Pulp mill

“ Folks must have paper even if they don't get boards," and Philip Sommers gave a short laugh.
"I don't think I'd care to work in a pulp mill," answered Dale. "I like a sawmill or else being out in a lumber camp. But I'd rather work in a pulp mill than be idle." ”

“ This process is an immense saving to the pulp manufacturers. The work in the pulp mill is severe, and is slightly tinged with danger.
Three thousand four hundred pounds of white ash to 2,100 pounds of lime are the proportions in which the liquor in each vat is mixed. One does not envy the lot of the stout fellows who crawl into the great rotaries to stow away the chips. The hurry of business is so great that they cannot wait for these boilers to cool naturally, after they have cooked one batch, before putting in another. ”

“ I have before me estimates showing that machines already ordered for new mills and additions will add to the Canadian capacity something like four hundred thousand tons a year. Canada now has more than one hundred paper mills, and if all were run full time at full speed, they would turn out nearly two and one half million tons of paper in a year. The world’s largest ground pulp mill is at Three Rivers, in Quebec, the great paper-making centre I have mentioned in another chapter. ”

“ The ninth largest employer of workers engaged in manufacturing is the paper and allied industries. The greatest number of such workers is engaged in the manufacturing of pulp. The largest pulp mills are located at Covington and [155] Franklin. Approximately one-half of the nation's supply of wood pulp is furnished by the South and Virginia ranks fifth among the southern states in its production. The newly developed methods of utilizing southern pine for producing kraft paper and newsprint have caused considerable increase in this type of production. ”

“ Allowing three hundred working-days a year to each mill, the total annual output possible would be 4,215,000 tons, which, allowing thirty thousand pounds to a car, would make 281,000 carloads.128 According to statistics gathered by the United States Commissioner of Labor for the first six months of 1898, the seven hundred and twenty-three plants, many of them having two or three separate mills, actually produced 1,733,019 tons of paper and pulp. ”

“ The mechanical pulp, reaching the mill in the form of thick sheets suitably packed up into bales, is first broken up again into moist pulp. Various machines are used for this, such as Wurster's kneading engine, Cornett's breaker, or some similar contrivance. An old potcher, such as is used for the breaking and washing of rags, makes a good pulp disintegrator. The broken pulp is discharged into beating engines in any suitable or convenient manner and the right proportion of chemical wood pulp added in the form of dry sheets. ”

“ Here's a mill, a swell mill that don't lack for a thing to make it well-nigh perfect. I'll tell you about it. Its capacity. Its present limit is six thousand tons dry weight groundwood pulp to the week. That's runnin' full. There's a hundred and twenty grinders feeding a hundred and eighty sheetin' machines. And they're figgered to use up fifty-five thousand horse power of the five hundred thousand we got harnessed on this great little old river that falls off the highlands. That power is ours winter an' summer. It don't matter a shuck the 'freeze up.' It's there for us all the darn time. ”

“ Almost equally flourishing is the manufacture of paper and wood pulp. The wood-pulp mills are located on the large streams which afford power for their operation. The quality of the water is unexcelled for paper-making purposes. ”

“ Finally, the pulp leaves the agitators and, carried by a quantity of water to float it, passes out of the mill in a trough or flume through which it flows eastward to a considerable distance from the mill, when it reaches what are called the “blanket sluices,” the working of which will be described further on. In speaking of the pans and settlers, I have described but one row or set. The two rows, one on the north and the other on the south side of the large room, are exactly alike. Each row of pans has its row of settling tanks, settlers and amalgam strainers. ”

“ Northward are numerous piers and canneries, headquarters for the fish- eries industry; another pulp plant and several lumber and shingle mills, including the Clough-Hartley properties; casket factories and an estab- lishment for creosoting poles and piling. Eastward along the river, below the northern extension of Grand Avenue, are Weyerhaeuser mills B and C, the latter noted for its operation with electric and compressed air equipment. On the southeast river front are other lumber mills, a foundry and iron works, and the Everett Pulp and Paper Company mill. ”

“ Lumbering is an important industry, and there are saw mills and planing mills, and an extensive creosote plant for treating railway ties and timber. There are also flour mills, paper and pulp mills, cigar factories, a brewery, a large foundry and a grain elevator. ”

“ Most of us today, when we think of power, think of electricity, gas, or steam, but it is very simple to consider the water in an ordinary little stream and the amount of power it can deliver.
Although the machinery built by the early millwrights was a bit crude, nevertheless it was functional and worked with efficient success.
On a recent scouting trip George and I took through Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut, we visited a few restored mills. One of them was in Rowley, Massachusetts, just off the Main Road, called the “Jewel Mill”. ”

“ In those mills making the finest grades of paper, much of the process of thrashing, beating, dusting, and cleaning necessary in the ordinary mill is omitted. The cleanliness and brightness which are reached only at the "washer" and "beater" engines in the process of manufacturing the lower grades of paper from cheaper rags, prevail at every step in these higher grade mills. ”

“ The river, which here falls 28 feet in half a mile, is crossed by two railroad and two other bridges and by a dam of granite, 900 feet long and forty feet high; canals on either bank conduct the water to the mills. The mills, some of which are among the largest in the world, manufacture cotton and woolen goods, cloth and paper; and engines, boilers, machinery, clothing, hats etc. are also produced here. The woolen goods industry is of first importance, employing more than 11,000 people in two mills, while a third mill, making both cotton and woolen goods, employs over 5,000. ”

“ The richest portion is carried at once to the crushing mill, the poorer is thrown into another shed below, to be broken up and further picked, and the mere stones are wheeled off to the rubbish heap. The ore being broken small is thrown into the crushing mill, and passed once or twice through it, being returned to the mill by an endless chain of iron buckets, which dip into the heap of crushed ore below, and, carrying it up, empty themselves into the mill. ”

“ The mills have the air of being pit-head workings dealing with a cleaner material than coal. About them are lengthy conveyors, built up on high trestle timbers, that carry the logs from the water to the mill and from the mill to the dumps, that one instantly compares to the conveyors and winding gear of a coal mine. ”

“ Even in the iron industry where could a line be drawn-at the end of mining the ore, the production of the pig-iron or steel ingots, when the rolling mill operation is completed, fabrication on order or at some stage of manufacture into standard merchandise? ”

“ An old description of the plant says that it consisted of
an iron foundry, mould-maker’s shop, steam engine manufactory, blacksmith’s shop, and mill-stone manufactory, and a steam engine used for grinding materials for the use of the works, and for turning and boring heavy cast or wrought iron work. The buildings occupy one hundred and eighty-eight feet front and about thirty-five workmen are daily employed. They manufacture all cast or wrought-iron work for machinery for mills, for grinding grain or sawing timber ”

“ It is a grewsome place. The machinery reminds one of the pictures that we have all seen of some of the contrivances they used to have in the days of the Inquisition with which to torture people, and it is hard to keep back a shudder as one looks at this work. Sometimes there is as much as a ton of powder at one time in the big hopper of this machine. In one of these mills at the Du Pont Works you will notice that the stone wall is eight feet thick on one side. This is on the side next to a press-mill. [Pg 778] One side of the place is entirely of wood. ”

“ There seems to be a strange diversity of opinion as to the extent of the participation of machinery manufacturers in the financing of the mills. A mill man of Anderson, South Carolina, said that the machinery people have played a larger part than the commission houses in the establishment of Southern mills; that the machinery business was at a standstill in New England at the time of the great activity in mill building in the Southern States, and the machinery manufacturers began to look about for mills to equip. ”

“ Since air flows through with the grain the flour is not heated very much. This type of mill is small, very fast, intermediate in price between steel mills and stone mill, lasts a long time, but when grinding, sounds like a Boeing 747 about to take off. ”

“ These are all small mills, and in contrast to that, it is only necessary to point out that all the other mills in Canada are working to capacity.
The annual consumption of paper pulp wood in the United States is 4,300,000 cords, representing an expenditure of $36,000,000 by approximately 250 companies.
[357]
SHOES LIKE “THE WONDERFUL ONE HORSE SHAY.”
When a man is “on his uppers” he is in a very serious condition for then his shoe soles have worn out and he has no money to buy more. ”

“ Proceeding on Saturday 25th July at 5 in the morning—at six we were three miles below Neisanger’s, abreast of Old-town creek on the right, and a floating mill owned by an Irishman named Pickets. These kind of mills are of a very simple construction—the whole machinery being in a flat, moored to the bank, and the stones being put in motion by the current. They have but little power, not being capable of grinding more than from fifteen to twenty bushels of wheat per day. ”

“ They maintain that the stones produce a higher grade of flour than can be 6 made by modern machine methods. So great was the demand for the millstone-ground flour that a manufacturing firm in Indiana made a miniature grist mill equipped with stones which was used in many private homes and on some farms. Power was furnished by a motor, a far cry from the old water wheel.
This picturesque mill is located just north of Dayton and is more than 100 years old. ”

“ Everyone likes to play in the water, so we went to work about August 1, 1960. You can well imagine the condition of the mill. Windows were shattered, the sills were powder, the roof practically gone, and the building had a definite cant to the east’ard. It really looked hopeless.
Fortunately, most of the ancient machinery—the stones, gears, brakes, and chutes—were still intact, even the miller’s little desk where he kept his records, and the ancient bin for storage.
The beams, the corner post studs, etc. are of tremendous size and all mortised, tenoned and dowelled, and hard as rock. ”

“ In this neighborhood miners are earning from half a dollar to two dollars a day. There are several large quartz mills not far from here. Common labor is worth ten dollars a month.
September 17. Spent the day in botanizing, blacksmithing, and examining a grist mill. Grist mills, in the less settled parts of Tennessee and North Carolina, are remarkably simple affairs. A small stone, that a man might carry under his arm, is fastened to the vertical shaft of a little home-made, boyish-looking, back-action water-wheel, which, with a hopper and a box to receive the meal, is the whole affair. ”

“ The mills in which the ores of the Comstock lode are reduced, are all built on the same general plan. When the tourist has visited and examined one mill, he has seen them all, both great and small, so far as regards the processes in use for the reduction of the ore. Some mills are more conveniently arranged than others, however, and while in some machinery is used which is somewhat behind the age, in others will be found in operation in every department machinery of the latest and most approved pattern. ”

“ One man runs each of these mills. He cannot start the machinery in motion and go away, like the man who has charge of a rolling-mill, but he must stay in the place all the time, and feed the stones to the machinery that crushes them into grains of various sizes. He shovels the powder into a large hopper, big wooden wheels go around and around, and the powder passes between zinc rolls and through sieves of various sizes. ”

“ Material that might economically be used in the workshop is indiscriminately passed out with the rubbish and sold away at a cheap rate — at a fraction of its real value. Tons of metal — good solid iron, often of the highest quality — which might be used for forging and stamping, are rejected and scrapped because it would take a trifle longer to handle. Other large scrap material might be slabbed and used without sending it to the mill, and thus large profits would accrue to the shed ”