Maine mills used mummy wrappings to create paper

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/2939093.shtml

"Researcher S.J. Wolfe, senior archivist for the American Antiquarian Society, said in the early 1850s adventurer and chemist Isaiah Deck suggested a bizarre solution to the lack of rags then used as a key ingredient to make paper. . . . Wolfe, who noted animals were also mummified in Egypt, said Deck estimated the United States' needs for cloth for paper-making could be met for 14 years by using the wrappings from millions of mummies. Stranger still, mills actually did so, including some right in Gardiner, between 1860 and 1900."

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