Suitable stirring devices or agitators, c, may be employed to keep the pulp in suspension and to expose it thoroughly and uniformly to the liquid introduced with it.

[Illustration:  Fig. 2]

When the materials (the pulp and the bleaching liquid) arrive at or near the top of the chest, they are partially separated from one another and removed from the chest at substantially the same rate that they are introduced, as follows:  Each chest is provided at its upper part with a liquid conveyor, d, having a construction similar to that of the device known as a “washer” in paper making machinery, consisting of a rotating drum, the periphery of which is covered with gauze, which permits the liquid to pass into it, but excludes the pulp suspended in the liquid, the said drum containing blades or buckets that raise the liquid which thus enters through the gauze and discharges it at d2 near the axis of said drum.  There is one of these washers in each one of the series of chests, and each discharges the liquid taken from its corresponding chest into the inlet pipe of the next preceding chest of the series, the washer in the chest, a4, for example, delivering into the inlet passage, b, of the chest, a2, and so on, while the washer of the first chest, a, of the series delivers into a discharge pipe, e, through which the liquid may be permitted to run to waste or conveyed to any suitable receptacle, if it is desired to subject it to chemical action for the purpose of renewing its bleaching powers or obtaining the chemical agents that may be contained within it.

The operation of the washers in removing the liquid from the upper part of the chest tends to thicken the pulp therein, and the said thickened pulp is conveyed from one chest to the next in the series by any suitable conveying device, f (shown in this instance as a worm working in a trough or case, f2), which may be made foraminous for the purpose of permitting the liquid to drain out of the pulp that is being carried through by the worm, in order that the pulp may be introduced into the next chest of the series as free as possible from the liquid in which it has been suspended while in the chest from which it is just taken.  The pulp is thus conveyed from one chest in the series to the inlet passage leading to the next chest of the series, and in the said inlet passage it meets the liquid coming in the reverse order from the next chest beyond in the series, the pulp and liquid thus commingling in the inlet pipe and entering the chest together, and being thoroughly mixed by the agitators in passing through the chest by the continued action of fresh material entering and of the conveyors taking the material out from the chests.  In the last of the series of chests into which the pulp is introduced the fresh or strong bleaching liquid is introduced through a suitable inlet pipe, g, and the pulp conveyor, f, that takes