Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

144 BRITAIN borne down-stream to the mills, where they are converted into pulp at the rate of 30,000 tons (of pulp) a year. Large as it is, this quantity is not sufficient to feed the voracious machines at Sittingbourne, and the supply has to be supplemented from Canada. Whether they come from Norway or across the Atlantic, the bales, weighing about four hundredweight each, are unshipped at Queen- borough and brought up the Medway in lighters or sailing-barges to the wharves at Sittingbourne and there stored in huge sheds, to be used in the order in which they are deposited, for the pulp, though it does not quickly deteriorate, will not keep in first- class condition indefinitely. Its treatment at Sittingbourne begins on the “ beating ” floor, high up in the mills, where it is discharged into large vats in which revolve circular “ beaters ” that flog out the tiny fibres and gradually, with the help of water, reduce it to what looks not unlike oatmeal gruel. At a certain stage in the “ beating ” process an aniline dye is poured into the vat in order to whiten the pulp ; and after- wards size is introduced, to give cohesiveness to the pulp. Having been brought to the right consistency, the pulp flows into chests, AT WORK. where it is kept in constant motion, so that the heavier fibres—those from the mechanical pulp—shall not sink to the bottom. Then, having been refined and clarified by strainers, which remove from it every foreign substance, it is discharged into machines on the floor below, which it enters at one end, known as “ the wet end,” in the form of a sheet of water, and leaves at the other end as paper ready for the printing press. Truly wonderful contrivances are these paper-making machines, and as you see the running stream of water that holds the minute fibres transformed in a few swift transitions into perfectly developed paper, you can hardly help crediting them with magical properties. First the stream of water—in which, if you take up a little of it in the hollow of your hand, you can see the fibres, not much bigger than the motes in a sunbeam, in suspension—runs on to an endless sheet of brass wire-netting, of which the meshes are almost inconceivably small, there being as many as 400 holes to the square inch. This wire, in carrying the pulp forward, jogs from side to side, so as to shake the fibres together. On each side of the wire-netting is an endless band of rubber PAPER MACHINE ROOM, OLD MILL, SITTINGBOURNE.