Nature and Art, May 1, 1867.] 
THE AMERICAN WATER- WEED. 
139 
which to manufacture white paper as can well be 
imagined. Nothing, however, can be simpler. 
After having been opened and well shaken out, the 
stalks are thrown into a boiler containing a strong 
solution of caustic alkali, and are boiled until a 
handful can be twisted asunder with ease. It has 
now parted with a good deal of colouring matter, 
and is ready, after having drained sufficiently, to 
be broken and washed — operations which are 
carried on simultaneously in what is technically 
known as a “ washing engine,” an elliptical trough 
having the machinery on one side of a partition, 
jilaced down the centre of the engine, but termi- 
nating at some distance from either end ; the effect 
of this arrangement being that the material in the 
engine is made to flow round the partition, or 
“ midfeather,” by the rotary action of the ma- 
chinery. The Alfa now gradually assumes a light 
yellowish tinge, and with the introduction to the 
engine of a cpiantity of chloride of lime the process 
of bleaching commences. Meanwhile the Alfa is 
being drawn out into fine short filaments by the 
triturating action of the machinery. Gradually all 
colour departs, and, as it flows round the engine, 
the stuff more nearly resembles a duct of snow- 
white cream than anything else to which it can be 
likened. Now the shutters of the washing cover 
are withdrawn, in order to thoroughly eliminate 
the “ bleach.” That done, and the stuff finished 
as regards sizing and tint, a valve in the bottom of 
the engine is drawn, the prepared Alfa plunges 
into the stuff chest at the head of the paper- 
machine, and, in less time than is consumed in 
recording the fact, is ready for the hands of the 
printer. 
Nearly allied to Esparto is the Stipa pennata , 
Linn., or feather-grass, which adorns the verdant 
banks and lane-sides of this country. History 
saitlr that the nodding plumes, which are its most 
striking characteristic, were at one time used by 
British ladies in the embellishment of their head- 
dresses. Whether we shall ever clothe our agricul- 
tural hinds in Alfa jackets and Esparto shoes, this 
deponent sayetli not; but even though the plant be 
never used in England beyond its present limits, 
the reader will agree with us, that the humble 
African rush, known in botanical nomenclature as 
the Stipa tenacissima, Linn., is one of the most 
remarkable and beneficent members of the great 
vegetable family. B. L. 
THE AMERICAN WATER-WEED. 
( Anacha/ris alsinastrwn.) 
By the Rev. W. Houghton. 
M OST of our readers are doubtless acquainted 
with the form of the remarkable plant 
which made its appearance about seventeen years 
ago in our rivers and canals, and which in some 
places has become, from its rapid increase and the 
difficulty of keeping it in check, quite a nuisance. 
The history of the introduction into this country 
of Anacliaris alsinastrum is not known. Botanists 
are, for the most part, agreed that it is a stranger, 
and that it belongs to North America, but the 
mode of its advent into England and Scotland 
remains a mystery. The plant appears to have 
been first observed by that excellent naturalist Hr. 
George Johnston, in the month of August, 1842, in 
the lake of Bunse Castle, Berwickshire, which 
lake is situated upon a tributary of the Whiteadder 
river, an affluent of the Tweed. “ Dr. John- 
ston sent specimens to Mr. Babington, but little 
was heard of the aquatic intruder till it was 
found by a lady, Miss Kirby, in certain reservoirs 
adjoining the Foxton locks, on the canal near 
Market ILarborough, in Leicestershire : this was in 
the autumn of 1 847.” The plants were all females , 
and were found in considerable abundance, growing 
closely matted, together. The reservoirs had only 
recently been cleaned ; consequently the appearance 
of the weed in them had most probably been 
recent. The attention of botanists having been 
again turned to this plant, Mr. Babington, in 
December, 1847, read a paper before the Botanical 
Society of Edinburgh, “ On Anacliaris alsinastrum, 
a supposed new British plant.” This paper was 
published in the “ Annals and Magazine of Natu- 
ral History,” Second Series, No. 2, February, 
1848 ; and there was added to it a synopsis of the 
species of Anacliaris and Apalanthe, by Dr. J. E. 
Planclion ; the paper was also illustrated by an 
admirable engraving. When Dr. Johnston (the 
first discoverer) read Mr. Babington’s account, he 
immediately recognized in it the weed he had ob- 
served in the lake of Dunse Castle, where he again 
found it in great profusion, as well as in patches 
down the Whiteadder in its course to the Tweed. 
About the same time the Anacliaris made its ap- 
pearance in Nottinghamshire, in the river Lene, a 
tributary of the Trent, “ growing in great pro- 
fusion for about a quarter of a mile in extent.” It 
was the same year observed abundantly in the 
Watford locks, Northamptonshire, “ on the same 
line of canal as the Foxton reservoirs.” In the 
year 1849 it was observed in profusion in the 
Trent, near Burton ; it was noticed near Rugby in 
1850, and in the Cam in 1851. Mr. Marshall, of 
Ely, in his first letter to the “ Cambridge Inde- 
