British Guiana Exhibition. 283 
mixed with a very large percentage of water ; this highly fluid con- 
dition being necessary to render the fibres amenable to the final 
treatment which forms them into a continuous and well-compressed 
sheet for shipment to the home market. 
The final treatment is effected through the agency of Messrs. Ber- 
tram's Board machines, a photograph of which was also on view at 
the Exhibition, and on to the travelling-web of wire-cloth of which, 
the " stuff" or " pulp" is delivered over an accurately placed delivery 
board. The "stuff" being mixed, as above mentioned, with a sufficient 
quantity of water to hold the pulp fibres in suspension, is by this means 
uniformly distributed in a thin sheet over the entire surface of this end- 
less web, which runs over a series of small rollers, and vacuum-boxes, 
the latter of which being in communication with exhausters, draw the 
water from the pulped fibres as they lie above the wire-web, and this is 
the first subtraction of water from the stuff with the exception of such 
quantity as may naturally drain by gravitation through the meshes of 
the web previous to arrival at the suflion-boxes. As the stuff passes 
further on it is pressed by the Couch-Rolls, while still on the web, and 
this pressure is a further stage of drying the wet sheet by squeezing 
more water out of it. The sheet next receives two other well regulated 
pressures at the ist and 2nd Press-Rolls, and is then finally heated 
and dried by five steam-heated drying-cylinders, after which it is cut, 
and wound into rolls of marketable dimensions, a sample of which, was 
shewn at the Exhibition. 
Our machinery on Plantation Non Pareil is considered capable of 
making twenty tons of finished paper stuff per week, and we obtain 
about 20 0/0 of the megass in the form of marketable finished paper 
stuff, that is to say, five tons megass produce one ton of finished paper 
stock. If carefully manufactured this stock ought to fetch from £16 to 
£18 per ton, and we consider the value of one ton of megass as fuel, if 
taken dire6t from the mill, the same as in the case of paper-making, to 
be about 7/ when coal costs 28/ per ton in Georgetown. 
CLASS IV.-Oils, Gums, Bark, Glue, &c. 
The most conspicuous exhibits in Class IV. were the 
magnificent specimens of Anime or Locust Gum. These 
were certainly the finest ever seen at any exhibition, and 
probably could not be equalled in the colony. The 
LL2 
