FIG. 129.—SULPHUROUS ACID PLANT FOR MAKING WOOD PULP.
It was stated by the Paper Trade Journal in 1897 that the increase in paper making in the United States during the 15 years preceding amounted to 352 per cent., due chiefly to the growth of the wood pulp industry. The Androscoggin Pulp Mill, established in Maine in 1870, was one of the pioneers in this field. In that State the industry had grown in 1897 to over $13,000,000 and gave employment to more than 5,000 men, but the State of Maine is excelled by both New York and Wisconsin in this industry, for in the same year New York mills had a daily capacity of 1,800,000 pounds; Wisconsin, 670,000; Maine, 665,000, and other States a less capacity. There are over 1,000 paper mills in the United States, and their combined daily capacity amounts to over 13,000 tons. In 1898 the United States exported over five million dollars’ worth of paper, and over fifty million pounds of wood pulp. Of the total amount of paper produced in the world Mulhall estimated it in 1890 to be 2,620,000,000 tons annually. This amount is greatly increased at the present time, and by far the larger part of it is manufactured from wood.
In 1891 the Philadelphia Record in an experimental test as to speed, cut trees from the forest, converted them into paper, and then into printed newspapers, all within the space of 22 hours. At a later period in Germany, where the wood pulp art began, even this expeditious work has been excelled. The trees were felled in the morning at 7:35, converted into paper, and presented at 10 A. M. in the form of printed newspapers, with a record of the news of the forenoon. The great naval edition of the Scientific American of April 30, 1898, consumed a hundred tons of wood pulp paper, and was therefore built upon a material foundation of 125 cords of wood, which cleared off over six acres of well-set spruce timber land. It is mainly wood pulp that has enabled books and newspapers to be made so cheaply, for they are now furnished at a less price than the cost of the paper made in the old way from rags.
FIG. 130.—LINOTYPE MACHINE.
FIG. 131.—LINOTYPE MATRIX.