128 WOOD PULP FOR PAPER. 
was paid to it. The leaves and top-branches of Scotch fir produce 25 
per cent, of paper pulp. The shavings and sawdust of wood from 
Scotch fir give 40 per cent. pulp. The cost of reducing to pulp and 
bleaching pine-wood will be about three times that of bleaching rags. 
As none of the above -named substances or plants would entirely satisfy 
on all points the wants of the paper-makers, I continued my researches, 
and at last remembered the Papyrus (the plant of which the ancients 
made their paper), which I examined and found to contain 40 per cent, 
of strong fibre, excellent for paper, and very easily bleached. The only 
point which was not entirely satisfactory was relative to the abundant 
supply of it, as this plant is only found in Egypt. I directed, there- 
fore, my attention to plants growing in this country, and I found, to 
my great satisfaction that the common rushes (Juncus effusus and others) 
contain 40 per cent, of fibre, quite equal, if not superior, to the papyrus 
fibre, and a perfect substitute for rags in the manufacture of paper, 
and that one ton of rushes contains more fibre than two tons of fiax- 
straw." 
Colonel Jenkins, in a communication made to the Agri-Horticultural 
Society of India, observes : — " We have no end of allied plants in the 
families Cyperacece and Juncacece, and if it were found practicable in 
this country to reduce the plants to a pulp, we might be able to import 
it in large quantities in a dried and packed state ; or the plants might be 
dried only and then be pressed into bales to be reduced to pulp at home 
by machinery. Of nearly all the Cyperuses, mats are made by the 
natives, and some of them are beautifully white, and there seems but 
little doubt we might send them home in the state as prepared for being 
woven into mats with no small profit if found to be well adapted for 
making paper. Mats are also made of various Juncuses, and they are 
so similar that I have no doubt they can be equally used. I think it 
also likely that our common Phrynium dicliotomum (Calcutta mats) 
might be found serviceable, and other plants of the families of Maran- 
tacece and Zingiberacece : the Alpinias, for instance, and Costases, of 
which plants there are no end throughout the eastern districts. In 
Herring's work, " On Paper and Paper Machinery," there is a brief 
mention of the mode in which pulp is manufactured from the bamboo 
by the Chinese, p. 31 ; but though the bamboo paper may be useful 
for many purposes, the cheapest article and the best will be found 
amongst the grasses. If wheat-straw affords a good pulp for paper, I 
should think rice-straw would give a better, for it is apparently a 
much tougher substance. 
Another waste product which has been attempted to be more extensively 
utilised is that pest to agriculturists, the thistle. A number of persons, 
it is stated, have been lately employed in the neighbourhood of Sens 
(Yonne) in collecting thistle-heads for a paper-manufacturer, who uses 
them as a substitute for rags. There is abundance of this raw material 
to be obtained at a cheap rate in many countries. An Australian paper 
