Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/55

 PAPAW PAPER Bentham merged in passifloracece. (See PAS- SION FLOWER.) This genus consists of about 20 trees and shrubs, all natives of tropical Amer- ica. This papaw is seldom over 20 ft. high, is -' ;iijt v?^' ^. .->" ^ 1' .- *--v--c,.^?9' .>. ^--^''-x - r -, i-fy ^>" '. ^~ Carica papaya. a foot in diameter at the base, and gradually tapering upward without branching, bearing at the summit a crown of long-petioled leaves, the limb to which is often 2 ft. across, deeply cut into seven irregularly gashed lobes, which gives the tree much the aspect of a palm. The flow- ers, which are d'nvoious, are in long racemes, the males with funnel-shaped corollas, and the females with five distinct petals ; the fruit is a large berry, about 10 in. long and half as broad, externally ribbed, and of a dull orange color ; it has a thick fleshy rind, and numerous small, black, wrinkled seeds, arranged in five longitu- dinal lines along the central cavity ; it is some- times eaten raw with pepper and sugar, but is more generally cooked with sugar and lemon juice ; the unripe fruit is boiled and eaten as a vegetable, and is also pickled. The juice of the ripe fruit is said to be used as a cosmetic to remove freckles, and that of the green fruit is a remarkably efficient vermifuge ; the leaves are used in the French West Indies as a sub- stitute for soap for washing linen. The tree abounds in a milky, bitter juice, which is re- markable as containing fibrine, a principle otherwise found only in the animal kingdom ; Vauquelin compares the juice to blood de- prived of its coloring material. Endlicher says that a few drops of this juice mixed with water will in a few moments render recently killed or old and tough meat tender, and that tine effect is produced by wrapping a piece of meat in a leaf of the tree and keep- ing it thus over night. It is also said that if old swine or poultry be fed upon the leaves of the tree, their flesh will be tender when killed. The root has the odor of decaying radishes. The tree is found in the extreme southern part of Florida, probably introduced from the West Indies, and it is cultivated in various tropical countries. Some other spe- cies are mentioned under OAKIOA. PAPENBIRG, a town of Prussia, in the prov- ince of Hanover, near the right bank of the Ems, with which it is connected by canals, 23 m. S. E. of Emden; pop. in 1871, 6,077. It is situated in the midst of a moorland, and is neatly built in the Dutch style. It is the seat of an active commerce, and, after Emden, the chief port in the province, its shipping em- bracing about 200 sea-going vessels. It con- tains a school of navigation, numerous ship yards, and manufactories of sails, chains and anchors, lime and tobacco. The principal ex- port is oak. PAPER (Gr. TraTTu/oof, papyrus), a material made in thin sheets from a pulp prepared from vegetable fibre and cellular tissue. MATERIALS. The first paper was probably made in Egypt from papyrus, a species of reed. The stem of the plant in growing is covered at its lower portion by mud, and the layers of the outer skin at this point are whiter and more compact. Under these layers are thin pellicles, which being removed and laid side by side, their over- lapping edges may be cemented together by pressure, the thickness of the sheet depending upon the number of layers placed one upon an- other. (See PAPYRUS.) The ancient Mexicans used a kind of paper prepared from the agave Americana, or maguey plant, which grows upon the table lands. It resembled the Egyptian pa- pyrus, and took ink and color well, as preserved specimens attest. The Chinese rice paper is prepared from the pith of the ceschynomene paludosa, cut spirally into a thin slice, which spread out and compressed forms a sheet of pa- per, sometimes a foot in length and five or six inches in breadth. The Chinese were the first to form from vegetable fibre the web which constitutes modern paper. They used the in- ner bark of several trees, especially the mul- berry, the bamboo reduced to pulp by beating, rice and other straws, silk, cotton, and rags. The Japanese exhibited in the Paris universal exposition of 1867 beautiful specimens of paper made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree (Broussonnetia papyri/era). Among the nu- merous materials of which paper has been made are acacia, althaea, American aloe or maguey, artichoke, asparagus, aspen, bamboo, banana, bass wood, bean vines, blue grass, broom, buck- wheat straw, bulrushes, cane, cattail, cedar, China grass, clematis, clover, cork, corn husks and stalks, cotton, couch grass, elder, elm, es- parto grass, ferns, fir, flags, flax, grape vine, many grasses, hemp, hop vines, horse chestnut, indigo, jute, mulberry bark and wood, mummy cloth, oak, oakum, oat straw, osier, palm, pal- metto, pampas grass, papyrus, pea vines, pine, plantain, poplar, potato vines, rags of all kinds, reeds, rice straw, rope, rye straw, sedge grass, silk, silk cotton (bombax), sorghum, spruce, this- tles, tobacco, wheat straw, waste paper, willow, and wool. The principal materials are : 1, cot- ton and linen rags ; 2, waste paper; 3, straw; 4,