Part III.] Baitt : Bamboo as Material for Paper-pulp. 
7 
matter in which the cellulose is buried has to be overcome. The average 
proportion of nodes to the whole culm is shown in the following table :— 
TABLE I. 
Percentage proportion, w by weight, of nodes to whole culm in dry seasoned 
bamboo. 
Per cent. 
C. pergracile ....... 6 
Melocanna bambusoides ..... 7 
B. Tulda ........ 8| 
B. polymorpha ....... 9 
B. arundinacea . . . . . . . 15 
9. A bamboo culm is light and buoyant solely because it is hollow. 
Specific gravity ^s com P onen ^ wo °d is as heavy as many of the 
hard woods. Coniferous wood on the other hand 
is extremely light, on the average less than half the weight of bamboo. 
Judged solely by this standard it would appear to be an impossible mate¬ 
rial for our purpose, but it is saved from rejection on this score by the 
features mentioned in paragraph 6. The following table gives the sp. gr. 
of the five species we are dealing with, together with one other ( B . Bal- 
cooa), introduced in order to show how heavy a bamboo may be. For 
comparison, the sp. gr. of several woods in common use for pulp making 
are also given. 
TABLE II. 
Specific gravity of two years old seasoned bamboo. 
Internodes. 
Nodes. 
Internodes 
crushed. 
Melocanna bambusoides 
•8410 
•8091 
B. arundinacea 
•8704 
•8351 
B. Tulda 
•9056 
•7682 
B. polymorpha 
•9555 
•9170 
1-0100 
G. pergracile 
•9555 
•9068 
•9891 
B.\Balcooa . 
White pine . 
•3485 
1-0090 
•9876 
Spruce ... 
•4087 
Fir ... 
•3545 
It wall be noted that B. Balcooa is actually heavier than water and 
therefore ranks in weight with some of our heaviest hard woods. The 
nodes are in all cases lighter than the internodes. 
[ 187 ] 
