WATERMARKS, the emblems or designs in paper used originally in Italy in the latter part of the 13th century. The Ori entals, who were the first to make paper, did not employ water marks, although their method of fabricating sheets of paper was almost identical with that introduced into Europe during the middle I2th century.
The original Italian watermarks consisted of devices such as crosses, circles, triangles and forms of the simplest kind that could be readily twisted in wire. Until the middle of the 19th century all watermarks were formed in outline and were produced by the use of metal wires bent to the shape of the required design. These wire objects were then sewed to the mould on which the paper was to be formed, the wire leaving its impression in the wet sheet of paper by causing the fibres to lie thinner along its course. The ordinary watermarks in hand-made paper of the present day are made in the same manner as those from the inception of the art, the only difference being in the employment of finer wire and greater skill in their formation. Plate I., fig. 3, shows the wire device on the covering of a laid paper mould from the 16th cen tury; fig. 5 gives a section of an 18th century Dutch mould with the watermarking wires in place.
About the middle of the 19th century a more complicated and artistic form of watermarking was devised and instead of being limited to simple outline forms, it was possible to cause the paper to be made in any degree of thickness or tone desired. Fig. I shows a mould for the watermarking of a portrait. This mould has been made by first modelling the profile in a sheet of wax so that the various degrees of light and shade may be had and then making intaglio and cameo dies from the wax model by electrotyping. Closely-woven brass wire gauze is then subjected to great pressure between the two electrotype plates, the wire cloth or gauze taking the same contour as the original wax relief. In forming sheets of paper on a hand mould the water drains through the woven wire, leaving the moist pulp in precisely the same thicknesses as those sculptured in the wax original. The watermarking of paper in colour was invented by Sir William Congreve in 1818 (English patent, Dec. 4, 1819, No. and consisted in placing coloured paper stock (pulp) in various layers to form a homogeneous sheet of paper.
The foregoing treats only of watermarks that are produced in hand-made paper where the moist pulp lies on the wire lettering or pressed wire design during the whole process of forming the sheet. This naturally gives a brilliant and clear-cut watermark. In machine-made paper a wire cylinder known as a "dandy-roll" or a circular rubber form is used to impart the lettering or symbol to the moist paper by rolling over its surface after the web of paper has been formed. It is therefore not possible to produce as clear or distinct a watermark on a machine as it is by the use of a finely-constructed mould in the hands of a skilled craftsman.
(D. Hu.) WATERMELON (Citrullus vulgaris), an annual plant of the gourd family (Cucurbitaceae, q.v.), native to tropical and southern Africa and widely cultivated since ancient times for its refreshing fruit. It is depicted in Egyptian paintings dating to the time of the pyramids. The plant is a prostrate, long-running, hairy vine, with branched tendrils and large leaves, 4 in. to 7 in. long, somewhat oblong in outline and deeply cut into several narrow lobes, the leaf-stalks much shorter than the leaves. The flowers, borne singly in the axils of the leaves, are light yellow, about 1 2 in. broad, and divided into five lobes. The fruit is a large berry-like structure (pepo), spherical or oblong in form, mostly smooth and uniform green or mottled with lighter portions, with a hard but not durable rind, and red flesh containing numer ous smooth, flat, black or white seeds. Under cultivation the fruit attains very large size, often II ft. to 2 ft. or more long and weighing from 20 lb. to 5o lb. or more, filled nearly to the rind with red (sometimes yellowish or white) pleasantly flavoured pulp, with abundant, sweet, watery juice. The watermelon is grown in most warm temperate countries, especially China, India, southern Russia, southern France, Egypt, South Africa and the southern United States. A harder, white-fleshed form, known as preserving melon or citron, is used for making conserves. In the ten-year period 1927-36, the average annual commercial crop of the United States was 66,391,00o melons; in 1938 it was estimated to be 69,929,00o. Georgia leads all other States in output, followed by California, Florida, and Texas.