PAPER MANUFACTURE AND TRADE. In early times the materials used for writing upon were chiefly such as only required some little mechanical fashioning to fit them for that purpose. Characters were engraved on flat stones made smooth, or were im pressed in clay, which was afterwards dried and hardened by sun or fire, as in the case of the Babylonian bricks. Thin boards of wood covered with wax or some similar composition, and plates of ivory and of metal, have often been used. A more convenient material was afforded by the leaves of some species of trees. The skins and intes tines of animals have also been made fit for writing upon ; but wherever the Egyptian papyrus was introduced, all these things fell into disuse, except parchment, which is still preferred for certain purposes. [PARCHMENT; PAPYRUS.] Paper Manufacture.—The art of making paper from fibrous matter reduced to a pulp in water appears to have been first discovered by the Chinese about the year 95 A.D. In the time of Confucius they wrote with a style, or bodkin, on the inner bark of the bamboo. The Chinese paper has been supposed to be made of silk ; but this is a mis take. Silk by itself cannot be reduced to a pulp suitable for making paper. Refuse silk is indeed occasionally used with other things ; but the greatest part of the Chinese paper is made from the inner bark of the bamboo and some other trees. The Chinese also make paper from cotton and linen rags ; and a coarse yellow sort for wrappers is made from rice-straw. Only the second skin of the bark of the bamboo is used, which is beaten into a pulp with water. The Chinese can make sheets of a large size : the mould on which the pulp is made into paper being sometimes tell or twelve feet long, and very wide, and managed by means of pulleys. It is formed of fine threads of bamboo, as ours are of wire. To prevent the ink from running, the sheets are dipped into a solution of alum, which, as their ink is thicker than ours, is generally sufficient for the purpose, but sometimes fish glue is mixed with the solution of alum. (Du Halde's China,' vol. ii., p. 415; Davis's Chinese,' chap. xvii.) The Arabians, in the 7th century, appear either to have discovered, or to have learned from the Chinese, the art of making paper from cotton. They seem to have carried the art to Spain, and to have there made paper from linen and hemp as well as front cotton. (` Journal
of Education,' No. 10.) So far as concerns our own country, a manufacturer named Tate had a paper-mill at Hertford early in the 16th century ; and another mill was established in 1538 at Dartford in Kent, by John Spelmau, who was knighted by queen Elizabeth. Previously to this, and for some time afterwards, uur principal supplies were from France and Holland. The making of paper in England had made little progress even so late as 1662. Fuller has the following rem mrks respecting the paper of his time : —" Paper participates in some sort of the character of the country which snakes it; the Venetian being neat, subtle, and court-like ; the French, light, slight, and slender ; and the Dutch, thick, corpulent, and gross, sucking up the ink with the sponginess thereof." He complains that the making of paper was not sufficiently encouraged, " considering the vast sums of money expended in our land for paper out of Italy, France, and Germany, which might be lessened were it made in our nation." Thomas NN'atson, is stationer, by the introduction of foreign improve ments in 1713, gave a great impulse to the manufacture of paper. Still, notwithstanding the great increase of demand and application of capital, it was much retarded by the heavy duty, of which we shall have to speak presently. So late as the middle of the last century, only very common paper, principally for wrapping, was made in Great Britain. It was not until 1770 that the celebrated Whatman introduced fine-paper making at his mill at Maidstone.
In the inakiug of paper, any fibrous vegetable substance may be used: such as the inner bark of trees, the stalks of the nettle, the tendrils of the vine, the bine of the hop, wheat straw, flax straw, &c. Nothing however has yet been found to answer so well as linen, hempen, or cotton rags. The sweepings of the cotton-mills are also much used. Woollen cloth is not fit for the purpose, because it cannot be beaten into a suitable pulp, and also because it gives a hairy texture to the surface. Linen rags are the best of all for the purpose. The rags, however, of our own country do not constitute a fourth part of the quantity which we use in making paper. Italy and Germany furnish the principal supplies. They are imported in bags of about 4 cwts., each bag being marked in such a manner as to indicate the quality of the rags which it contains.