and at extremely moderate cost. England and the Continent respectively have entered the lists, and some of the paper they manufacture is a good imitation of hand-made. The great objection to it is, that it is extremely perishable, its woody nature being apparent, when it dries from age, in its crumbling, powdery

appearance.

Another and more successful fibre is cane. This manufacture is almost entirely confined to the Southern States of the American Union, where a number of companies carry on a very large and profitable trade, protected by patents taken out twentyfive years ago. The cane, which grows in the swampy grounds of the Carolinas and Virginia, is disintegrated, through being saturated with steam while confined in a monster" cannon," the muzzle of which being opened, fires the cane against a target on which the mass strikes and is reduced to a fibre. It yields a strong and yet soft paper, and as the supply is, thus far, nearly inexhaustible, it is is probable that the Americans will improve still further the quality of their present outturn.

Another fibre is Jute, of which America consumed in 1883 no less then 73,785 tons, the greater part of which (in the shape of Butts and Rejections-65,598 tons) was turned into paper.

Previous to 1867, old Gunny Bags had been used for jute paper, but about that time, a well-known Calcutta house collected all the useless fibre and sent it to America as paper stock, until now it constitutes the chief component of a very large proportion of so-called "Manilla" paper, as well as the bagging, browns, &c., used in the States. Jute Paper, being made from a very strong virgin fibre, is remarkably tough, and, save for its color, would bave come into more general use.

In addition to the foregoing substances, there are a variety of papers made for special purposes, as for, iustance-Paper for Collars; Cigarette Paper, made sometimes from manilla grass, but now largely from maize; Tissue Papers, made from hemp and cotton; Bank Note Paper, made from the best white linen rags, as also from Scotch and Irish flax, and bleached without the aid of vitriol; Paper for Roofing and Building, made from straw, waste paper, and the commonest kinds of rags; Parchment Paper, used largely by chemists, made from unsized rag, dipped in sulphuric acid, washed in water and ammonia, and then passed over dryers, rendering it hard and parchment-like; and last of all, Mill-boards, manufactured from oakum, bagging or rope, tarred or dry; Straw Boards, from straw; Leather Boards, from leather refuse and clippings; Printer's Pressing Boards, from manilla grass or jute. These are all forms of paper, and all made in much the same fashion as paper, but requiring more or less care according to the fineness of the stuff to be made.

It may be worth mentioning here that there are various kinds of paper made from Indian fibres by the Natives of this country; they are hand-polished with shells, until they assume a high glaze;

papers made in Bhootan, Nepaul, and Thibet, unglazed, but of extraordinary toughness; the common packing paper made in several of the Jails; as also Botanical Drying Paper. All these are full of impurities, and very irregular in texture: Their recommendations are that they are cheap aud strong.

The Chinese have, as already stated, made paper from a very early period in their national history. It is different from all other kinds, made being of rice and silk pulp, remarkably soft, glossy, and strong. It suits admirably their peculiar system of printing, i.e. from blocks; and so wedded are these strange people to their ancient ways, that, thus far, they have adhered to their own paper, spite of Western production being offered to them on both cheap and easy terms.

We will now give a few statistics of the Paper Trade.

It is stated that there are 3,935 paper mills in the world, producing yearly 959,000 tons of paper. About one-half of the quantity is printed upon; and of these 476,000 tons, about 300,000 tons are used by newspapers. The various governments consume in afficial business about 100,000 tons; schools, 90,000 tons; commerce, 120,000 tons; industry, 90,000 tons; and private correspondence 90,000 tons. The paper trade employs 250,000 hands, including women and children.

pro

Of

The United States own no fewer than 669 mills, which duce over forty-eight million dollars worth of paper per annum. these. 179 (or more than one-fourth) are to be found in New York State alone.

In the United Kingdom there are 385 mills, working 526 machines. These produce 350.000 tons besides 10,000 tons of Hand-made, in all, say 360,000 tons, valued at £16,000,000. Of this production Great Britain exports 16,000 tons, but she imports 24,000 tons, so that she consumes 6,000 tons, more than she produces.

A German savant informs us that the various nationalities, consume paper as follows:-the Russian 1 b per head, the Spaniard 1 lbs., Mexican 2 lbs., the Italian and Austrian 5 lbs. the Frenchman 7 lbs., the German 8 lbs., the American 101 lbs. the Englishman 11 lbs.

The total Capital engaged in the Paper Trade is nearly fifty million pounds, of which three-fourths represent plant, and onefourth working capital.

It is remarkable that America manufactures all her paper on the machine, and does not own one mill for Hand-mades. Their very best qualities are thus made. Their best, however, bears no comparison with paper like Whatman's Saunders,' Hodkinson's, and others, and they annually import large quantities of these makes, while the various attempts they have made to oust English hand-mades have met with complete failure.

India consumes a very large quantity, the imports into Calcutta for 1883, being-Printing Paper 3,200 tons, and Writing

Paper worth 3 lakhs of Rupees. Of this the larger proportion was English-made, a considerable quantity, however, being from the Continent, Germany and Belgium in particular.

Our local mills at Bally and Titaghur, were not the pioneers in this branch of civilization. A mill existed for many years at Serampore (hence the common name of " Serampore Paper "), and we well recollect seeing the silent and rusty machinery as far back as 1864. The Local Mills manufacture Brown, Half Bleach or Badami," White and Colored Printings, Blottings, &c. On these the mills find work enough and to spare, large orders being given by Government alone. In the first of these (Browns) they have driven Europe-made papers entirely out of the market; their Coloreds and Blottings meet with a limited demand; while their Printings are used freely, and are of fair quality.

D. M. TRAILL.

THE FORMATION AND PROPERTIES OF HUMUS.

The black organic matter of soils called humus is due to the decay chiefly of vegetable matter. This decay is brought about by the attacks of moulds and bacteria, the former alone causing the production of dark-coloured matters. P. A. KOSTYTCHEFF has recently been investgating this subject, and has been experimenting with various kinds of vegetable débris, e. g., grass, Oak, Elm, and other leaves. He found that as these matters decayed, there was invariably no loss of nitrogen. Now grass and leaves contain proterus, and these decompose into ammonia, a gas which partly consists of nitrogen, and since there is no loss of nitrogen, it follows that the ammonia must be reconverted into other substances, and this appears to be done by the agency of living organisms, which find their nourishment in the decaying matter. Ammonia and similar substances serve as nutriment to moulds, in the protoplasm of which their nitrogen is stored up, and this decomposing in its turn serves as food to bacteria, which still retain the nitrogen in proteid combinations. The soil, with its estimated 60,000,000 of organisms per gramme, must contain much nitrogen in the proteid form, and one set or other of organisms will predominate according to variation in the conditions. In general, the first development in decaying vegetable matter is that of bacteria, the medium becoming acid; then follow the decay of these bacteria, the ammonia produced neutralising the acid, and moulds growing in the neutral medium; afterwards bacteria and moulds develop together. Thus, humus always contains easily decomposable matter, and consequently, the rate of decomposition observed at any period of the decay is about the same. In humus produced above the water-line, all trace

THE FORMATION AND PROPERTIES OF HUMUS.

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of vegetable structure is destroyed by the leaves being gnawed and passed through the bodies of earthworms, caterpillars, wireworms &c., under the waterline, the vegetable structure is preserved, and peat results. Experiments with dead leaves pulverised by the action of these animals, in comparison with the same leaves not attacked by them, show that little or no influence on the on the rate of decay results from their action. After passing through their bodies, the organic matter is still fit to nourish moulds and bacteria, and when these have multiplied sufficiently to accumulate a fresh stock of protoplasm, the earthworms, &c., attack it again, and so destroy all trace of structure. The soil of black lands is permeable to a small depth only by water, and this circumstance retards decomposition, and accounts for the accumulation of humus. The decay of humus is fastest in the best drained and most open soils; for this reason, the presence of clay in a soil promotes the accumulation of humus. Woods promote drainage by loosening the soil and abstracting water, and hence in plantations the accumulation of humus is retarded, and the earth becomes lighter in colour. Inferior organisms are a means of diffusing organic matter throughout the soil-the mycelia of fungi, for instance, growing on a dead root, ramify laterally, and thus carry organic matter a little outward; succeeding organisms extend this action, and the soil becomes darkened in proportion. The humic acid of black soil is almost exclusively in combination with lime; this lime is, according to KOSTYTCHEFF, carried to the insoluble humus as acid carbonate dissolved in the the water, and the acid carbonate is decomposed by contact with the moist humus. KOSTYTCHEFF is a member of the Society of Naturalists of St. Petersburgh, and his paper, which is a long one, has been reproduced in several of our German contemporaries.