the ordinary
process, more especially in the mangle-washes. As a result the
adjustment of warp and weft is more or less disturbed. These defects are
absent from a system which operates on the cloth in a fixed position.

But as we are mainly concerned with the purely chemical factors we
cannot pretend to deal with textile questions. We have to notice the
remaining element of chemical economy as it involves a fundamental
principle. The practice of washing residues or products of reaction free
from reagents and soluble by-products involves a well-known mathematical
law, under which the rate of purification is a function rather of the
_number_ of successive changes of washing liquid than of the volume of
the latter. The ordinary practice of textile washings entirely ignores
this principle, and the consumption of water in consequence may reach
many thousand times the economic minimum. With supplies of water often
in indefinite excess of requirements, even in this most wasteful method,
bleachers are in no need to consider the question of consumption. But
leaving aside particular and local considerations of advantage the fact
is that the new system gives control of the practice of washing,
enabling the operator to adapt an important element of the daily routine
to a fundamental principle which has been almost universally ignored.

In the oxidising processes which follow the alkaline treatments, the
hypochlorites are still the staple agents. Owing to the steady relative
fall in the selling prices of the permanganates these are coming into
more extensive use, but the consumption is still small, and they are
mainly used for certain special effects, chiefly in linen or more
generally flax cloth bleaching.

~Paper-pulp Spinning.~--Paper is a continuous web or fabric produced by
the interlocking of the structural fibrous units of the well-known short
length. In Japan and other countries paper is made to serve for all or
some of the purposes for which we employ string or twine, and to give
the necessary tensile strength the paper is twisted or rolled on itself.
Such twisting, however, adds nothing to the intrinsic tensile qualities
of the original paper.

A new technical effect is realised in this direction by the treatment of
paper-pulp in the process of its conversion into a continuous web: The
pulp is formed into continuous strips of convenient breadth (usually
from 2 to 8 mm.), these receive a 'rolling-up' treatment immediate