PAPER, sheets of a thin matter, made of some vegetable substance.
The materials on which mankind have, in different ages, contrived to write their sentiments, have been extremely various; in the early ages they made use of stones, and tables of wood, wax, ivory, &c. See BOOK.
Paper, with regard to the manner of making it, and the materials employed therein, is reducible to several kinds; as Egyptian paper, made of the rush papyrus; bark-paper, made of the inner rind of several trees; cotton-paper; incombustible paper; and European paper, made of linen rags.
Egyptian paper was principally used among the ancients; being made of the papyrus, or biblus, a species of rush which grew on the bank of the Nile. In making it into paper, they began with lopping off the two extremes of the plant, the head and the root; the remaining part, which was the stem, they cut lengthwise into two nearly equal parts, and from each of these they stripped the scaly pellicles of which it consisted. The innermost of these pellicles were looked on as the best, and that nearest the rind as the worst: they were therefore kept apart, and made to constitute two different sorts of paper. As the pellicles were taken off, they extended them on a table, laying them over each other transversely, so as that the fibres made right angles: in this state they were glued together by the muddy waters of the Nile; or, when those were not to be had, with paste made of the finest wheat-flour, mixed with hot water and a sprinkling of vinegar. The pellicles were next pressed to get out the water, then dried, and lastly flattened and smoothed by beating them with a mallet: this was the Egyptian paper, which was sometimes further polished by rubbing it with a glass-ball, or the like.
Bark-paper was only the inner whitish rind, enclosed between the bark and the wood of several trees, as the maple, plane, beech, and elm; but especially the tilia, or linden-tree, which was that mostly used for this purpose. On this stripped off, flattened, and dried, the ancients wrote books, several of which are said to be still extant.
Chinese paper is of various kinds. Some is made of the rinds or barks of trees, especially the mulberry-tree and elm, but chiefly of the bamboo and cotton-tree. In fact, almost each province has its several paper. The preparations of paper made of the barks of trees, may be instanced in that of the bamboo, which is a tree of the cane or reed kind. The second skin of the bark, which is soft and white, is ordinarily made use of for paper: this is beat in fair water to a pulp, which they take up in large moulds, so that some sheets are above twelve feet in length; they are completed, by dipping them sheet by sheet in alum-water; which serves instead of the size among us, and not only hinders the paper from imbibing the ink, but makes it look as if varnished over. This paper is white, soft, and close, without the least roughness; though it cracks more easily than European paper, is very subject to be eaten by the worms, and its thinness makes it liable to be soon worn out.
Cotton-paper is a sort of paper which has been in use upwards of 600 years. In the French king's library are manuscripts on this paper, which appear to be of the 10th century; and from the 12th century, cotton manuscripts are more frequent than parchment ones. Cotton-paper is still made in the East Indies, by beating cotton-rags to a pulp.
Linen or European paper appears to have been first introduced among us towards the beginning of the 14th century; but by whom this valuable commodity was invented, is not known. The method of making paper of linen or hempen rags, is as follows: The linen-rags being carried to the mill, are first sorted, then washed very clean in puncheons, whose sides are grated with strong wires, and the bottoms bored full of holes. After this they are fermented, by laying them in heaps close covered with sackings, till they sweat and rot, which is commonly done in four or five days. When duly fermented, they are twisted into handfuls, cut small, and thrown into oval mortars, made of well-seasoned oak, about half a yard deep, with an iron-plate at bottom, an inch thick, eight inches broad, and thirty long; in the middle is a washing-block, grooved, with five holes in it, and a piece of hair-sieve fastened on the inside; this keeps the hammers from touching it, and prevents any thing going out except foul water. These mortars are continually supplied with water, by little troughs from a cistern, fed by buckets fixed to the several floats of a great wheel, which raises the wooden hammers for pounding the rags in the mortars. When the rags are beaten to a certain degree, called the first stuff, the pulp is removed into boxes, made like corn-chandlers bins, with the bottom-board aslant, and a little separation on the front for the water to drain away. The pulp of the rags being in, they take away as many of the front-boards as are needful, and press the mass hard down with their hands; the next day they put on another board, and add more pulp, till the box is full; and here it remains mellowing a week, more or less, according to the weather. After this, the stuff is again put into clean mortars, and is beaten afresh, and removed into boxes, as before; in which state it is called the
the second stuff. The mass is beat a third time, till some of it being mixed with fair water, and brewed to and fro, appears like flour and water, without any lumps in it: it is then fit for the pit-mortar, where it is perfectly dissolved, and is then carried to the vat, to be formed into sheets of paper. But lately, instead of pounding the rags to a pulp with large hammers, as above, they make use of an engine, which performs the work in much less time. This engine consists of a round solid piece of wood, into which are fastened several long pieces of steel, ground very sharp. This is placed in a large trough with the rags, and a sufficient quantity of water. At the bottom of the trough is a plate with steel bars, ground sharp like the former; and the engine being carried round with prodigious velocity, reduces the rags to a pulp in a very short time. It must be observed, that the motion of the engine causes the water in the trough to circulate, and by that means constantly returns the stuff to the engine. The trough is constantly fed with clean water at one end, while the dirty water from the rags is carried off at the other, through a hole, defended with wire gratings, in order to hinder the pulp from going out with the dirty water.
When the stuff is sufficiently prepared as above, it is carried to the vat, and mixed with a proper quantity of water, which they call priming the vat. The vat is rightly primed, when the liquor has such a proportion of the pulp, as that the mould, on being dipped into it, will just take up enough to make a sheet of paper of the thickness required. The mould is a kind of sieve exactly of the size of the paper to be made, and about an inch deep, the bottom being formed of fine brass wire, guarded underneath with sticks, to prevent it bagging down, and to keep it horizontal; and further, to strengthen the bottom, there are large wires placed in parallel lines, at equal distances, which form those lines visible in all white paper when held up to the light: the mark of the paper is also made in this bottom, by interweaving a large wire in any particular form. This mould the maker dips into the liquor, and gives it a shake as he takes it out, to clear the water from the pulp. He then slides it along a groove to the couchor, who turns out the sheet upon a felt laid on a plank, and lays another felt on it; and returns the mould to the maker, who by this time has prepared a second sheet in another mould: and thus they proceed, laying alternately a sheet and a felt, till they have made six quires of paper, which is called a post; and this they do with such swiftness, that, in many sorts of paper, two men make 20 posts and more in a day. A post of paper being made, either the maker or couchor whistles; on which four or five men advance, one of whom draws it under the press, and the rest press it with great force, till all the water is squeezed from it; after which it is separated sheet by sheet from the felts, and laid regularly one sheet upon another; and having undergone a second pressing, it is hung up to dry. When sufficiently dried, it is taken off the lines, rubbed smooth with the hands, and laid by till sized; which is the next operation. For this they choose a fine temperate day; and having boiled a proper quantity of clean parchment, or vellum-shavings, in water, till it comes to a size, they prepare a fine cloth, on which they strew a due proportion of white vitriol and
roch alum finely powdered, and strain the size through it into a large tub; in which they dip as much paper at once as they can conveniently hold, and with a quick motion give every sheet its share of the size, which must be as hot as the hand can well bear it. After this, the paper is pressed, hung up sheet by sheet to dry; and being taken down is sorted, and what is only fit for outside-quires laid by themselves: it is then told into quires, which are folded and pressed. The broken sheets are commonly put together, and two of the worst quires are placed on the outside of every ream or bundle: and being tied up in wrappers, made of the settling of the vat, it is fit for sale.
Paper is of various kinds, and used for various purposes: with regard to colour, it is principally distinguished into white, blue, and brown; and with regard to its dimensions, into atlas, elephant, imperial, super-royal, royal, medium, demy, crown, fools-cape, and pot-paper.
Mr Guettard of the Royal Academy of Sciences in France has given an account of a number of experiments on materials for making paper; with a view, if possible, to procure this useful substance from such others as are always to be had in greater plenty than rags can be got; of which there is sometimes a considerable scarcity. Mr Reaumur has observed, that wasps have a method of preparing bits of rotten wood whereby they build their nests, in such a manner, that it looks like strong paper or pasteboard. Seba, in the first volume of his Natural History, proposes the alga marina. "This country (says he) does not seem to want trees fit for making paper, if people would give themselves the necessary trouble and expence. Alga marina, for example, which is composed of long, strong, viscous filaments, might it not be proper for this purpose, as well as the mats of Muscovy, if they were prepared as the Japanese make their paper? The curious may at least try the experiment." P. du Halde, in the first volume of his History of China, pretends, that the Chinese make paper of the second bark of bamboo, of the bark of different trees, particularly the mulberry, of straw, rue, and hemp. Other authors mention its having been made of mallows, and several different kinds of herbs. All Mr Guettard's trials, however, proved unsuccessful, and flax, cotton, hemp, and silk, seem to be the only materials of which it is possible to make this valuable commodity. The reason of these failures was, that the abovementioned substances only seem capable of being reduced to fibres indefinitely fine, and which at the same time preserve a considerable degree of toughness; all others being very coarse in the fibre itself, and soon reducible to their ultimate fineness; and what is worse, the fibres are brittle, so that the paper when made has no cohesion. Our author, however, has found, that paper may be made from flax, hemp, and silk, without the trouble of manufacturing them into cloth; and therefore he recommends the dressings of the two former, which are sometimes in such abundance as to be thrown away; but if we consider the great trouble which must be necessary to bring those materials to a proper colour, and the great diminution of them which must necessarily ensue during the tedious operation, it is not probable that any advantage could be gained in this way.
Paper. Preparation of PAPER for durable writing. For this purpose Dr Lewis recommends the impregnation of it with astringent materials. "It is observable (says he) that writings first begin to fade or change their colour on the back of the paper, where the larger strokes have sunk in, or are visible through it; as if part of the irony matter of the vitriol was in a more subtle or dissolved state than the rest, and sunk further, on account of its not being fully disengaged from the acid, or sufficiently combined with the astringent matter of the galls. Hence, it should seem probable, that if the paper was impregnated with astringent matter, the colour of the ink would be more durable. To see how far this notion was well founded, I dipped some paper in an infusion of galls; and, when dry, repeated the dipping a second and third time. On the paper thus prepared, and some that was unprepared, I wrote with different inks; several of which, that the effects might be more sensible, had an over-proportion of vitriol. The writings being exposed to the weather till the best of the inks on the unprepared paper had faded and changed their colour, those on the prepared paper were all found to retain their blackness. It is therefore recommended to the consideration of the paper-makers, whether a particular kind of paper might not be prepared for those uses where the long duration of the writing is of principal importance, by impregnating it with galls or other astringents, in some of the operations it passes through before it receives the glazing; as for instance, by using an astringent infusion, instead of common water, in the last operation, when the matter is reduced into a pulp for being formed into sheets. The brownish hue which the paper receives from the galling, would not perhaps be any great obstacle to its use; and, if the proposal should be thought worthy of being carried into execution, further inquiries may possibly discover the means of obviating the imperfection, and communicating astringency without colour.
Staining or Colouring of PAPER. The colours proper for paper are not different from those used for other substances, and are enumerated under the article COLOUR-Making. They are applied with soft brushes, after being tempered to a due degree with size or gum water. If the paper on which they are to be laid is soft, so that the colours are apt to go through, it must also be sized before they are laid on, or a proportionably larger quantity must be used along with the colours themselves. If a considerable extent of the paper is to be done over with one colour, it must receive several coatings, as thin as possible, letting each coat dry before another is put on, otherwise the colour will be unequal.
To gild PAPER. Take yellow ocher, grind it with rain-water, and lay a ground with it upon the paper all over; when dry, take the white of eggs, beat it clear with white sugar-candy, and strike it all over; then lay on the leaf-gold; and, when dry, polish it with a tooth. Some take saffron, boil it in water, and dissolve a little gum with it; then they strike it over the paper, lay on the gold; and, when dry, they polish it.
To silver PAPER, after the Chinese manner, without silver. Take two scruples of clear glue made of neat leather, one scruple of white allum, and half a pint of clear water; simmer the whole over a slow fire, till the water is consumed, or the steam ceases: Then, your sheets of paper being laid on a smooth table, you dip a pretty large pencil into that glue, and daub it over as even as you can, repeating this two or three times: then sift the powder of talc through a fine sieve, made of horse-hair or gauze, over it; and then hang it up to dry; and, when dry, rub off the superfluous talc, which serves again for the same purpose. The talc you prepare in the following manner: Take fine white transparent Muscovy talc; boil it in clear water for four hours; then take it off the fire, and let it stand so for two days: then take it out, wash it well, and put it into a linen-rag, and beat it to pieces with a mallet: to 10 pounds of talc add 3 pounds of white allum, and grind them together in a little hand-mill; sift it through a gauze-sieve; and being thus reduced to a powder, put it into water, and just boil it up: then let it sink to the bottom, pour off the water from it, place the powder in the sun to dry, and it will become a hard consistence. This beat in a mortar to an impalpable powder, and keep it, for the use above-mentioned, free from dust.