The material to be bleached is first treated with gaseous chlorine or chlorine water, in order to attack the jute pigment, which is very difficult to bleach, until it takes an orange shade.  After having removed the acids, etc., formed by this treatment, the jute is placed in a weak alkaline bath, cold or hot, of caustic soda, caustic potash, caustic ammonia, quicklime, sodium or potassium carbonate, etc., or a mixture of several of these substances, which converts the greatest part of the jute pigment, already altered by the chlorine, into a form easily soluble in water, so that the pigment can be readily removed by a washing with water.  After this washing the jute can be bleached as easily as any other vegetable fiber in the ordinary manner, by means of bleaching powder, etc., and an excellent fibrous material is obtained, which can be made use of with advantage in the textile and paper industries.

The application of the process may be illustrated by an example: 

One hundred kilos. of waste jute scraps are first of all treated in the manner usually employed in the paper industry; 15 per cent. of quicklime is added, and they are treated for 10 hours at a pressure of 11/2 atmospheres.  The scraps are then freed from water by means of a hydro-extractor, or a press, and finally saturated with chlorine in a gas chamber for 24 hours or less, according to the requirements of the case.  Every 100 kilos. of jute requires 75 kilos. of hydrochloric acid (20 deg.  B.) and 20 kilos. of manganese peroxide (78-80 per cent.).

The jute then takes an orange color, and is subsequently washed in a tank, a kilo. of caustic soda being added per 100 kilos. of jute; this amount of alkali is sufficient to dissolve the pigment, which colors the water flowing from the washer a deep brown.  After washing, the jute can be completely bleached by the use of 5-7 kilos. of bleaching powder per 100 kilos. of jute.—­Mon. de la Teinture.

* * * * *

THE INDEPENDENT—­STORAGE OR PRIMARY BATTERY—­SYSTEM OF ELECTRIC MOTIVE POWER.[1]

  [Footnote 1:  Abstract of a paper read before the American Streel
  Railway Association, Oct. 23, 1891.]

By KNIGHT NEFTEL.

Owing to a variety of causes, the system which was assigned to me at the last convention to report on has made less material progress in a commercial way than its competitors.

PRIMARY BATTERIES.

So far, primary batteries have been applied only to the operation of the smallest stationary motors.  Their application in the near future to traction may, I think, be entirely disregarded.  Were it not a purely technical matter, it might be easily demonstrated, with our knowledge of electro-chemistry, that such an arrangement as an electric primary battery driving a car is an impossibility.