Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/132

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��Popular Science Monthly

��plants are wild grown upon waste land and are annually reproduced every six months in some localities. The yield is from one to two tons of dry pulp on an average per acre.

By the processes and methods patented by Col. Marr, the yields of pulp for paper purposes and the yields of fiber for bag- ging and other cordage are much beyond anything heretofore obtained and record- ed. By using either zinc sulphate or chloride, his processes render the gums, resinous matter, wax and fats, the silica and the cementitious carbohydrates solu- ble in water. In five hours from the raw material to the finished product, oak, beech, birch, maples, gums and poplars yield in available pulp an average of eighty-five per cent of the weight of the wood. It is not necessary to chop wood as fine for reduction by his processes as with processes now in use.

To possess comm.ercial value a fiber must be available in large quantity, the supply must be more or less constant, the product must be readily marketed, and it must be cheap. The fibers obtained from marsh growths, by the processes patented by Col. Marr, fulfill all these requirements.

��What Is It? A Naval Architectural Puzzle

AT the Water Sports Carnival held . annually at Copenhagen, Denmark, any inventor can demonstrate his devices, provided they are in tangible shape and have something to do with sport or loco- motion in water. The contests are usually staged on Sortedamsoen.

In the scene shown, the catamaran with a rear paddlewheel, at the right, is an old contraption dating back to the first bicycle days. The similar craft to the left, is fitted with a heavy keel to steady it, and the float is hollow .and very shallow. It obeys the rudder better than the cata- maran. Mystery centers in the queer tub in the middle with its ambitious stream- line contours and its electric wires dangling at the side. Its wake does not indicate great speed, and the flag does not seem to unfurl in the breeze. It appears that the pilot has storage batteries on board and that he is driving two motors in watertight compartments in the pon- toon, which motors, in turn, drive two Archimedian screws or similaj contriv- ances to take in water and to expel it.

���) Uli.i.l

Denmark has many good mechanics who think more of having fun in some new way with their contraptions than of making money by exploiting their inventiveness commercially

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