The place of timber in construction bids fair to be taken by papier-mâché, and it may claim to rival iron itself in the multiplicity of its industrial applications. Besides the advantage of its cheap construction, papier-mâché is not affected by changes of temperature, does not crack, like wood or plaster, and is never discoloured by rust. It can be bronzed, painted, polished, or gilded, made heavy or light as required, and possesses greater adaptability for quick removal or adjustment than most other materials. Its uses in architecture seem to have no limit, as has been shown by building and completely furnishing a dwelling-house entirely of this material. According to report, a huge hotel is about to be constructed in America in which paper will take the place of stone and brick. The fourth paper dome in the United States and, it is thought, in the world, will crown the new Observatory at Columbia College, in New York. A trade journal remarks that besides the paper dome at the Troy Polytechnic, there is a second at West Point, and a third at Beloit College. That at West Point is said to be the largest, but that at Columbia College the best in construction and arrangement. The method used in the manufacture of the paper is kept a secret, the makers using a patented process. The dome is made in sections—twenty-four in number. They are bent over towards the inside at the edges and bolted to ribs of wood. The shell, though very thin, is as stiff as sheet-iron. On one side of the dome is the oblong opening for the telescope, and over this a shutter, also of paper, but stiffened with wood-lining, which slides around on the outside of the dome. The whole dome is so light that the hand can turn it.
As regards the uses of papier-mâché in Europe, we hear of a complete church being built in Bavaria, having columns, walls, altar, roof, and spire all of this material. Some of the most tasteful halls on the continent and in this country are finished in it in preference to wood. Mantels, mirrors, frames, and gilded chandeliers are of its composition. Pedestals, newels, vases, furniture, and ornaments of all kinds, no less than floors and staircases, gas-pipes, and even chimney-shafts, can be made of it. In Breslau, a chimney-shaft fifty feet high is said to have been made of paper-pulp chemically impregnated so as to resist combustion.
Incombustible as well as water-proof paper is now no novelty, and has before been alluded to in this Journal; but an account of some further experiments in this line has since reached us. M. G. Meyer of Paris recently exhibited to the ‘Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie nationale’ specimens of an incombustible paper capable of taking on inks of various shades, and also paintings, and preserving them even in the fire of a gas-flame. It was stated by him that the papers and documents shown had been for four hours in a pottery furnace, and had displayed undoubted fire-resisting properties. Paper of this indestructible nature should be in good demand for wills, deeds, and account-books, &c. It is also suitable for wall-covering, and ought, we should think, to be of great value for theatrical decorations and scenery. The latter can be rendered uninflammable by using this inventor’s material as well as his incombustible colours. While on the subject of decoration may be mentioned the new kind of satin paper recently brought out for this purpose. It is made by covering common paper with adhesive size, and sprinkling dyed asbestos powder on its moist surface. Asbestos readily takes up all colours, especially those of aniline, so that some very rich effects can be produced.
Paper curtains, counterpanes, sheets, and so forth, are said to have been among the objects of interest at the Sydney Exhibition; and so there is no reason to doubt the report that table-napkins of the same adaptable substance are regularly supplied at the cheap dining-rooms of Berlin. The napkins are of tissue-paper with a coloured ornamental border—not only because paper is cheaper than diaper, but as a protection against pilfering. Indeed, so common are paper table-napkins said to be at Berlin, that the manufacturers advertise them regularly in the newspapers at the rate of about nine or ten a penny.
When we think of the extraordinary uses to which paper is applied, it is not so startling to learn that this material may even enter into the composition of our post-prandial cigar. If we are to believe the newspapers, millions of cigars are annually manufactured in Havana without so much as a single fibre of tobacco-leaf being utilised in the process of their fabrication. The great straw-paper factory in New York State has for some time been making a peculiar sort of extremely thin fine paper, which it has been discovered is used for making cigars. This we are told is thoroughly soaked in a solution composed of tobacco refuse boiled in water, then dried and pressed between stamps, which impart to it the appearance of the finest leaf so exactly as to defy detection even on the part of the experienced in such matters. Of these paper-leaves are fabricated the spurious cigars alluded to, which are exported from Cuba to all parts of the world as genuine tobacco. The cost of their production is nothing in comparison with the prices at which they are disposed of. A slight difference in weight between the genuine and the spurious cigar of identical brand and size, affords, it is stated, the only certain means of detecting this fraud, so alike in appearance are the weeds of real tobacco and their counterfeit presentments in straw-paper.
As delicate sheets of paper can be made to serve for steel or iron, it is easily understood that school-slates can be manufactured from similar apparently unpromising beginnings. They are made of white cardboard, covered with a film formed by the action of sulphuric acid on tissue-paper. This covering, according to an American journal, is probably a modification of celluloid. The slates can be used with a lead-pencil or with ink; and to remove the marks, the slate is washed with cold water. A special ink is also prepared for use with these white slates. Another form of slate is made by coating the white cardboard with water-glass. It may be used with lead-pencils or coloured crayons. When the surface becomes soiled, the water-glass may be rubbed off with sand-paper, and a new film may be put on with a sponge or brush dipped in water-glass.
To the number of paper-making materials now in use must be added an old weed of the nettle species, not of the stinging kind. From the bark of certain shrubs, also, several kinds of Japanese paper are made. The strongest and commonest is made from the bark of the mitsuma. A paper of superior quality is likewise made from the kozu, a small tree of the mulberry family, imported from China. The inner bark of both shrubs is washed and dried, softened in steam and boiling water, and afterwards beaten with staves until a fine paste is formed. This paste mixed with water is then made into paper in the ordinary way.
A new use of cedar-bark has been undertaken at New Bedford, Massachusetts. The Acushnet paper-mill at that point is, it appears, nearly completed, and was built for the express purpose of manufacturing pulp and paper from cedar-bark. This, we are told, is the first enterprise of the kind ever undertaken. The bark is taken from shingle butts that are sixteen inches long, and are bundled for shipment like laths. The new mill will work up three cords of bark a day. The first product will be for carpet linings; but the paper is said to be equally adapted to other purposes.
A new method of preparing soluble wool from tissues in which wool and cotton are combined has been discovered. When subjected to a current of superheated steam under a pressure of five atmospheres, the wool melts and falls to the bottom of the pan, leaving the cotton, linen, and other vegetable fibres clean and in a condition suitable for paper-making. The melted wool is afterwards evaporated to dryness, when it becomes completely soluble in water. The increased value of the rags is said to be sufficient to cover the whole cost of the operation.
With the use of the papyrus, as is well known, the Egyptians were early acquainted, and its manufacture was a government monopoly, as paper-making is to this day at Boulak, the river-port of Cairo. The remarkable aptitude for paper-making displayed by the Boulak Arabs is an hereditary accomplishment. The Daira paper manufactory in the suburb of Boulak regularly employed, we are told, more than two hundred hands before the late war, almost all natives. Most of the paper turned out is for packing purposes; but thousands of reams of good writing and printing paper are also manufactured. The writing-paper is made specially for Arabic writing; and what is produced in excess of the requirements of the country is exported eastward, partly to Arabia, and a small portion even to India. Though linen and cotton rags are used in this factory, the interior of the stalk of the sugar-cane furnishes an endless supply of paper-making material. In the production of what is called ‘straw’ paper in Europe, the hilfa grass plays a very important part. The Daira factory at Boulak enjoys a monopoly of this industry in Egypt; and in connection with it is the National Printing Office, also under the control of the same administration.