 500 pounds, while experts in 

 good sections have been known to gather 

 as much as 1,000 pound* in a season. 

 When the work is finished camp is 



broken and the balata is taken to Para- 

 maribo ; the men are paid whatever 

 balance is due them, and they promptly 

 and joyously spend it all in a single 

 night. 



The sheet balata from Surinam is 

 the standard, and is worth much more 

 than block, which latter is never as dry, 

 and often contains impurities. Sheet 

 balata costs to collect from 40 to 45 cents 

 a pound ; 20 cents of this goes to the 

 labourer who is paid only for the gum 

 he turns in. The other costs are a small 

 commission to the foreman, general out- 

 fitting expenses, Government tax, and 

 so on. 



Balata has been much slower in coming 

 into use than has almost any rubber or 

 gutta. For a long time it was classed 

 among the intractable gums. In 1890 the 

 world could find a use for only 200 tons 

 of it. Little by little, however, it found 

 uses chiefly as a substitute for gutta- 

 percha, until in 1900 400 tons were 

 needed. 



(7o be continued.) 



FIBRES. 



PAPER INDUSTRY IN CEYLON. 



[Special to the " Morning Leader."] 



In response to many inquiries made 

 about the possibility of a Paper In- 

 dustry in Ceylon, I should like to say a 

 few words, and leave my enterprising 

 and industrially inclined countrymen to 

 take them for what they are worth. 



There are many points .to be considered 

 before a mill is established, and the most 

 important of these is 



The Supply op Raw Material. 

 Till about the middle of the 19th 

 Century, Linen and Cotton Rags were 

 exclusively used as " raw " materials for 

 paper-making. As time advanced, the 

 demand for paper increased and the 

 supply of rags in large quantities to 

 metjc the demand of the Paper-maker 

 was disappointing ; he was forced to go 

 in quest of cheaper and more inex- 

 haustible raw material. This was found 

 in some varieties of wood, like the Pine, 

 Fir, &c The art of paper making 

 consists of uniting or felting together 

 any fibrous material so as to form a con- 

 tinuous sheet. As such paper could be 

 made out of any fibre, it is for the expert 

 to select the one that requires the easiest 

 and least expensive treatment. 

 27 



Dr. Little, the leading Paper-chemist 

 of America, says : — 



"Wood as a Raw Material" 

 has proved so available, convenient, 

 compact, easily handled and heretofore 

 so cheap, that we have been led to over- 

 look or ignore the immense sources of 

 other and better paper stocks which lie 

 easily within our reach." 



The demand for paper is steadily in- 

 creasing by leaps and bounds, and as it 

 was feared that there would come a 

 famine in the pulp wood, those con- 

 cerned were on the look-out for suitable 

 provision in other directions. Mr. 

 Thomas Routledge, the famous Suther- 

 land Paper-maker, who first introduced 

 Esparto Grass into England as a paper 

 stock, found in the Bamboo an excellent 

 material for the manufacture of paper. 

 Ever since then investigations have 

 been going on, and now experts like 

 Sindall, Raitt, Ricnmond and others 

 agree that 



The Bamboo 

 would be the future mainstay of Paper- 

 makers. Dr, Arthur D. Little says in 

 the American Exporter : — 



"Especially noteworthy in the deve- 

 lopments of the year is the serious and 

 general revival of interest in bamboo as 



