PAPER.
Warak , Kartas, AR., TAM. Kaghuz, . . . .' PERS.
Papir, DAN. Papal, . . . PORT., SP.
Papier, . . . FR , GER. Bumangna, . . . Rua.
Carta, Charta, . Ir , LAT.
Paper of various qualities is made throughout all the countries in the south and east of Asia, and is used for writing on and for many economic Purposes in all parts of British India, Further India, China, and Japan. In Western India, paper is made at Ahmadabad, Surat, Dharwar, Kolhapur, and Aurangabad ; that made at Aurang abed bears the palm as to fineness and gloss, hence the demand for it in native courts of India, to engross sunnuds, deeds, and other such documents ; and the Bahadur khani and Madhagari paper of Dowlatabad are famed. For courtly use grains of gold-leaf are mixed with the pulp, and thus become spread over the surface of the paper, called Afshani Kaghaz. China, up to the year 1840, largely supplied India with paper ; and there are now, 1883, in British India, many small establishments making inferior papers, with five or six worked by steam. But after the middle of the 19th century, paper for the writing and print ing purposes of Europeans, and also, too, of most of the natives, was all imported into India from France and Great Britain. Muhammadans and the Hindus in India, who use an Indian ink, still largely write on a glazed paper, the manufacture of India. The British Indian Government, during Sir Charles Wood's (Lord Halifax) position as Secretary of State for India, ordered all supplies to be purchased in Great Britain, and that order threw back many trades and caused great financial losses to the Indian Government. The manufacture of paper as a writing material was a comparatively late discovery. A paper was manufactured at a remote period in Egypt from the papyrus or paper-reed, a plant growing freely on the banks of the Nile. A manufacture of paper from the bark of trees and other substances existed also in China from a very early date ; but among the nations of antiquity, before the introduction of paper, such substitutes were used as lead, copper, brass, bricks, clay, and stone, on which national edicts and records were written or engraved ; or tablets of metal, wood, wax, and ivory, skins of fishes, intestines of serpents, backs of tortoises, bones of animals, and the inner bark and leaves of trees for ordinary purposes. Indeed, there are
but few sorts of plants that have not been used for making paper and books, and hence have arisen the terms biblos, codex, liber, folium, tabula, tillura, philura, scheda, patta, etc., which express the several parts of the plants that were written on. The use of these was greatly discon tinued after the invention of papyrus and parch ment, but they are still used in many parts of the world. The Egyptian papyrus was made by lay ing thin plates of bark, taken from the middle of the paper-rush, side by side, but close together, on a hard smooth table ; other pieces of the same size and thinness were then laid across the first at right angles ; the whole was moistened with the water of the Nile, which was supposed to have some agglutinating property (though this probably resided in the plant itself), and pressure was then applied for a certain number of hours. Thus a sheet of paper was formed which required no other finishing than rubbing and polishing with a smooth stone, or with a solid glass hemisphere, and drying in the sun. This very simple process was rather a preparation of a natural paper than a manufacture, properly so called, and is practised to the present day in Nepal, Chinese Tartary, China, Japan, and the Pacific Islands, with the inner barks of the paper mulberry, for making clothing and paper materials.
Tus or Tuz is a birch bark upon which, in addition to leather, we learn that the ancient Persians wrote, and it seems also to have been anciently used in North India. In Hiwen Thsang's time (A.D. 629-645), the early Buddhist scriptures of Kasyapa's council were written on the leaves of the Tala and other palms, which are still largely used in all Southern India, Ceylon, Burma, and Siam, for account keeping, records, and books ; and it is traditionally recorded that many of the writings of Mahomed were on the blade-bones of sheep.