PHORMIUM TENAX AND ITS MANUFACTURE INTO FAPER.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4450, 24 June 1875, Page 2

PHORMIUM TENAX AND ITS MANUFACTURE INTO FAPER.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir,— A letter from “An Engineer" upon this subject appears in your issue of Tuesday last. While fully agreeing with him that the value of this fibre for paper-making is very great, I must join issue with his proposed moefats operandi. “Engineer” states that the phormium could be reduced to rough stuff at the present defunct mills, and then bleached, to produce a paper equal to that your journal is now printed upon. Two important drawbacks militate against any such favorable results—lst. The large quantity necessary of bleaching agents to prepare this rough stuff, and their great extra cost in this colony. 2nd. That if the phormium is thus prepared at the mills, the crust of silica appertaining to it will be indelibly fixed, and no amount of bleaching will ever afterwards remove it; the paper produced, consequently, would then be suitable only for coarse purposes. The success of a paper mill now entirely depends upon the cheap and certain supply of a material, and the minimum of expense in cleaning and preparing it. The mechanical part of the operation experience has brought to a state of perfection that leaves no room for doubt. I am indebted for much valuable information respecting it to a relative, Mr. Sealy Fondrineer, who received a public grant of £IO,OOO for his valuable inventions, and I may therefore venture to quote him as a high authority for this statement. If, therefore, these items of supply and small expenditure upon it can be relied upon, such an undertaking in this colony must prove, independent of any subsidy, very remunerative. As an addenda than to “Engineer’s” letter, permit me to suggest how it may be successfully accomplished. Naturally the phormium is exceedingly strong, and as developed in the plant, of a white color. Now, if in the place of preparing it at the mills in a rough state, proper machinery is employed for producing it 'in the pure state mentioned, then nearly all the bleaching expenses are saved, and as the silicious matter is at the same time entirely removed, the paper manufacture is commenced upon a perfectly clean and superior material, costing about £ls per ton, or half the price of rags in the Home market, with the option of utilising the top of the leaf for finer, the butt for the coarser description. The mechanical means of thus cleaning the fibre of the phormium—and on this the entire success of the undertaking depends—is now as perfected and attainable as the machinery for Paper making, and paper will then be produced here both cheaper and better than the sample now employed for your daily publication. If the unfortunate phormium, the victim of unfair treatment of a first-class fibre, is doomed to fall into such base usage, it certainly offers very great advantages for this specific purpose of paper-making.—l am, &c., Charles J. Powxall.