Some objection, however, may be made to this method, which has a tendency to blow away at the same time a considerable portion of fibre set loose in cutting the rags, along with the dust. To avoid this waste, an invention has recently been brought out by a son of the late eminent Mr. Fourdrinier, which he terms his “Patent Accelerator.” The process adopted is simply that of placing the rags in their dirty state in water, and employing that as a medium for carrying off the dust and dirt, in preference to air. The invention has not yet been very extensively used, and consequently I am not in a position to say much as to its merits. The rags being thus far cleansed, have next to be boiled in an alkaline lye or solution, made more or less strong, as the rags are more or less coloured, the object being to get rid of the remaining dirt and some of the colouring matter. The proportion is from four to ten pounds of carbonate of soda with one-third of quick lime to the hundred weight of material. In this the rags are boiled for several hours, according to their quality. The mode now adopted as the most recent improvement is that of placing the rags in large cylinders, which are constantly, though slowly, revolving, thus causing the rags to be as frequently turned over, and into which a jet of steam is cast with a pressure of something near 30 lbs. to the square inch. [Illustration: RAG ENGINE] After this process of cleansing, the rags are considered in a fit state to be torn or macerated until they become reduced to pulp, which was accomplished some five and thirty or forty years since, by setting them to heat and ferment for many days in close vessels, whereby in reality they underwent a species of putrefaction. Another method subsequently employed was that of beating them by means of stamping rods, shod with iron, working in strong oak or stone mortars, and moved by water-wheel machinery. So rude and ineffective however was this apparatus, that no fewer than forty pairs of stamps were required to operate a night and a day in preparing one hundred weight of material. At the present time, the average weekly consumption of rags, at many paper mills, exceeds even 30 tons. The cylinder or engine mode of comminuting rags into paper pulp appears to have been invented in Holland, about the middle of the last century, but received very little attention here for some years afterwards. The accompanying drawing will serve to convey some idea of the wonderful rapidity with which the work is at present accomplished. No less than _twelve tons_ per week can now be prepared by means of this simple contrivance. The horizontal section represents an oblong cistern, of cast iron, or wood lined with lead, into which the rags, with a sufficient quantity of water, are received. It is divided by a partition, as shown (A), to regulate the course of the stuff. The spindle upon which each cylinder (C) moves, extending across the engine, and being put in motion by a