Paper is a word evidently derived from the Greek πάπυρος, papirus, the name of that celebrated Egyptian plant which was so much used by the ancients in all kinds of writing. It would be unnecessary particularly to describe the different expedients which men in every age and country have employed for giving stability to their ideas, and for handing them down to their children. When the art of writing was once discovered, stones, bricks, leaves of trees, the exterior and interior bark, plates of lead, wood, wax, and ivory, were employed. In the progress of society, men have invented the Egyptian paper, paper of cotton, paper manufactured from the bark of trees, and in our times from old rags.

The inhabitants of Ceylon, before the Dutch made themselves masters of the island, wrote on the leaves of the talipot. The manuscript of the bramins, sent to Oxford from Port St George, is written on the leaves of a palm of Malabar. Herman speaks of another palm in the mountains of that country, which produces leaves of several feet in breadth. Ray, in his History of Plants, vol. ii. book xxxii. mentions some trees both in India and America, the leaves of which are proper for writing. From the interior substance of these leaves they draw a whitish membrane, large, and somewhat like the pellicle of an egg; but the paper made by art, even of the coarsest materials, is much more convenient in use than any of these leaves.

The Siamese, for example, make two kinds of paper, the one black and the other white, from the bark of a tree called Phokklo. These are fabricated in the coarsest manner; but they can be used on both sides with a bodkin of fullers earth.

The nations beyond the Ganges make their paper of the bark of many trees. The other Asiatic nations within the Ganges, excepting those toward the south, make it of old rags of cotton cloth; but from their ignorance of the proper method, and the necessary machinery, their paper is coarse. This, however, is by no means the case with that made in China and Japan, which which deserves attention from the beauty, the regularity, the strength, and fineness of its texture. In Europe they have discovered, or rather carried to perfection, the ingenious art of making paper with old rags, originally either from flax or hemp; and since this discovery the paper produced from our manufactures is sufficient for every purpose. And though these materials have been hitherto abundant, several philosophers have attempted to substitute other vegetable substances in their place. In the 6th volume of the Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, we have an account of paper made by Mr Greeves near Warrington from the bark of willow-twigs; and it has been observed by a society of able critics, that hop-buds would probably answer this purpose better. The rags in common use for paper-making are a texture of supple and strong fibres separated by a lea from the bark of the plants. It would be in vain to employ the whole body of the plant, as this substance forms a very improper stuff for the operations of the paper-mill. From these principles we are directed in the choice of vegetable substances fit for the present purpose. The greater or less degree of purity in the materials is not absolutely necessary; for flax itself, without any preparation, could be made into paper; but it would be extremely coarse, and the bark of nettles or malloes would not bear the expense of labour.

Although cotton is used in the fabrication of paper in the Levant, and perhaps in China, we are not to conclude that the down of plants in Europe, without the strength or suppleness of cotton, will answer the same purpose.

**History.**

The chief kinds of paper which merit attention in this work are, 1. The Egyptian paper; 2. Paper made from cotton; 3. Paper from the interior bark of trees or liber; 4. Chinese paper; 5. Japanese paper; 6. Paper made from asbestos; and, 7. Paper made from linen rags.

This is the famous paper used by the ancients, which was made of a kind of reed called papyrus, growing in Egypt on the banks of the Nile. According to Pliny, this paper was first used at Memphis, and Lucan seems to be of the same opinion,

> Nondum flaminas Memphis connexere biblos > Noverat. > PHARSALE, lib. iii. ver. 222.

Whatever truth may be in this, it is certain, that of all the kinds of paper used by the ancients, the papyrus was the most convenient, both from its flexibility and from the ease of fabrication. It was a present from nature, and required neither care nor culture.

It is not certain at what particular period the ancients began to make paper of papyrus; but there are several authorities which prove the use of it in Egypt long before the time of Alexander the Great.

Pliny, lib. xiii. cap. ii., gives a full description of the method of making this paper in Egypt. They divide, says he, with a kind of needle the item of the papyrus into thin plates or slender pellicles, each of them as large as the plant will admit. These are the elements of which the sheets of paper are composed. The pellicles in the centre are the best; and they diminish in value as they depart from it. As they were separated from the reed, they were extended on a table, and laid across each other at right angles. In this state they were moistened by the water of the Nile, and while wet were put under a press, and afterwards exposed to the rays of the sun. "It was supposed that the water of the Nile," says Pliny, had a gummy quality necessary to glue these stripes together. This, says Mr Bruce, we may be assured is without foundation, no such quality being found in the water of the Nile; on the contrary, I found it of all others the most improper, till it had settled and was absolutely divested of all the earth gathered in its turbid state. I made several pieces of this paper both in Abyssinia and Egypt; and it appears to me, that the sugar or sweetmeats with which the whole juice of this plant is impregnated, is the matter that causes the adhesion of these stripes together; and that the use of the water is no more than to dissolve this, and put it perfectly and equally in fusion." When there was not enough of sugar in the plant, or when the water did not sufficiently dissolve it, the pellicles were united by a paste made of the finest wheat flour, mixed with hot water and a little vinegar, and when dried they were flattened and smoothed by the beating of a mallet.

The size of this paper varied much; it seldom exceeded two feet, but it was oftentimes smaller. It had different names, according to its size and quality: The first was called Imperial, which was of the finest and largest kind, and was used for writing letters by the great men among the Romans. The second sort was called by the Romans the Livian paper, from Livia the wife of Augustus; each leaf of this kind was 12 inches. The third sort was called the Sacerdotal paper, and was 11 inches in size.

The paper used in the amphitheatres was of the dimensions of nine inches. But what was esteemed of greatest value in it, was its strength, whiteness, and polish. The ink, however, used in paper highly polished; and therefore the characters were more liable to be effaced. When it was not carefully soaked in the first preparation, the paper brought a less price; because letters were with difficulty formed upon it, and it sent forth a disagreeable smell. To remedy this defect, the paper went through a new course of sizing and hammering; and the size used on that occasion was made of light bread steeped in boiling water, and passed through a filtering cloth. By this means the paper became in the highest degree united, and smoother than the finest linen. It was this paper which gave so long a duration to the works of the Gracchi, Tiberius and Caius, in their own hand-writing. "I have seen them (says Pliny) in the library of Pomponius Secundus, a poet and citizen of the first rank, near 200 years after they were written." We may add, that manuscripts of this paper still remain, which have undoubtedly been written 1000 or 1200 years ago. It appears from Pliny, that the Egyptians pasted together the pellicles of the papyrus by means of the water of the Nile; but that the polishing with ivory, and the operations of the hammer and the press, were added by the invention and industry of the Roman artists. The Egyptians seem to have known the use of size; but it is evident from the same author, that the Romans used a stronger size in the making of paper. Notwithstanding the care which was taken to give strength and consistency to the paper of Egypt, the leaves, although collected into a book, were too weak to support themselves; and for this reason it was was a common practice, after every five leaves, to insert a leaf of parchment. There still remains in the abbey of St Germain de-Prés a fragment of the epistle of St Augustine written in this manner. The manuscript is at least 1100 years old, and in a high state of preservation.

This paper was an important branch of commerce to the Egyptians, which continued to increase towards the end of the Roman republic, and became still more extensive in the reign of Augustus. The demand from foreign nations was often so great, as to occasion a scarcity at Rome; and we read in the reign of Tiberius of a tumult among the people in consequence of this scarcity. In a letter of the emperor Adrian, the preparing of the papyrus is mentioned as one of the principal occupations at Alexandria. "In this rich and opulent city (says he) nobody is seen idle: Some are employed in the manufacture of cloth, some in that of writing paper," &c. During the time of the Antonines, this commerce continued equally to flourish. Apuleius says, that he wrote on the papyrus of Egypt with a reed of the Nile prepared at Memphis.

The demand for this paper was so great towards the end of the third century, that when the tyrant Firmus conquered Egypt, he boasted that he had seized as much paper and size as would support his whole army.

St Jerome informs us, that it was as much in use in the fifth century when he flourished. The duty on the importation of this commodity had grown excessive towards the end of this or the beginning of the fifth century; and being abolished by Theodoric king of Italy, Cassiodorus, in the 38th letter of his 11th book, congratulates the whole world on the discharge of an impost on a merchandise so essentially necessary to mankind.

The fathers Montfaucon and Mabillon mention several fragments written on this paper in the sixth century. One of them was a charter of the emperor Justinian, entitled Charta plenaria securitatis. Father Montfaucon saw in 1698, in the library of Julio Justiniani, three or four fragments of paper of Egypt of the same antiquity. And Mabillon speaks of some books of the Jewish antiquities by Josephus translated into Latin, which seemed to have been written in the same century, and which were preserved in the library of St Ambrose of Milan, but he had not seen the manuscripts. The same father mentions to have seen in the library of St Martin of Tours the remains of an old Greek manuscript of the paper of Egypt, and which appeared to him to be of the seventh century. He also believes, that the copy of St Mark's gospel preserved in the register-office of Venice is written on the same paper, that it is the most ancient of any of the evangelical manuscripts, and may be supposed to be written at the latest in the fourth century.

According to the same antiquarian, the paper of Egypt was used in France, and Italy, and other European countries, both for books of learning and public records; and there still remains, adds he, a great number of these in the archives of the church at St Dennis, at Corbie, in the abbey de Graffe, and in other convents.

It is probable, that the invention of paper made of cotton, of which we are afterwards to treat, infinibily destroyed the reputation and manufacture of the paper of Egypt; but it is still a question at what particular period the fabrication of the latter totally ceased. Euclides, the learned commentator on Homer, affirms us, that in his time in 1170 it was no longer in use; but Father Mabillon maintains, that many of the popish bulls were written on the papyrus in the 11th century.

The Count Maffei, in his Istor. Diplomat. lib. ii. Biblioth. Ital. tom iii. p. 251, is decidedly of opinion, that the paper of Egypt was not in use in the fifth century. He considers all records written on this paper dated posterior to this period as not authentic; and the popish bulls mentioned by Father Mabillon appear to this learned person, as well as the copy of St Mark's gospel, to be written on paper manufactured from cotton. To reconcile in some measure these contradictory accounts, it may be observed, that on some particular occasions, and by some particular persons, the paper of Egypt might have been employed for several hundred years after it ceased to be of general use. Whoever wishes for a fuller account of the paper of Egypt, may consult among the ancients Pliny, lib. xiii. and Theophrastus, lib. iv. chap. ix. and among the moderns, Guilandinus, Scaliger, Saumaise, Kerchmayer, Nigrifili; Father Hardouin in his edition of Pliny; Father Mabillon in his work De re Diplomat.; Montfaucon in his Paleography, and in his Collections; the illustrious Maffei in his Istor. Diplomat.; the count de Caylus in the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions; and Mr Bruce in his Travels to discover the Source of the Nile.

It is generally supposed that the invention of the paper made of cotton, called charta bombycina, supplanted the Egyptian from cotton-paper in Greece. This paper is incomparably more lasting, and better calculated for all the purposes of writing. It is not precisely known at what period this art, which supposes a great variety of previous experiments, was first reduced to practice. The application of cotton to the purposes of paper-making requires as much labour and ingenuity as the use of linen rags; and for this reason, if we could determine the precise time when paper was made from cotton, we should also fix the invention of the art of paper-making as it is presently practised in Europe. Father Montfaucon proves, by incontestable authorities, that paper from cotton was in use in 1100. This paper in the Greek language is called χαρτα βυσσινικης, or βυσσινικης; for although βυσσος is the Greek word for silk, yet in those times it was applied, as well as βυσσα, to cotton; and hence the Italians to this day call cotton bambaccio.

The most ancient manuscript of this paper which Father Montfaucon saw with the date, was that in the French king's library, written A.D. 1050; but as the manuscripts without date are infinitely more numerous than those which are dated, and as some conjecture can be formed concerning them from the manner of writing, this father believes some of these to have been written in the 10th century.

The researches of the same learned antiquarian amount almost to a proof that this paper was discovered towards the end of the ninth century or beginning of the tenth; for before the twelfth century it was commonly used in the eastern empire, and even in Sicily. Roger king of Sicily says, in a diploma written in 1145, that he had renewed renewed on parchment a charter which had been written on paper of cotton, in the year 1100, and another which was dated in the year 1112. About the same time the empress Irene, in the statutes for some religious houses at Constantinople, says that she had left three copies of the same statutes, two in parchment and one in paper from cotton. From that period this paper was still more in use through all the eastern empire; and innumerable Greek manuscripts are found written on it in all the great libraries.

This discovery happened at a time when there seems to have been a great scarcity of parchment; for it was about this period that the Greeks erased the writings of Polybius, Diodorus of Sicily, and many valuable ancient authors, for the sake of the parchment.

It was the invention of this paper of cotton which destroyed the manufacture of the paper of Egypt; for, if we may believe Eustathius, who wrote towards the end of the 12th century, the latter paper had gone into disuse but a little before his time. We may easily believe, however, that this new invention, although of great advantage to mankind, was introduced by degrees.

The manufacture of this kind of paper has flourished in the Levant for many ages, and is carried on with great success even to this day. It is not necessary to say any thing farther, than that the paper produced from cotton is extremely white, very strong, and of a fine grain.

This paper of the ancients was made from the white pellicle or inner coat found in many trees between the bark and the wood. The trees commonly in use were the maple, the plane tree, the elm, the beech, the mulberry, and most frequently the linden-tree. The ancients wrote on this inner coat after they had separated it from the bark, beat, and dried it.

The fathers Mabillon and Montfaucon speak frequently of manuscripts and diplomas written on paper made from bark; and positively distinguish it from the Egyptian paper, because it was thicker, and composed of parts less adhering together.

There are many palm trees in India and America to which botanists have given the name papyraceous, because the natives have written with bodkins either on the leaves or the bark. Such is the American palm, called tal by the Indians; and of the same kind is the guajara-ba of New Spain. Every palm, the bark of which is smooth, and the leaves large and thick, may be used for this purpose.

The art of making paper from vegetables reduced to stuff was known in China long before it was practised in Europe; and the Chinese have carried it to a degree of perfection hitherto unknown to the European artists. The fine paper in China is softer and smoother than that of Europe; and these qualities are admirably adapted to the pencil, which the Chinese use in writing. Several kinds of their paper discover the greatest art and ingenuity, and might be applied with much advantage to many purposes. They are capable of receiving, for example, the impression of types; and both maps and prints have been executed with success on the Chinese paper.

The different sorts of paper vary in China according to the materials of which they are composed, and to the different manner of manufacturing those materials. Every province has its peculiar paper. That of Se-chuen is made of linen rags as in Europe; that of Fo-kien, of young bamboo; that of the northern provinces, of the interior bark of the mulberry; that of the province of Kiang-nan, of the skin which is found in the webs of the silk-worm; finally, in the province of Hu-kuang, the tree chu or ko-chu furnishes the materials with which they make paper.

The method of fabricating paper with the bark of different trees is nearly the same with that which is followed in the bamboo. To give an idea, therefore, of the manner of manufacturing the interior barks of the mulberry, the elm, and the cotton-tree, it will be sufficient to confine our observations to the bamboo.

The bamboo is a kind of cane or hollow reed, divided by knots; but larger, more elastic, and durable than any other reed.

The whole substance of the bamboo, composed of filaments, and a great abundance of fibrous materials, is employed in this operation. The shoots of one or two years, nearly the thickness of a man's leg, are preferred. They strip the leaves from the stem, cut them into pieces of four or five feet long, make them into parcels, and put them into water to macerate. As soon as they are softened, which generally happens in five days, they wash them in pure water; put them into a dry ditch; cover them with lime for some days, which they water for the purpose of flaking; they wash them carefully a second time; cut every one of the pieces into filaments, which they expose to the rays of the sun to dry and to bleach them. After this they are boiled in large kettles; and then reduced to fluff in mortars of wood, by means of a hammer with a long handle, which the workman moves with his foot.

The fluff being thus prepared, they take some shoots of a plant named koteng, which, steeped in water four or five days, is reduced to an unctuous or glutinous substance; and when they proceed to make the paper, this is mixed with the fluff in certain exact quantities, for on this mixture depends the goodness of the paper.

When the extract from the koteng is mixed with fluff of the bamboo, the whole mixture is beat together in mortars till it becomes a thick and viscous liquor. This is poured into large tubs or reservoirs, so exactly framed as that no part of the liquor can escape.

The workmen after this plunge their forms into the liquor; take out what is sufficient for a sheet of paper; which immediately, from the glutinous substance, becomes firm and thinning; and is detached from the form by turning down the sheet on the heap of paper already made, without the interposition of pieces of woollen cloth, as in Europe.

In order to dry this paper, they have a hollow wall, the two fronts of which are smooth and extremely white. At the extremity of this wall is placed a stove, the pipes of which are carried in a circular manner through the whole empty space. The sheets of paper are laid on the surface, to which they adhere till they come over them with a soft brush; and after they are dry, it is easy to distinguish the side which received impressions from the brush from that which adhered to the wall. By means of this stove the Chinese dry their paper as fast as they can make it; but it is only in cold seasons, or in certain certain provinces, that they find this expedient necessary.

The Chinese paper must be dipped in a solution of alum before it can take either ink or colours. They call this operation faner, from the Chinese word fan, which signifies alum. The following is the manner of preparing this solution: Six ounces of iinglafs cut very small is put into boiling water, and constantly stirred, that it may dissolve equally. When the iinglafs is wholly dissolved in the water, they throw in twelve ounces of calcined alum, which is also stirred till it is completely dissolved and mixed with the iinglafs. This composition is afterwards poured into a large and deep basin, at the mouth of which is a little round piece of wood; the extremity of every sheet of paper is fixed in another piece of wood, with a slit made to receive it; by means of this equipage they plunge the sheet of paper into the composition of alum and iinglafs; and when it is fully penetrated, they draw it out, making it glide over the little round piece of wood. The long piece of wood which holds the sheet by one end, and keeps it from tearing, is afterwards suspended with it on a wall till it is sufficiently dry.

The Chinese give the paper intended for different purposes different preparations. We shall confine our observations to the silver colour which they give to some paper. They take two scruples of paste made of cows hide, one scruple of alum, and a pint of water: the whole is boiled on a slow fire till the water be evaporated. The sheets of paper are then stretched on a smooth table, and covered over with two or three layers of this paste. They take afterwards a certain quantity of talc, washed and boiled in water, with the proportion of one-third of alum; this is dried, reduced to a powder, passed through a sieve, boiled a second time in water, dried in the sun, and again passed through the sieve. This powder is spread equally over the sheets of paper, prepared as we mentioned above; and then they are dried slowly in the shade.

The sheets of paper, covered in this manner with talc, are laid upon a table, and rubbed with a little cotton; which fixes a certain quantity of the talc in the paper, and carries off the surplus to be used on another occasion. By means of this composition the Chinese draw all manner of figures on their paper.

Formerly the Chinese wrote with a bodkin of iron on tablets of bamboo; afterwards on satin with a pencil; and during the dynasty of their tyrants, about 160 years before Christ, they discovered the art of making paper.

The paper made from the bamboo is sufficiently white, soft, closely united, without the least inequality on the surface to interrupt the motion of the pencil, or to occasion the rising of the materials which compose it. Meanwhile every kind of paper made from the bamboo or the bark of trees, is readier to crack than that made in Europe; besides, it is more susceptible of moisture, and sooner destroyed with dust and worms. To obviate this last inconvenience, they are obliged frequently to beat their books in China, and to expose them to the sun. It may be observed, however, that the Chinese paper, employed for various purposes in Europe, has been preserved for a long time without receiving damage either from moisture or insects.

According to Kempfer, the bark of the morus papi- on additional weights. This pressure, intended to carry off any unnecessary moisture, is continued for 24 hours, when the sheets are suspended, by means of little pieces of reed, to long plants, in the open air, till they are completely dried.

The extract from rice is made in an unvarnished earthen pot. The pot is agitated at first gently, then more briskly: new water is poured in, and then it is filtered through a linen cloth. The fineness of the process is determined by the viscosity of the substance.

The infusion of the root orei is made in the following manner: The root, peeled and cut into small pieces, is infused into water for one night, during which time it communicates a viscosity sufficient for the purpose to which it is applied.

The Japanese paper is of such prodigious strength, that the materials of which it is composed might be manufactured into ropes. There is said at Serige, the capital city of the province of Japan of that name, a kind of it fit for bed hangings and wearing apparel; resembling so much fluff of wool and silk, that it is often taken for them. The following is Kempfer's catalogue of trees used in Japan for the manufacture of paper.

1. The true paper tree, called in the Japanese language kaadfi, Kempfer characterizes thus: *Papyrus fructu mori celte*, *five morus sativa folis urticae mortuae cortice papifera*.

2. The false paper tree, called by the Japanese kafii, kadfire; by Kempfer, *papyrus procumbens laetificens folio longo lanceatae cortice chartaceo*.

3. The plant which the Japanese call orei is named by Kempfer *malva radice vifofa flore ephemero magno panicu*.

4. The fourth tree used for paper is the futobadura, named by Kempfer *frutex vifofus procumbens folio telephi vulgaris emulo fructu racemoso*.

The description of these trees, given more particularly by Kempfer than the limits of this work will permit, may be of great service to lead botanists to discover the European plants and shrubs adapted, like the Japanese, for the fabrication of paper.

Before finishing our reflections on this part of the subject, it will be proper to give a just idea of the attempts which have been made to increase the original materials of paper in Europe.

A flight attention to the process in China in reducing the bamboo to a paste, by a careful and ingenious analysis, and to the long and proper method of the Japanese of separating the principal fibres of the bark of the mulberry, will throw the absurdity not only of taking plants without any kind of choice, but of giving them no preparation except that of pounding them with mallets.

With a proper selection, and good principles, it appears not improbable that many of the European plants might be used with great advantage in constructing several kinds of paper.

It is evident that the materials used by the Chinese require less labour and preparation than the stuff of linen rags. The sheets of the Chinese paper are easily detached from the form; they are laid in heaps without the interposition of pieces of woollen cloth; the superfluous water is immediately discharged; and they require not, as in Europe, the vigorous action of presses to unite the parts more closely together.

The asbestos is a fibrous substance of little strength, the threads of which are easily broken. See Mineralogy Index. This substance has the peculiar property of supporting the action of fire without receiving any damage: whence pieces of cloth and garters made of it are incombinable. From the knowledge of this property paper has been made of the asbestos. Dr Brukman, professor at Brunswick, published the natural history of this fossil; and four copies of his book, in the library of Wolfenbuttle, are on this paper.

The manner of fabricating this paper is described by M. Lloyd in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 166. A certain quantity of the asbestos is pounded in a mortar of stone till it is reduced to a substance like cotton. All the parts of earth or stone remaining in the asbestos are then taken off by means of a fine sieve, and it is formed into sheets of paper by an ordinary paper mill. Mixing it with water reduces it to fluff; only, as it is heavier than that from linen rags, it requires to be continually stirred when they are taking it up with the frames. The only excellence of this paper is, that the writing disappears when it is cast into the fire. It must be observed, at the same time, that as it is of a flender consistency, and easily torn, it is more an object of curiosity than use.

This paper is manufactured throughout all Europe of linen rags collected in the cities and in the country. This kind of paper was utterly unknown to the ancients. The libri lintei mentioned by Livy, I, lib. iv. Pliny, XIII. c. xi. and by other Roman writers, are demonstrated by Guilandin, in his commentary on Pliny, &c., to have been written on pieces of linen cloth, or canvas prepared in the manner of painters.

But it is not sufficient to be certain that paper from linen is a modern invention; it is necessary to know by what nation, and at what period, it was discovered. Polydore Virgil, De Inventoribus Rerum, C. II. c. viii. confesses his ignorance of these facts. Scaliger, without any kind of proof, gives the glory to the Germans; and Count Maffei to the Italians. Other writers ascribe this honour to some Greek refugees at Basil, to whom the manner of making paper from cotton in their own country had suggested the idea. Du Halde is persuaded that Europe derived this invention from the Chinese, who, in several provinces, make paper of rags nearly in the same manner that we do. But this invention was practised by the Europeans before they had any communication with China, and before the taking of Constantinople, at which time the Greek refugees were supposed to have retired to Basil. The precise time of this discovery in Europe is not exactly known. Father Mabillon believes that it was in the twelfth century; and cites a passage of Pierre de Clugny, born A.D. 1100, to prove it. The books which we read every day, says that abbe in his treatise against the Jews, are written on sheep and calves' skins; or on oriental plants; or, finally, *Ex rafuris veterum pannorum*. If these last words signify paper, such as we use, there were books of it in the twelfth century. But this citation is the more to be suspected, as Montfaucon himself, after the minutest search in France and Italy, could find no book on this paper antecedent to the death of St Louis, A.D. 1270.

The epocha of this invention was not determined till 1762, M. Mierman having proposed a reward to the person who could procure the most ancient manuscript written on this kind of paper. The collection of all the memoirs sent to him along with the manuscripts was published. In 1782 the Abbé Andréz published a work entitled *Dell' Origine, Progressi, e Stato attuale d'Ogni letteratura*; wherein he speaks of the discovery of many kinds of paper, and particularly of that made of rags. The Abbé Andréz maintains, that paper made from silk was very anciently fabricated in China, and in the eastern parts of Asia; that the art of making this paper was carried from China to Persia about the year 652, and to Mecca in 756. The Arabs substituted cotton, the commodity of their own country, in place of silk or rather bamboo. This paper of cotton was carried into Africa and Spain by the Arabs. The Spaniards, from the quantity of linen to be found in the kingdom of Valencia, seem first to have adopted the idea of using linen rags; and the most ancient paper of this kind is of Valencia and Catalonia. From Spain it passed into France, as may be learned from a letter of Joinville to St Louis about the year 1260. It is discovered to have been in Germany in 1312, and in England in 1320 and 1342. In consequence of the paper made from cotton in the Levant, the paper from linen was introduced much later into Italy. See the work of Abbé Andréz, printed at Parma, 1782, in 8vo; and Mierman's Collection, published at the Hague.

**Sect. I. Art of Making Paper in Europe.**

To give a concise view of this subject, it will be necessary to proceed with all the important parts of the operation in their order.

The selection of the rags, is the arranging of them into different lots, according to their quality and to the demand of the paper mill. In general this selection is very much neglected: The degrees of fineness and whiteness, distinguished with little care, are thought to be the only objects of importance; whereas the hardness and softness, the being more or less worn, are much more essential in this selection. It is certain, that a mixture of soft and hard rags occasions much more loss in the trituration than a difference in point of fineness or of colour. This exactness in the selection is still more necessary where cylinders are used instead of mallets. We cannot do better than to give the method practised in Holland as worthy of imitation.

They begin by a general separation of the rags into four lots; superfine, fine, middle, and coarse. These lots are given to selectors, who subdivide each of them into five chests. They have besides a bench, on which is fixed vertically a hook, and a piece of scythe which is terminated by a crooked point.

The person, for example, who has the charge of the fine lot, puts into one of the chests the hard rags, or those which are little used, into another the soft, into a third the dirty, into a fourth those which are stitched or hemmed, and, finally, into the fifth the superfine rags which happen to be among the fine.

After this process, the women who have the charge of it are at extreme pains to pick out every kind of foreign, and especially the knots of thread and the hens, by means of the hook or scythe which they have under their hands. They take care also by the same means to cut and reduce the rags exactly by the warp and the woof into small pieces. It is of great advantage to cut or tear the pieces of rags by a thread, whether it be by the warp or woof; because if it is done obliquely, many of the ends are lost in the operation.

When they have selected a certain quantity of each of these subdivisions, they are placed on an iron grate, which covers a large chest where they are beat, and otherwise turned, till the filth and dust pass through the bars of the grate and fall into the chest.

The number of lots in the selection of rags must be proportioned to the mills from which the selection is made, and to the kinds of paper produced by the mill. Some mills, the work of which is considerable, make nine lots of their rags, five of which respect the fineness, and the rest the cleanliness and the colour. In ordinary mills there are only four lots, and in some two.

We have already observed, that the selection which regards the hardness of the materials is the most essential; because it is of great importance to obtain fluff composed of equal parts, and without any lots. But it is necessary to add, that the fineness and beauty of the paper depend in some cases on a selection not rigorous. Thus, for example, it is of great service to allow the middling to retain some part of the fine, and the fine some part of the superfine; for without this the inferior kinds of paper can never be of great value. The most common fault is to mix the rags of the inferior lots with the superior; which though it augments the quantity of paper, is extremely injurious to the quality. It does much better to mix part of the superior lots with the inferior. It was the want of attention to this mixture which makes some paper mills excel in the superior sorts of paper while the inferior kinds are of a very bad quality.

The selection of rags being made with exactness, however, and the lots being fermented and triturated separately, the mixture may be made with much greater advantage when they are both reduced to fluff; always taking care that it be in the same proportion as if it were in the state of rags, and only in the manner which we just now mentioned; for the inferior sorts gain more in beauty and quality by this mixture than is lost in fluff; whereas if the fine fluff receives a certain quantity of the inferior, the paper is more damaged in its value than increased in quantity. In this manner the interest of the manufacturer, as in all cases, is intimately connected with the goodness of his commodities.

In some mills the place for fermentation is divided into two parts, one of which serves for washing away and fermenting the fluff from the rags. After allowing them to steep for some time in a large stone vat, they stir them, and pour in fresh water till the impurities connected with the rags run over. When they are as clean as they possibly can be made by this kind of washing, they are laid in a heap to putrefy. In this condition they experience a degree of fermentation, which is first discovered by a mouldiness of the different pieces of cloth. Afterwards the mass grows warm; and then it is of great consequence to attend to the progress of this heat, in order to moderate its effects; for this purpose, the middle of the heap, where the fermentation is strongest, is turned out, and vice versa. In mills where mallets are used, the putrefaction is carried to a great height, which is frequently attended with two inconveniences. The first is, that Art of making Paper in Europe.

That a part of the rags is reduced to an earthy substance, which is found in great abundance about the cutting table, as we shall afterwards have occasion to see. But besides this waste, excessive fermentation makes the stuff incapable of sustaining the action of the mallets till it is equally pounded. A paper made from a stuff too hard and too little fermented, is coarse and ill compacted; that made from rags too much fermented is composed of fibres without feltness and without strength.

The second inconvenience is, that the rags turn greasy by too much fermentation, and of consequence it is very difficult to separate and reduce them by all the washings of the trituration.

We shall not describe the form of the place for fermentation, because in different paper works these places are of different constructions: it is sufficient to say, that they are all placed in low situations and made very close. The selected rags are placed in them in heaps, and watered from time to time to bring on the fermentation. In different paper mills they practice different methods in the putrefaction of their rags.

In certain provinces in France, they lay in the place for putrefaction a heap equivalent to what the mill can triturate in a month. When this is equally and sufficiently moistened by means of moveable pipes, they cover it with an old heap, which has lain a month in a state of fermentation. When this old heap is exhausted by the mill, the new one becomes a covering to another, and so on. From this detail it is easy to perceive, that there must be near three weeks difference of putrefaction in the same heap, and also that in this method there is no allowance for those seasons in which the fermentation advances more rapidly.

In general the putrefaction goes on more slowly in proportion to the fineness of the rags. But when, on any occasion, it advances more rapidly than the demand from the mill, the rags are turned over and watered, to stop the fermentation and prevent the bad effects.

All the inconveniences attending the excess of putrefaction are remedied in Holland by machines which triturate the rags without having recourse to it; and their success in this manner of preparing the stuff has attracted the notice of the French artists, some of whom have adopted with advantage the Dutch machinery.

Meanwhile, it is possible to carry the method of putrefaction to much greater perfection; and several manufacturers have made attempts to well concert, as to deserve the attention of those who study the subject.

In the neighbourhood of Brussels some paper manufacturers, who have constructed their mills after the Dutch plan, have still found it necessary to putrefy their rags; but, at the same time, they have an excellent method for moderating the effects of this putrefaction. In the great galleries connected with the buildings of the paper mill, they have constructed a continuation of chutes, capable each of them of containing a certain quantity of rags; for example, the quantity which the cylinder can triturate in one day. The number of chutes is equal to the number of days which the rags in any season require for putrefaction; and the number actually employed is greater or less according to the season. In prosecuting this plan, they lay a heap of rags in one chute, as often as they take one from another. It should also be observed, that, for the sake of the fermentation, the rags are first moistened in a large hollow stone before they are arranged into the chutes.

The peculiar advantages of this method are, the equal fermentation of the rags, without any part of them being weakened; great ease in washing them; and it is even pretended, that a less degree of fermentation renders the impurities and the discoloured parts both of hemp and linen more soluble, and consequently the stuff of a purer white.

When the rags are reduced to a proper state of putrefaction, they are carried to the cutting table, which is placed on solid treffels, and enclosed on three sides to contain the rags cut on it. Before the table is fixed vertically a part of the blade of a scythe, the edge of which is turned from the operator. This workman, in a situation rather elevated, takes from the left side a handful of the putrefied rags, and arranging them the long way, gives them a gentle twist, presses the half-formed rope against the blade of the scythe, and, in the manner of sawing, cuts it into three or four pieces, which he throws to the right side of the table. In this operation the rags lose part of their filth, and especially of the earthy particles occasioned by too much putrefaction.

When the rags have been submitted to all the foregoing operations, they are in a condition to be reduced triturating into a fibrous stuff, of which the paper is made. To obtain this stuff, mills are constructed on different principles. Those which have been used for a long time over all Europe, and which by a statement in the Encyclopédie Methodique, published at Paris in 1789, are still used in France, are mills with mallets. But the mills invented by the Dutch, and used in the neighbouring provinces, and, excepting one instance, in every part of Great Britain, are mills with cylinders or rollers. In the former of these, the mallets are raised by notches fixed at convenient distances in a large circular beam of wood. The teeth fixed on the end of the mallet fall into a corresponding gap made the whole breadth of the plate, and the strokes are repeated till the rags are reduced to a proper consistence. On supplying the vat with water, and carrying off all the impurities, the operation is nearly similar to that in the mills with cylinders.

Such is the nature of what may be called the old method of making paper. It was proper to speak of this old method, because at one time, and that not very distant, it universally prevailed. That it was inferior to that now in practice, seems very evident; and that the rotting of the rags was peculiarly absurd, cannot be denied, as the paper made of fermented stuff could neither be so strong nor so durable as that which is made in the common way without putrefaction. The only kind of paper that, with any propriety, could be made from putrefied stuff, was pateboard; but we are informed by the most intelligent papermakers in Britain, that they seldom or never even putrefy the rags or ropes of which pateboard is made. It will now be requisite to state the method presently in practice, with the improvements lately made in the art.

The duster is made in the form of a cylinder, four and a half feet in diameter, and five feet in length. It is altogether covered with a wire net, and put in motion by its connection with some part of the machinery. convenient quantity of rags before the selection are enclosed in the duster, and the rapidity of its motion separates the dust from them, and forces it through the wire. It is of considerable advantage to use the duster before selection, as it makes that operation less pernicious to the selectors.

The selection is performed much in the same manner as we have already described; only it is found more convenient to have the tables for cutting off the knots and stitching, and for forming them into a proper shape, in the same place with the cutting table. The surface both of these and of the cutting table is composed of a wire net, which in every part of the operation allows the remaining dust and refuse of every kind to escape.

The rags, without any kind of putrefaction are again carried from the cutting table back to the duster, and from thence to the engine, where, in general, they are in the space of six hours reduced to the fluff proper for making paper. The hard and soft of the same quality are placed in different lots; but they can be reduced to fluff at the same time, provided the soft be put somewhat later into the engine.

The engine is that part of the mill which performs the whole action of reducing the rags to paste, or, as it may be termed, of trituration. The number of the engines depends on the extent of the paper work, on the force of water, or on the construction of the machinery.

It will afford a sufficient idea of the work, to give in detail a description of the different parts of the engine. Figure 1 represents the chapter which covers the roller. It is four feet three inches in length, and two feet eight inches in breadth. The superior part is pierced with two openings running crosswise, 1, 2, 3, 4, into which enter the chaffers, or wicker frames, figures 6 and 7; the first made of wire cloth, enters into the opening 3 and 4; the second made of hair cloth, and strengthened with several cross bars of wood, enters into the opening 1, 2, serves to retain the small pieces of rags which escape through the first, and prevents them from falling into the dale or hole-scupper, fig. 2. This hole-scupper is placed across the vat of the engine, parallel to the axle of the roller; the part g enters into the notch c of the chapter; and the extremity h enters into the opening k of the tunnel kl (fig. 3.), by which means the water dashed through the wicker frames by every revolution of the roller is precipitated into the canal fh, and loses itself below the engine. The figures 4, 9, and 10, represent the roller in perspective, in plane, and in profile. It is two feet in diameter, and two feet three inches in length. The trundle head A is 16 inches in diameter, about half as much in length, and furnished with seven spindles of iron, which are screwed to the end of the trundle head, made also of iron. The teeth or blades of the roller are 27 in number, and fitted strongly into the wood which composes its body, parallel to its axis. They are of that thickness as to leave as much empty space as they occupy. The exterior face of each of the blades should be made round, and divided into two parts, with a longitudinal motion, as in the profile aa, fig. 10.

The axis A B of the roller (fig. 4. and 9.) has two parts perfectly rounded in A and in B, which perform the office of pivots. These pivots rest in the pockets A and B (fig. 8.) in the middle of the levers OAH and OBH. It is by means of these levers that they raise at pleasure, or lower the axis of the roller, and fit it exactly, and in a parallel manner, to the plate. The plates (see fig. 5.) are made of steel cut into channels, in such a manner as to correspond with the blades of the roller. Their channels are not perpendicular, but oblique; and there are two rows of them, b x, x d, consisting of seven or eight blades each on one plate.—Those in b x, for the purpose of changing the plate, lie in an opposite direction to those in x d. The levers are kept in their position near the vat by bands of iron, MN and m n; between which they are made higher or lower by the cogged wheel H, which supports one of the extremities. Wedges N n are likewise employed to fix the levers at a convenient height above the plates. Finally, Every vat is supplied with a small slide door, which is occasionally raised to carry the prepared stuff by means of the scuppers of wood to the general repositories.

Fig. 4. is placed in the vat fig. 8.; the roller (fig. 4.) working is placed above it in such a manner that the pivots rest in the ends of the levers; the scupper (fig. 2.) and the chapter are disposed in the manner above mentioned. The vat is charged with a proper quantity of rags, and fresh water is admitted by a spigot placed at one of the corners. In this situation, when the engine is put in motion, the roller turning upon its axis draws the water and the rags by the least inclined plane, and making them pass between its blades and the channels of the plate, dashes them against the chapter and the wicker-frames; and, in short, part of them falls back into the vat, and returns into the circulation. The cause of this circulation is evidently the continual void occasioned by the movement of the roller on the one side, and the return of the water and the fluff on the other.

As all the rags are not thrown towards the part Ed of the chapter, from whence they might fall back into the vat, but a part of them to a greater distance; it is necessary to have the wicker frames formerly described, not only to prevent their loss, but to allow the dirty water to escape. The spigot at the corner of the vat continually supplies this waste of water. This operation would be sufficient to whiten the rags, although the rollers were raised considerably from the plate; and therefore the force and action of the rollers reducing them to fluff must be much more effectual. It requires great skill to conduct the engine, whether it be with regard to the first quantity, to the proper time for adding the softer rags, to the augmenting or diminishing the water in proportion to the trituration; or, finally, to knowing exactly when the stuff is reduced to a proper consistency.

In the paper manufactory at Montargis, it was attempted to introduce rollers of the greatest strength and the least weight possible, in order to give them the greater rapidity; but the experiment did not succeed: the rollers of prodigious rapidity were found to produce fluff neither in greater quantity nor of superior quality. The most experienced artists have established a proportion between the motion of the roller and the greater or lesser resistance of the rags. And the Dutch, who have arrived at very great perfection in this art, have followed a method totally different from that practised at Montargis. A roller in Holland complete in all its parts Art of making paper weighs nearly 30 hundred weight; and they find this necessary for cutting the rags, especially if they have not been putrefied. In proportioning the rapidity to the resistance, they have also discovered, that a slow motion is preferable to a rapid one. The rollers at Saardom, by calculation made from the different parts of the machinery, make about 68 revolutions in a minute; those at Montargis about 166.—In Holland, too, this trituration of the rags is divided into two distinct operations, performed by rollers constructed on different principles: the first of them, for cutting the rags and preparing for the other, is furnished with blades of steel without any moisture, and with a considerable space between them; the second, intended to reduce the stuff to the proper consistency, has a greater number of blades, composed of a mixture of brass and copper. The mills with rollers are in every respect superior to those formerly in use with mallets. Two Dutch rollers of the construction we have just now described will prepare as much stuff in the same time as 24 mallets; they require infinitely less room; they do it without putrefaction, and as they do it in less time, and with less water, they occasion much less waste of the stuff.

When the stuff is brought to perfection, it is conveyed into a general repository, which supplies the vat from which the sheets of paper are formed. This vat is made of wood, and generally about five feet in diameter, and two and a half an depth. It is kept in temperature by means of a grate introduced by a hole, and surrounded on the inside of the vat with a cage of copper. For fuel to this grate, they use charcoal or wood; and, frequently, to prevent smoke, the wall of the building comes in contact with one part of the vat, and the fire has no communication with the place where they make the paper.

Every vat is furnished on the upper part with planks, enclosed inwards, and even raised in with wood, to prevent any of the stuff from running over in the operation. Across the vat is a plank which is called the trepan, pierced with holes at one of the extremities, and resting on the planks which surround the vat.

The forms or moulds are composed of wire-cloth, and a moveable frame. It is with these that they fetch up the stuff from the vat, in order to form the sheets of paper. The sides of the form are made of oak, which is previously steeped in water, and otherwise prepared to prevent warping. The wire-cloth is made larger than the sheet of paper, and the excess of it on all sides is covered with a moveable frame. This frame is necessary to retain the stuff of which the paper is made on the cloth; and it must be exactly adapted to the form, otherwise the edges of the paper will be ragged and badly finished. The wire-cloth of the form is varied in proportion to the fineness of the paper and the nature of the stuff.

The felts are pieces of woollen cloth spread over every sheet of paper, and upon which the sheets are laid, to detach them from the form, to prevent them from adhering together, to imbibe part of the water with which the stuff is charged, and to transmit the whole of it when placed under the action of the press. The two sides of the felt are differently raised; that of which the hair is longest is applied to the sheets which are laid down; and any alteration of this disposition would produce a change in the texture of the paper. The stuff of which the felts are made should be sufficiently strong, in order that it may be stretched exactly on the form without forming into folds; and, at the same time, sufficiently pliant to yield in every direction without injury to the wet paper. As the felts have to resist the reiterated efforts of the press, it appears necessary that the warp be very strong, of combed wool, and well twisted. On the other hand, as they have to imbibe a certain quantity of water, and to return it, it is necessary that the woof be of carded wool, and drawn out into a flax thread.—These are the utensils, together with the press, which are used in the apartment where the sheets of paper are formed.

The vat being furnished with a sufficient quantity of the fabric-stuff and of water, two instruments are employed to mix cation of them; the one of which is a simple pole, and the other a pole armed with a piece of board, rounded and full of holes. This operation is repeated as often as the stuff falls to the bottom. In the principal writing mills in England, they use for this purpose what is called a hog, which is a machine within the vat, that, by means of a small wheel on the outside, is made to turn constantly round, and keep the stuff in perpetual motion. When the stuff and water are properly mixed, it is easy to perceive whether the previous operations have been complete. When the stuff floats close, and in regular flakes, it is a proof that it has been well triturated; and the parts of the rags which have escaped the rollers also appear.

After this operation the workman takes one of the forms, furnished with its frame, by the middle of the short sides, and fixing the frame round the wire-cloth with his thumbs, he plunges it obliquely four or five inches into the vat, beginning by the long side, which is nearest to him. After the immersion he raises it to a level: by these movements he fetches up on the form a sufficient quantity of stuff; and as soon as the form is raised the water escapes through the wire-cloth, and the superfluity of the stuff over the sides of the frame. The fibrous parts of the stuff arrange themselves regularly on the wire-cloth of the form, not only in proportion to the water escaping, but also as the workman favours this effect by gently shaking the form. Afterwards, having placed the form on a piece of board, the workman takes off the frame or deckle, and glides this form towards the couche; who, having previously laid his felt, places it with his left hand in an inclined situation, on a plank fixed on the edge of the vat, and full of holes. During this operation the workman applies his frame, and begins a second flake. The couche seizes this instant, takes with his left hand the form, now sufficiently dry, and laying the sheet of paper upon the felt, returns the form by gliding it along the trepan of the vat.

They proceed in this manner, laying alternately a sheet and a felt, till they have made six quires of paper, which is called a poff; and this they do with such dexterity, that, in many sorts of paper, two men make upwards of 20 pofts in a day. When the last sheet of the poff is covered with the last felt, the workmen about the vat unite together, and submit the whole heap to the action of the press. They begin at first to press it with a middling lever, and afterwards with a lever about fifteen feet in length. After this operation another person separates the sheets of paper from the felts, laying them The fluff which forms a sheet of paper is received, as we have already laid, on a form made of wire-cloth, which is more or less fine in proportion to the fluff, and surrounded with a wooden frame, and supported in the middle by many cross bars of wood. In consequence of this construction, it is easy to perceive, that the sheet of paper will take and preserve the impressions of all the pieces which compose the form, and of the empty spaces between them.

The traces of the wire-cloth are evidently perceived on the side of the sheet which was attached to the form, and on the opposite side they form an affiniment of parallel and rounded risings. As in the paper which is most highly finished the regularity of these impressions is still visible, it is evident that all the operations to which it is submitted have chiefly in view to soften these impressions without destroying them.—It is of consequence, therefore, to attend to the combination of labour which operates on these impressions. The couche, in turning the form on the felt, flattens a little the rounded eminences which are in relievo on one of the surfaces, and occasions at the same time the hollow places made by the wire-cloth to be partly filled up. Meanwhile the effort which is made in detaching the form, produces an infinite number of small hairs on every protuberant part of the sheet.

Under the action of the press, first with the felts and then without them, the perfecting of the grain of paper still goes on. The vestiges of the protuberances made by the wires are altogether flattened, and of consequence the hollows opposite to them disappear also; but the traces formed by the interstices of the wire, in consequence of their thickness, appear on both sides, and are rounded by the press.

The risings traced on each side of the paper, and which can be discovered by the eye on that which is most highly finished, form what is called the grain of paper. The different operations ought to soften but not destroy it; which is effectually done by employing the hammer. This grain appears in the Dutch paper; which is a sufficient proof, that though they have brought this part of the art to the greatest perfection, they have not employed hammers, but more simple and ingenious means. The grain of paper is often disfigured by the felts when they are too much used, or when the wool does not cover the thread. In this case, when the paper is submitted to the press, it takes the additional traces of the warp and the woof, and composes a surface extremely irregular.

The paper, the grain of which is highly softened, is much fitter for the purposes of writing than that which is smoothed by the hammer; on the other hand, a coarse and unequal grain very much opposes the movements of the pen; so that which is beat renders them very uncertain. The art of making paper, therefore, should consist in preserving, and at the same time in highly softening, the grain: the Dutch have carried this to the highest perfection.

The exchange succeeds the operation last described. It is conducted in a hall contiguous to the vat, supplied with several presses, and with a long table. The workman arranges on this table the paper, newly fabricated, into heaps; each heap containing eight or ten of those last under the press, kept separate by a woollen felt. The press is large enough to receive two of them at once, placed the one at the other's side. When the compression is judged sufficient, the heaps of paper are carried back to the table, and the whole turned sheet by sheet, in such a manner that the surface of every sheet is exposed to a new one; and in this situation they are again brought under the press. It is in conducting these two operations sometimes to four or five times, or as often as the nature of the paper requires, that the perfection of the Dutch plan consists. If the stuff be fine, or the paper flender, the exchange is less frequently repeated. In this operation it is necessary to alter the situation of the heaps, with regard to one another, every time they are put under the press; and also, as the heaps are highest toward the middle, to place small pieces of felt at the extremities, in order to bring every part of them under an equal pressure. A single man with four or five presses may exchange all the paper produced by two vats, provided the previous pressing at the vats be well performed. The work of the exchange generally lasts about two days on a given quantity of paper.

When the paper has undergone these operations, it is not only softened in the surface, but better felted, and rendered more pliant in the interior parts of the stuff. In short, a great part of the water which it had imbibed in the operation of the vat is dissipated. By the felting of paper is understood the approximation of the fibres of the stuff, and their adhering more closely together. The paper is felted in proportion as the water escapes; and this effect is produced by the management and reiterated action of the press. Were it not for the gradual operation of the press, the paper would be porous and composed of filaments adhering closely together. The superiority of the Dutch over the French paper depends almost entirely on this operation.

If the sheets of paper are found to adhere together, it is a proof that the business of the press has been badly conducted. To avoid this inconvenience, it is necessary to bring down the press at first gently, and by degrees with greater force, and to raise it as suddenly as possible. By this means the water, which is impelled to the sides of the heaps, and which has not yet escaped, returns to the centre; the sheets are equally dry, and the operation executed without difficulty.

According to the state of dryness in which the paper is found when it comes from the department of the vat, it is either pressed before or after the first exchange. The operation of the press should be reiterated and managed with great care; otherwise, in the soft state of the paper, there is a danger that its grain and transparency be totally destroyed. Another essential principle to the success of the exchange is, that the grain of the paper be originally well raised. For this purpose the wire cloth of the Dutch forms is composed of a rounder wire than those used in France, by which they gain the greatest degree of transparency, and are in no danger of destroying the grain. Besides this, the Dutch take care to portion the wires even where the forms are equal to the thickness of the paper.

Almost every kind of paper is considerably improved by the exchange, and receives a degree of perfection which renders it more agreeable in the use. But it is necessary to observe at the same time, that all papers Art of Making Paper in Europe

The sheets for drying the paper are in the neighborhood of the paper mill; and are furnished with a vast number of cords, upon which they hang the sheets both before and after the sizing. The sheets are surrounded with moveable lattices, to admit a quantity of air sufficient for drying the paper. The cords of the sheets are stretched as much as possible; and the paper, four or five sheets of it together, is placed on them by means of a wooden instrument resembling a pickaxe. The principal difficulty in drying the paper, consists in gradually admitting the external air, and in preventing the cords from imbuing moisture. With regard to the first of these, the Dutch use very low fires, and construct their lattices with great exactness. By this means the Dutch paper is dried equally, and is extremely supple before the sizing. They prevent the cords from imbuing the water by covering them with wax. In using such cords, the moisture does not continue in the line of contact between the paper and the cord, which prevents the sheet from stretching in that particular place by its weight, and from the folds which the moisture in the subsequent operations might occasion. The Dutch also employ cords of considerable thickness, and place fewer of them under the sheets; by which means they diminish the points of contact, and give a freer and more equal circulation to the air.

The size for paper is made of the shreds and pairings got from the tanners, curriers, and parchment makers. All the matted parts and the lime are carefully separated from them, and they are enclosed into a kind of basket, and let down by a rope and pulley into the cauldron. This is a late invention, and serves two valuable purposes. It makes it easy to draw out the pieces of leather when the size is extracted from them by boiling, or easy to return them into the boiler if the operation be not complete. When the substance is sufficiently extracted, it is allowed to settle for some time; and it is twice filtered before it is put into the vessel into which they dip the paper.

Immediately before the operation, a certain quantity of alum is added to the size. The workman takes a handful of the sheets, smoothed and rendered as supple as possible, in his left hand, dips them into the vessel, and holds them separate with his right, that they may equally imbibe the size. After holding them above the vessel for a short space of time, he places on the other side with his right hand, and again dips them into the vessel. When he has finished ten or a dozen of these handfuls, they are submitted to the action of the press. The superfluous size is carried back to the vessel by means of a small pipe. The vessel in which the paper is sized is made of copper, and furnished with a grate, to give the size when necessary a due temperature; and a piece of thin board or felt is placed between every handful as they are laid on the table of the press.

The Dutch are very careful, in sizing their paper, to have every sheet in the same handful of equal dryness; because it is found that the dry sheets imbibe the size more slowly than those which retain some degree of moisture. They begin by selecting the pages in the dry-pan, and after having made them supple, and rendering destroyed the adherence between the sheets, they separate them into handfuls in proportion to the dryness, each of them containing that number which they can dip at one time. Besides this precaution, they take care to apply two sheets of brown paper of an equal size to every handful. This brown paper, firm, solid, and already sized, is of use to support the sheets.

As soon as the paper is sized, it is the practice of some paper mills to carry it immediately to the drying house, and hang it, before it cools, sheet by sheet on the cords. The paper, unless particular attention be paid to the lattices of the drying-house, is apt to dry too fast, whereby a great part of the size goes off in evaporation; or, if too slow, it falls to the ground. The Dutch drying-houses are built to prevent these inconveniences:

But the exchange after the sizing, which is generally practised in Holland, is the best remedy. They begin this operation on the handfuls of paper, either while they are still hot, or otherwise as they find it convenient. But, after the exchange, they are careful to allow the heaps to be altogether cold before they are submitted to the press. Without this precaution, the size would either be wholly squeezed out by the press of the exchange, or the surface of the paper become very irregular. It is of consequence that the paper, still warm from the sizing, grows gradually firm, under the operation of the exchange, in proportion as it cools. By this method it receives that varnish which is afterwards brought to perfection under the press, and in which the excellency of the paper either for writing or drawing chiefly consists. It is in consequence of the exchanging and pressing that the Dutch paper is soft and equal, and that the size penetrates into the body of it, and is extended equally over its surface.

The exchange after the sizing ought to be conducted with the greatest skill and attention, because the grain of the paper then receives impressions which can never be eradicated. When the sized paper is also exchanged, it is possible to hang more sheets together on the cords of the drying-house. The paper dries better in this condition, and the size is preserved without any sensible waste, because the sheets of paper mutually prevent the rapid operation of the external air. And as the size has already penetrated into the paper, and is fixed on the surface, the insensible progress of a well conducted drying-house renders all the good effects more perfect in proportion as it is slowly dried.

If to these considerations be added the damage done to the paper in drying it immediately after the press of the sizing room, whether it be done in raising the hairs by separating the sheets, or in cracking the surface, it is evident that the trouble of the second exchange is infinitely overpaid by the advantage.

When the paper is sufficiently dry, it is carried to the finishing room, where it is pressed, selected, examined, folded, made up into quires, and finally into reams.—It is here put twice under the press; first, when it is at its full size, and secondly, after it is folded.

The principal labour of this place consists in assorting the paper into different lots, according to its quality and faults; after which it is made up into quires. The person who does this must possess great skill, and be capable of great attention, because he acts as a check on those who... Art of making Paper who separated the paper into different lots. He takes them, lays them over his left arm till he has the number requisite for a quire, brings the sides parallel to one another, and places them in heaps under the table. An expert workman, if proper care has been taken in affording the lots, will finish in this manner near 600 quires in a day.

The paper is afterwards collected into reams of 20 quires each, and for the last time put under the press, where it is continued for 10 or 12 hours, or as long as the demand of the paper-mill will permit.

A method has lately been discovered of bleaching the rags or stuff, which will undoubtedly be adopted everywhere in the preparation of writing paper, provided the expense of the process be not too great. This discovery was made by Scheele, M. Berthollet, and M. Chaptal. The first of these illustrious writers communicated to the Swedish Academy of Sciences an Essay on Manganese, containing a numerous series of experiments, intended to investigate the nature and properties of that substance. Among these experiments were several which pointed out a new state of the muriatic acid, or the acid distilled from sea-salt, otherwise known under the name of the acid or spirit of sea-salt. This state of the muriatic acid was produced by Mr Scheele, in consequence of putting the said acid into a retort or distilling vessel, along with the above-mentioned substance called manganese, and distilling over the acid into a proper receiver; it was found to have changed its nature and properties in a very remarkable manner, while at the same time the manganese remaining in the retort had suffered a very material alteration.

To the new state of the acid thus produced, in consequence of certain theoretic ideas which Mr Scheele entertained respecting the mutual action of the original muriatic acid and the manganese on each other during the process of distillation, he gave the name of dephlogisticated muriatic acid. Since the time of this original discovery, in consequence of certain changes which have occurred in the theory or philosophy of chemistry, this new state of the acid of sea-salt has been called the oxygenated muriatic acid. Among many other properties of it discovered by Mr Scheele, the most remarkable was, that it destroyed the colour of every vegetable substance which was exposed to its action; or, in other words, it bleached them; or, in the language of the dyers, it discharged their colours; that is to say, whatever happened to be the colour of any vegetable body that was submitted to the action of the oxygenated or dephlogisticated muriatic acid, it always became white, or lost its colouring matter.

In the year 1786, Dr Beddoes, then professor of chemistry in the university of Oxford, published an English translation of the Chemical Essays of Mr Scheele; and thereby made known to the chemists of Great Britain the power of the oxygenated or dephlogisticated muriatic acid, to bleach or whiten vegetable substances, or to discharge or decompose their colours. But M. Berthollet, a celebrated chemist in France, and one of the members of the Academy of Sciences at Paris appears to have been the first who thought of rendering the above-recited discovery subservient to the purposes of manufacture.

In 1789, he published in the Annales de Chimie an Essay calculated entirely for the use of manufacturers, by being divested of theoretic discussions; of which the title is, Method of Bleaching Linen or Cotton Cloths, Threads, and Yarns, by means of oxygenated Muriatic Acid, and of some other properties of that Liquor which may be useful in Manufactures."

In the same work, and in the same year, M. Chaptal, another French chemist, published an account of some experiments, in which, among many other applications of the oxygenated muriatic acid to purposes useful in the economical arts, he gives information of having bleached or whitened coarse rags used by the paper-makers, so as greatly to improve the quality of the paper into which they were afterwards manufactured. His preparation of this bleaching liquor differs not from Berthollet's, which is as follows: "Take six ounces of manganese and fifteen ounces of sea-salt, both reduced to a fine powder; mix these accurately, and introduce them into a retort or distilling vessel; then take twelve ounces of oil of vitriol and eight ounces of water, mixed together, and allowed to cool; add these to the other ingredients in the retort, and connect the retort with a cask or receiver capable of holding twenty-seven gallons and a half of water, but only containing twenty-five gallons, which is to be impregnated with the gas or vapour of the oxygenated muriatic acid; and proceed to distillation, first without and afterwards with a fire gradually raised, till the whole acid comes over."

Experiments have been made with this liquor both by some of the principal paper-makers in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh and by Messrs Clement and George Taylors of Maidstone in Kent. By the former it was found, that paper made of rags and pulp whitened in this manner, was superior to any other made of similar materials, not only in colour but in fineness of texture. By the latter, the excellence of the liquor was found to be so great, that probably having never heard of Scheele, Berthollet, and Chaptal, and conceiving themselves to be the first inventors of it, they obtained a patent for its exclusive use, which other manufacturers will doubtless disregar. It is not to be concealed, however, that, even with all the precautions which can possibly be taken at first, various circumstances of imperfection must necessarily remain to be removed by means of farther experience, both in the perfection of the bleaching process and the economy of its application to use; but for the attaining of this experience a short time will rarely be sufficient. The above account, it must appear, refers to the time when the bleaching of rags by this process was first introduced. The practice, we find is still (1805) successfully continued by some of the manufacturers in the vicinity of Edinburgh, and has been improved by using the bleaching salt (the hyperoxymuriate of lime), the right to the preparation of which is exclusively vested by patent in Messrs Tennant and Company of Glasgow.

Sect. II. Of the different Kinds of Paper.

The paper proper for writing should be without writing knots, without any parts of the stuff not triturated, without folds, and without wrinkles, of a supple texture, its grain uniform and regular, softened in the exchange, exchange, and not destroyed by smoothing. The ground of this paper must be extremely white, or shaded with a very light blue, which adds to its natural splendor. It is of great importance that it be fully and equally sized, otherwise the writing cannot be well finished, and the turnings of the letters will be very imperfect. This paper should be made from stuff not putrefied, which takes a better grain, receives more benefit from the exchange, is more equally sized, and, finally, is less subject to folds and wrinkles in the different operations. To make paper peculiarly fit for durable writing, 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."

The paper used for drawing, or for coloured maps, is in some mills made from one kind of white stuff, either fine or middling; in others, from a mixture of three or four kinds of stuff of different colours. The Dutch were not long ago almost wholly in possession of this manufacture. The same qualities are necessary in this paper as in that for writing. The grain, however, must be a little more raised, although softened by the exchange; for, without this grain, the pencil would leave with difficulty the traces of the objects. Great care is also necessary in the sizing of this paper, that the drawing be neatly performed, and also that the sinking of the ink or colours into the irregularities of the stuff be prevented.

This paper is also made in greatest perfection by stuffs better condition to receive all the impressions of the different painter. It is also necessary that furniture paper be well softened, and submitted to the exchange, to take more exactly the outlines of the figures. The French have carried this part of the manufacture of paper to the highest state of perfection.

The British and Dutch have had the greatest success in manufacturing pasteboard, which they make either from a single mat of stuff on the form, or from a collection of several sheets pasted together. In both cases, the sheets of pasteboard are made of stuff not cloth-rotted, and triturated with rollers furnished with blades of well tempered steel. By the operation of the exchange, and smoothing continued for a long time, the British and Dutch obtain solid and smooth stuffs, which neither break under the folds of cloth nor adhere to them. The stuffs not putrefied have another advantage in this species of pasteboard, namely, that of resisting the action of heat, which they experience between the folds of cloth, without wasting or tarnishing, and of consequence they may be used for a long time.

In England they have at least equalled any other nation in the manufacture of this paper; and even in Scotland they have arrived to such a degree of perfection in this art, that great part of what they manufacture is sent into England. It requires to be made of a soft and equal stuff, without folds or wrinkles, of a natural whiteness, and with a shade of blue. It must be fixed less strongly than writing paper, but sufficiently well to give neatness to the characters. The paper, thus properly prepared, yields easily to the printing press, and takes a sufficient quantity of ink. The stuff must be without grease, and wrought with that degree of fineness as to make it spread equally over the form, and take a neat and regular grain; without this the characters will not be equally marked in every part of the page; and the smallest quantity of grease renders the sizing unequal and imperfect. Some artists with considerable success, both to meliorate the grain, and to reduce the inequalities of the surface, have submitted this paper to the exchange. And it is proper to add, that a moderate degree of exchanging and of pressing may be of great service after the sheets are printed, to destroy the hollow places occasioned by the press, and the relievo of the letters.

Engraving requires a paper of the same qualities as for the last mentioned, with respect to the stuff, which must be pure, without knots, and equally reduced; the grain uniform, and the sheets without folds or wrinkles. To preserve the grain, it is necessary that it be dried slowly in the lowest place of the drying-house. If it is submitted to the exchange, the effects of it must be moderated with the greatest care, and the action of the two first presses must be equally distributed over the whole mats, otherwise the inequality of the moisture at the middle and sides will expose it to wrinkles in the drying. The sizing of this paper must also be moderate. These circumstances are necessary to make it receive with neatness all the soft and delicate touches of the plate.—The soft and yielding paper of Auvergne possesses all these advantages; and accordingly a great quantity of this and of printing paper were formerly imported into Britain and Holland from France, where they still continue to rot the materials from which they make engraving. Paper for cards or any kind of painting on a smooth surface.

Paper for cards must be manufactured from a pretty firm fluff, in order to take that degree of smoothness which makes the cards glide easily over one another in using. For this reason the cardmakers reject every kind of paper which is soft and without strength. This kind of paper requires to be very much sized, since the sizing holds the place of varnish, to which the smoothing gives a glazed and shining surface. To answer all these purposes, the rags require to be a little rotted, and the mallets strongly armed with iron studs. Formerly Angoumois was almost the only province in France which folded card-paper to the Dutch and the other northern nations. The rags of Angoumois have the peculiar quality of not turning too soft in the putrefaction, and the mills of that province reduce them to stuff though they be not much putrefied. The French, we believe, excel every other nation in this branch of the manufacture of paper.

Sect. III. Miscellaneous Observations on Paper.

To hinder paper from sinking, take about the size of a nut of rock alum, dissolve it in a glass of clear water, and apply it to the paper, which has not been sufficiently sized, with a fine sponge. It is in this manner that the paper-manufacturers of Paris prepare the paper for drawing called papier laves. When there is occasion to write on a printed book, or on paper too fresh, it is sufficient to mix a little gum with ordinary ink.

To give to writing paper a brilliant varnish, take that which is of an ordinary fineness, very smooth, without any kind of stain or hairs on its surface; stretch it on a smooth plank, and by means of a hare's foot cover it with a thin and equal layer of sandarac finely powdered. Afterwards, if a whole reel is to be varnished, take eight ounces of rock alum and one ounce of white sugarcandy; bring them to boil in six pints of water; and when the liquor is lukewarm, wet that side of the sheet which has been covered with the sandarac with a fine sponge; lay the sheets in a heap, one sheet exactly above another; and submit the team to the press for the space of twelve hours; hang them afterwards sheet by sheet on the cords of the drying-house; put them again under the press for some days to stretch them; and, finally, beat them with a bookbinder's mallet. This paper can only be used for three or four months after it is prepared.

Painters prepare their paper for drawing, and give it a dark ground, which spares them much labour of the pencil afterwards in those places where shade is necessary. For this purpose, they take white paper and pass a sponge over it, which has imbibed water impregnated with soot, leaving the light places to be formed afterwards. They use also a kind of paper for drawing, which is called tainted paper. A light colour is passed over the whole ground, which deprives the paper of its original brightness, and makes the light places of the print appear more in relief, and more luminous.

The method most common and most convenient for copying a print, is to use oiled paper. The manner of preparing this paper is to take that which is thin and smooth, known commonly by the name of serpentine paper, and moisten it with a composition, two parts of the oil of walnuts and one part of the oil of turpentine mixed well together. A sheet of pasteboard and a sheet of paper are laid on a smooth table; above them are placed two sheets of paper to be prepared; and a layer of the oil applied to the uppermost is sufficient to penetrate both. This may be done to any number of sheets, and a strong sheet of pasteboard is placed over the whole. The heap is afterwards submitted to the press, under which it remains for two or three days till the oil be completely dry. Paper prepared in this manner serves to copy very readily and exactly all kinds of figures and plans; because being altogether transparent, all the parts of the drawing, whether of light or shade, are easily distinguished.

Besides the paper made from the asbestos, it is necessary for wrapping up gunpowder and valuable writings, to have a paper that will not easily take fire. The manner in which this is prepared is extremely simple. Ordinary paper is dipped into boiling liquid, consisting of three-fourths of water and one-fourth of dissolved alum. This salt, which is not inflammable, covers the surface of the paper, and renders it in some measure inflammable.

In the season of verjuice, a little of it diluted with water is sufficient for obliterating any fresh spot of ink. The salt of the verjuice dissolved in water answers the purpose equally well, and the salt of ferro or oxalic acid is also employed with this view. If the spots be dry, and the above acids are insufficient to eradicate them, a little aquafortis diluted in water, and applied with the feather of a quill or a fine hair pencil, will make them entirely disappear.

Books and manuscripts are sometimes defaced by accidental stains with oil. To remove such blemishes, for taking burn sheep's bones, and reduce them to a fine powder; lay a quantity of this powder on each side of the stain; place it between two sheets of white paper, and submit it for twelve hours to the press. If the stains have not disappeared, it will be necessary to reiterate the process.

To make oiled papers take colours; mix with the colours a very small quantity either of the gall of a pine or carp; and as these substances are of the nature of soap, they dissolve the grease that is in the paper, and, therefore, permit the colours to be spread over the surface.

Emery paper, which is employed for taking the rust from iron without wasting it, is made by impregnating coarse paper with gummed water or any other tenacious substance, and then covering it over with the finest emery.

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 to paper 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 fixed before they are laid on, or a proportionally 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, Miscellaneous Observations on Paper.

To gild paper.

Take yellow ochre, 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 into it; then they strike it over the paper, lay on the gold; and, when dry, they polish it.

To silver paper after the Chinese method without flour.

Take two scruples of clear glue made of neats leather, one scruple of white alum, and half a pint of clear water; simmer the whole over a slow fire, till the water is consumed, or the foam 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 Mucovy 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 pieces with a mallet; to 10 pounds of talc add 3 pounds of white alum, 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 of a hard consistence. Beat this in a mortar to an impalpable powder, and keep it, for the use above mentioned, free from dust.

White and coloured grounds for paper hangings.

The common grounds laid in water are made by mixing whiting with the common glovers size, and laying it on the paper with a proper brush in the most even manner. This is all that is required, where the ground is to be left white; and the paper being then hung on a proper frame till it be dry, is fit to be painted. When coloured grounds are required, the same method must be pursued, and the ground of whiting first laid; except in pale-colours, such as straw-colours or pink, where a second coating may sometimes be spared, by mixing some strong colour with the whiting.

There are three methods by which paper hangings are painted; the first by printing on the colours; the second by using the pencil; and the third by laying them on with a pencil, as in other kinds of painting.

When the colours are laid on by printing, the impression is made by wooden prints; which are cut in such manner, that the figure to be expressed is made to project from the surface by cutting away all the other part; and this, being charged with the colours tempered with their proper vehicle, by letting it gently down on a block on which the colour is previously spread, conveys it from thence to the ground of the paper, on which it is made to fall more forcibly by means of its weight, and the effort of the arm of the person who uses the print. It is easy to conclude, that there must be as many separate prints as there are colours to be printed. But where there are more than one, great care must be taken, after the first, to let the print fall exactly in the same part of the paper as that which went before; otherwise the figure of the design would be brought into irregularity and confusion. In common paper of low price, it is usual, therefore, to print only the outlines, and lay on the rest of the colours by stencilling; which both saves the expense of cutting more prints, and can be practised by common workmen, not requiring the great care and dexterity necessary to the using several prints.

The manner of stencilling the colours is this. The figure, which all the parts of any particular colour make in the design to be painted, is to be cut out, in a piece of thin leather or oil-cloth, which pieces of leather or oil-cloth are called stencils; and being laid flat on the sheets of paper to be printed, spread on a table or floor, are to be rubbed over with the colour, properly tempered, by means of a large brush. The colour passing over the whole is consequently spread on those parts of the paper where the cloth or leather is cut away, and give the same effect as if laid on by a print. This is nevertheless only practicable in parts where there are only detached masses or spots of colours; for where there are small continued lines, or parts that run one into another, it is difficult to preserve the connection or continuity of the parts of the cloth, or to keep the smaller corners close down to the paper; and therefore, in such cases, prints are preferable. Stencilling is indeed a cheaper method of ridding coarse work than printing; but without such extraordinary attention and trouble as render it equally difficult with printing, it is far less beautiful and exact in the effect. For the outlines of the spots of colour want that sharpness and regularity that are given by prints, besides the frequent extraneous, or deviations from the just figure, which happen by the original misplacing of the stencils, or the shifting the place of them during the operation.

Pencilling is only used in the case of nicer work, such as the better imitations of the India paper. It is performed in the same manner as other paintings in water or varnish. It is sometimes used only to fill the outlines already formed by printing, where the price of the colour, or the exactness of the manner in which it is required to be laid on, render the stencilling or printing it less proper; at other times, it is used for forming or delineating some parts of the design, where a spirit of freedom and variety, not to be had in printed outlines, are desired to be had in the work.

The paper designed for receiving the flock is first managed prepared with a varnish-ground with some proper colour, or by that of the paper itself. It is frequently practised to print some mosaic, or other small running figure in colours, on the ground, before the flock be laid on; and it may be done with any pigment of the colour desired, tempered with varnish, and laid on by a print cut correspondently to that end.

The method of laying on the flock is this. A wooden print being cut, as is above described, for laying on the colour in such manner that the part of the design which is intended for the flock may project beyond the rest of the surface, the varnish is put on a block covered with the leather or oil-cloth, and the print is to be used also in the same manner, to lay the varnish on all Miscellaneous Observations on Paper.

all the parts where the flock is to be fixed. The sheet, thus prepared by the varnished impression, is then to be removed to another block or table, and to be fired over with flock; which is afterwards to be gently combed by a board, or some other flat body, to make the varnish take the better hold of it: and then the sheet is to be hung on a frame till the varnish be perfectly dry; at which time the superfluous part of flock is to be brushed off by a soft camel's-hair brush; and the proper flock will be found to adhere in a very strong manner.

The method of preparing the flock is, by cutting woollen rags or pieces of cloth with the hand, by means of a large bill or chopping knife; or by means of a machine worked by a horse-mill.

There is a kind of counterfeit flock-paper, which, when well managed, has very much the same effect to the eye as the real, though done with less expense. The manner of making this fort is, by laying a ground of varnish on the paper; and having afterwards printed the design of the flock in varnish, in the same manner as for the true; instead of the flock, some pigment, or dry colour, of the same hue with the flock required by the design, but somewhat of a darker shade, being well powdered, is thrown on the printed varnish, and produces nearly the same appearance.

---

Paper-Money is a term frequently made use of for bank-bills, which pass currently in trade instead of gold and silver.

Concerning this species of currency, the national utility of which has been controverted by some, we have the following observations in Dr Smith's Treatise on the Wealth of Nations: "The substitution of paper in the room of gold and silver money replaces a very expensive instrument of commerce with one much less costly, and sometimes equally convenient. Circulation comes to be carried on by a new wheel, which it costs less both to erect and maintain than the old one.

"When the people of any particular country have such confidence in the fortune, probity, and prudence of a particular banker, as to believe that he is always ready to pay upon demand such of his promissory notes as are likely at any time to be presented to him, those notes come to have the same currency as gold and silver money, from the confidence that such money can at any time be had for them.

"A particular banker lends among his customers his own promissory notes, to the amount, we shall suppose, of 100,000l. As those notes serve all the purposes of money, his debtors pay him the same interest as if he had lent them so much money. This interest is the source of his gain. Though some of those notes are continually coming back upon him for payment, part of them continue to circulate for months and years together. Though he has generally in circulation, therefore, notes to the amount of 100,000l. 20,000l. in gold and silver may frequently be a sufficient provision for answering occasional demands. By this operation, therefore, 20,000l. in gold and silver perform all the functions which 100,000l. could otherwise have performed. Eighty thousand pounds of gold and silver can therefore, in this manner, be spared from the circulation of the country; and if different operations of the same kind should at the same time be carried on by many different banks and bankers, the whole circulation may be thus conducted with a fifth part only of the gold and silver.

"Let us suppose, for example, that the whole circulating money of some particular country amounted, at a particular time, to 1,000,000l. sterling, that sum being then sufficient for circulating the whole annual produce of their land and labour. Let us suppose too, that, some time thereafter, different banks and bankers issued promissory notes, payable to the bearer, to the extent of 1,000,000l. referring in their different coffers 200,000l. for answering occasional demands. There would remain, therefore, in circulation 800,000l. in gold and silver, and 1,000,000l. of bank-notes, or 1,800,000l. of paper and money together. But the annual produce of the land and labour of the country had before required only 1,000,000l. to circulate and distribute it to its proper consumers, and that annual produce cannot be immediately augmented by those operations of banking. One million, therefore, will be sufficient to circulate it after them. The goods to be bought and sold being precisely the same as before, the same quantity of money will be sufficient for buying and selling them. The channel of circulation, if I may be allowed such an expression, will remain precisely the same as before. One million we have supposed sufficient to fill that channel. Whatever, therefore, is poured into it beyond this sum, cannot run in it, but must overflow. One million eight hundred thousand pounds are poured into it. Eight hundred thousand pounds, therefore, must overflow, that sum being over and above what can be employed in the circulation of the country. But though this sum cannot be employed at home, it is too valuable to be allowed to lie idle. It will therefore be sent abroad, in order to seek that profitable employment which it cannot find at home. But the paper cannot go abroad; because, at a distance from the banks which issue it, and from the country in which payment of it can be exacted by law, it will not be received in common payments. Gold and silver, therefore, to the amount of 800,000l. will be sent abroad, and the channel of home circulation still remain filled with 1,000,000l. of paper instead of 1,000,000l. of those metals which filled it before.

"But though so great a quantity of gold and silver is thus sent abroad, we must not imagine that it is sent abroad for nothing, or that its proprietors make a present of it to foreign nations. They will exchange it for foreign goods of some kind or another, in order to supply the consumption either of some other foreign country or their own.

"If they employ it in purchasing goods in one foreign country in order to supply the consumption of another, another, or in what is called the carrying trade, whatever profit they make will be an addition to the neat revenue of their own country. It is like a new fund, created for carrying on a new trade; domestic business being now transacted by paper, and the gold and silver being converted into a fund for this new trade.

"If they employ it in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, they may either first purchase such goods as are likely to be consumed by idle people who produce nothing, such as foreign wines, foreign silks, &c.; or, secondly, they may purchase an additional stock of materials, tools, and provisions, in order to employ an additional number of industrious people, who reproduce, with a profit, the value of their annual consumption.

"So far as it is employed in the first way, it promotes prodigality, increases expense and consumption without increasing production, or establishing any permanent fund for supporting that expense, and is in every respect hurtful to the society.

"So far as it is employed in the second way, it promotes industry; and though it increases the consumption of the society, it provides a permanent fund for supporting that consumption, the people who consume, reproducing, with a profit, the whole value of their annual consumption. The gross revenue of the society, the annual produce of their land and labour, is increased by the whole value which the labour of those workmen adds to the materials upon which they are employed; and their neat revenue by what remains of this value, after deducting what is necessary for supporting the tools and instruments of their trade.

"That the greater part of the gold and silver which, being forced abroad by those operations of banking, is employed in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, is and must be employed for purchasing those of this second kind, seems not only probable, but almost unavoidable. Though some particular men may sometimes increase their expense very considerably, though their revenue does not increase at all, we may be assured that no class or order of men ever does so; because, though the principles of common prudence do not always govern the conduct of every individual, they always influence that of the majority of every class or order. But the revenue of idle people, considered as a class or order, cannot in the smallest degree be increased by those operations of banking. Their expense in general, therefore, cannot be much increased by them, though that of a few individuals among them may, and in reality sometimes is. The demand of idle people, therefore, for foreign goods, being the same, or very nearly the same, as before, a very small part of the money, which being forced abroad by those operations of banking, is employed in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, is likely to be employed in purchasing those for their use. The greater part of it will naturally be destined for the employment of industry, and not for the maintenance of idleness.

"When we compute the quantity of industry which the circulating capital of any society can employ, we must always have regard to those parts of it only which consist in provisions, materials, and finished work; the other, which consists in money, and which serves only to circulate those three, must always be deducted. In order to put industry into motion, three things are requisite; materials to work upon, tools to work with, and the wages or recompense for the sake of which the work is done. Money is neither a material to work upon, nor a tool to work with; and though the wages of the workman are commonly paid to him in money, his real revenue, like that of all other men, consists, not in the money, but in the money's worth; not in the metal pieces, but in what can be got for them.

"The quantity of industry which any capital can employ, must evidently be equal to the number of workmen whom it can supply with materials, tools, and a maintenance suitable to the nature of the work. Money may be requisite for purchasing the materials and tools of the work, as well as the maintenance of the workmen. But the quantity of industry which the whole capital can employ, is certainly not equal both to the money which purchases, and to the materials, tools, and maintenance, which are purchased with it; but only to one or other of those two values, and to the latter more properly than to the former.

"When paper is substituted in the room of gold and silver money, the quantity of the materials, tools, and maintenance, which the whole circulating capital can supply, may be increased by the whole value of gold and silver which used to be employed in purchasing them. The whole value of the great wheel of circulation and distribution is added to the goods which are circulated and distributed by means of it. The operation, in some measure, resembles that of the undertaker of some great work, who, in consequence of some improvement in mechanics, takes down his old machinery, and adds the difference between its price and that of the new to his circulating capital, to the fund from which he furnishes materials and wages to his workmen.

"What the proportion is which the circulating money of any country bears to the whole value of the annual produce circulated by means of it, it is perhaps impossible to determine. It has been computed by different authors at a fifth, at a tenth, at a twentieth, and at a thirtieth part of that value. But how small forever the proportion which the circulating money may bear to the whole value of the annual produce, as but a part, and frequently but a small part, of that produce, is ever destined for the maintenance of industry, it must always bear a very considerable proportion to that part. When, therefore, by the substitution of paper, the gold and silver necessary for circulation is reduced to perhaps a fifth part of the former quantity, if the value of only the greater part of the other four fifths be added to the funds which are destined for the maintenance of industry, it must make a very considerable addition to the quantity of that industry, and consequently to the value of the annual produce of land and labour.

"That part of his capital which a dealer is obliged to keep by him unemployed, for answering occasional demands, is too much dead stock, producing nothing either to him or to his country. The judicious operations of banking enable him to make it active and productive. The gold and silver money which circulates in any country, and by means of which the produce of its land and labour is annually circulated and distributed to the proper consumers, is, in the same manner as the ready money of the dealer, all dead stock. It is a very valuable part of the capital of the country, which produces nothing to the country. The judicious operations of banking, by substituting paper in the room of a great part of it, enables the country to make a great part of this dead stock active and productive. The gold and silver money which circulates in any country, may very properly be compared to a highway, which, while it circulates and carries to market all the grats and corn of the country, produces itself not a single pile of either. The judicious operations of banking, by providing, if I may be allowed so violent a metaphor, a fort of waggon-way through the air, enable the country to convert, as it were, a great part of its highways into good pastures and corn fields, and thereby to increase very considerably the annual produce of its land and labour. The commerce and industry of the country, however, it must be acknowledged, though they may be somewhat augmented, cannot be altogether secure, when they are thus, as it were, suspended upon the Daedalian wings of paper money, as when they travel about upon the solid ground of gold and silver.

"The whole paper money of every kind which can easily circulate in any country, never can exceed the value of the gold and silver, of which it supplies the place, or which (the commerce being supposed the same) would circulate there if there was no paper money. If twenty shilling notes, for example, are the lowest paper money current in Scotland, the whole of that currency, which can easily circulate there, cannot exceed the sum of gold and silver which would be necessary for transacting the annual exchanges of twenty shillings value and upwards, usually transacted within that country. Should the circulating paper at any time exceed that sum, as the excess could neither be sent abroad, nor be employed in the circulation of the country, it must immediately return upon the banks to be exchanged for gold and silver. Many people would immediately perceive that they had more of this paper than was necessary for transacting their business at home, and as they could not send it abroad, they would immediately demand payment of it from the banks. When this superfluous paper was converted into gold and silver, they could easily find a use for it by sending it abroad; but they could find none while it remained in the shape of paper. There would immediately, therefore, be a run upon the banks to the whole extent of this superfluous paper, and if they showed any difficulty or backwardness in payment, to a much greater extent; the alarm which this would occasion necessarily increasing the run." See Bank and Trade.

PAPER Office, an office in the palace of Whitehall, in which all the public writings, matters of state and council, proclamations, letters, intelligences, negotiations abroad, and generally all despatches that pass through the offices of the secretaries of state, are lodged, by way of library.

PAPIER MACHE. This is a substance made of cuttings of white or brown paper, boiled in water, and beaten in a mortar, till they are reduced to a kind of paste, and then boiled with a solution of gum arabic or of size, to give tenacity to the paste, which is afterwards formed into different toys, &c., by pressing it into oiled moulds. When dry, it is done over with a mixture of size and lamp black, and afterwards varnished. The black varnish for these toys, according to Dr Lewis, is prepared as follows: fome colophony, or turpentine, boiled down till it becomes black and friable, is melted in a glazed earthen vessel, and thrice as much amber in fine powder sprinkled in by degrees, with the addition of a little spirit or oil of turpentine now and then: when the amber is melted, sprinkle in the same quantity of farocolla, continuing to stir them, and to add more spirit of turpentine, till the whole becomes fluid; then strain out the clear through a coarse hair bag, pressing it gently between hot boards. This varnish, mixed with ivory black in fine powder, is applied, in a hot room, on the dried paper paste; which is then set in a gently heated oven, next day in a hotter oven, and the third day in a very hot one, and let stand each time till the oven grows cold. The paste thus varnished is hard, durable, glossy, and bears liquors hot or cold.

PAPLAGONIA, in Ancient Geography, a country of the Hither Asia, beginning at Parthenius, a river of Bithynia, on the west, and extending in length to the Halys eastward, with the Euxine to the north, and Galatia to the south. Pliny enlarges the limits on the west side to the river Billis, on this side the Parthenius. It is called Pylymenia by some (Pliny). Paphlagonia, the people, mentioned by Homer, and therefore of no small antiquity. A superstitious and silly people (Lucian); a brave people (Homer); taking their name from Phaleg (Bochart).