34 
Indian Forest Records. 
[Vol. IV. 
2. Various processes by which the raw material may be con¬ 
verted into pulp. 
Various 'processes for treating raw material. —There are four methods 
by which the raw material may be reduced to pulp, namely, by the sul¬ 
phite, sulphate, and caustic soda processes and also by mechanical 
treatment. In connection with bamboo, the first process has been tried 
but bamboo sulphite pulp is extremely difficult to bleach, which renders 
the process unworkable on a commercial scale. The preparation of 
mechanical bamboo-pulp, so far as is known, has never been attempted 
and it is highly improbable that it could ever be prepared in this way. 
We are therefore only concerned with the sulphate and caustic soda pro¬ 
cesses. The former has been tried on a laboratory scale by Raitt, and he 
has obtained slightly better results by this process than those obtained 
with caustic soda. The results of his work are fully described in his 
report published in the Indian Forest Records, Volume III, Part III, 
entitled—“ Report on the Investigation of Bamboo as material for Pro¬ 
duction of Paper-pulp.” Whether the results obtained by the sulphate 
process in a mill will be equal to those obtained with caustic soda and 
whether the resultant half stuff will prove to be of equal quality, 
remains to be proved. 
3. Species of bamboos for paper-making. 
Species of bamboos .—The question of the species of bamboo useful 
for paper-making has been discussed elsewhere. It is not only a 
question of the suitability of any given species for the manufacture of 
pulp but also largely a consideration of the available supply in large 
quantities, etc., at cheap rates and from suitable localities. The four 
species dealt with in this report are :— 
(1) Bambusa polymorpha (Kyathaung). 
(2) Cephalostachyum pergracile (Tinwa). 
(3) Bambusa arundinacea (Daugi). 
(4) Meldcanna bambusoides (Muli). 
It is with these four species of bamboos that tests have been carried 
out on a commercial scale. 
4. Preparation of the bamboo before treatment. 
Nodes and Internodes .—A difficult point to settle was the 
vexed question of how to deal with the nodes or joints of the bamboo, 
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