Part V.] Pearson: Note on the Utilization of Bamboo. 9 
shown that no forests are really inexhaustible. History is therefore 
repeating itself in the matter of the supplies of the raw materials for 
the manufacture of paper. The first instance was when the amount of 
rag available was insufficient and Esparto grass came in during the 
fifties to save the situation. A similar difficulty arose in the severities 
and this time the situation was saved by the introduction of spruce 
wood-pulp. Again in 1910 the position became acute. It is true 
that the prices of chemical wood-pulp have not as yet 
shown any startling upward tendency, but the continuous fall in 
prices of both wood-pulp and the paper made from it, came 
to a sudden stop five years ago, while the absence of any serious rise in 
prices is due to the stress of competition in the producing countries. 
It is believed in paper-making circles that these conditions cannot 
continue, and that prices must inevitably rise in the near future as the 
ever-increasing shortage of wood makes itself more seriously felt. 
Mr. A. D. Little, Chief Scientific Officer to the American Paper and 
Pulp Association, in a report on this subject, emphasises “ the growing 
scarcity of pulp wood, the continually rising price and longer haul with 
which paper-makers using this material are now contending, and the 
coming competition of new and better stocks which even now can be 
produced more cheaply than any bleached wood fibre.” 
“ Wood, as a raw material, has proved so available, convenient, 
compact, easily handled, and heretofore so cheap, that we have been 
led to overlook or ignore the immense sources of other and better paper 
stocks which lie easily within our reach. 
“We are not dealing with the perennial suggestions of visiona¬ 
ries who see a paper stock in every thing which has a fibre, but are 
instead, concerned with the serious proposals of capable technologists 
whose conclusions are based on careful study.” 
History of 'paper-mills in India .—The first paper-mill in India was 
erected at Serampore and is reported not to have been a success. The 
next venture was that made by the Bally Paper Mills Company in 1874 ; 
for ten years it flourished ; after that it did not pay and finally went 
into liquidation in 1906. 
At present there are six or seven paper-mills in India. The largest 
is the Titaghur Paper Mills Co., Ltd., with two mills near Calcutta, the 
older mill being situated at Titaghur and the newer mill at Kanknar- 
rah. Their present outturn is about 14,000 to 15,000 tons of 
1 167 ] 
