In every paper-mill the first business is to sort the rags and cut them into small pieces. This is done by women, each of whom is provided with a large knife to cut the rags. Threads and seams are carefully put by themselves : if ground with the cloth, they would form specks in the paper. The rags, when cut, are thrown in to five or six different compartments of a large chest, according to their qualities. Only the finest linen rags are used for the beet writing paper, but cotton as well as linen rage are now used for printing-paper.
A good workwoman can sort and cut about a hundredweight a day. Hempen rags are used for coarse papers, and old cordage and tarred brown rags are now to be wailed. which is done either with hot water in a fulling-mill. such as is used for scouring cloth, or they arc subjected for some hours to the action of steam. Formerly they were half rotted to prepare them for Icing more easily torn and beaten into a pulp. But by this process the fibre was partially destroyed. and the texture of the paper materially Injured.
Previous to the important discovery that chlorine possesses the property of slastruying all vegetable colours. paper-makers could only Notch their rags by subjecting them to various washings in alkaline !eye, and by exposing them to the dew and light ; and after all their they only obtained a raper so Imperfectly white that they were obliged to mask the defect by tinging it with a shade of blue. But now, by the proper application of chlorine, either in the form of the simple gas or in combination with lime (chloride of lintel, the colour mu be perfectly discharged, and the paper rendered, if necessary, of the turret white. Objections have been justly made to the improper application of chlorine in bleaching paper. Sometimes it is applied in such quantity, or for such a time, as to injure the substance of the fibre; sometime the paper, after it is made, is bleached with chlorine In such • manner that the ink turns brown ; and there have been instances in which the colour has been nearly discharged altogether, leaving the sheet alincat as it was before it was written or printed upon. It is now, however, generally admitted that chlorine, judi cieualyapplied, is not iu the smallest degree injurious to the paper, or i liable, in any length of time, to alter the colour of the ink ; although there is unquestionable proof that, unless skilfully managed, bleaching leave the fibres less coherent than they were before.
The rags, after being washed, are subjected to the action of a revolving cylinder, the surface of which is furnished with a number of sharp teeth or cutters, so placed as to act against other cutters fixed beneath the cylinder. The rags are kept immersed in water, and subjected to the action of the cutters for several hours till they are minutely divided and reduced to a thin pulp. During this
process a quantity of the chloride of lime or of chlorine gas is mixed with the rags, by which the pulp is rendered perfectly white. Until about a century ago, the rags were always pulped by means of etarniscra ; but cutting-machines, introduced by the Dutch, greatly expedited the process.
The pulp, or stuff, as it is technically called, is now ready to be made into paper, which is done either by hand or by machine. On the hand-method, the stuff is put into a large vat, and is kept at a proper temperature either by a stove or by steam-heat ; and the fibrous matter is held in suspension by a continual motion carried on in the vat by means of what is technically called a hoe, or by other improved apparatus.
The paper is made with a mould and dedie. The mould is a shallow ',Imre frame covered with wire cloth, and a little larger than the sheet intended to be made upon it. The wire-cloth is now generally woven in a loom like cloth, and makes no wire-marks on the paper ; but the old fashioned wire-cloth consists of a number of parallel wires stretched across the frame, very close together, and crossed at right angles by other stronger wires about an inch apart. These thicker wires make the wire-mm*4 of the paper, the stuff being there thinner than on the rot of the sheet. It. was Baskerrille who introduced the woven-wire moulds, in 1750; or rather, a beautiful edition of ` printed by him on paper thus made, was the means of drawing general attention to this improvement. The deckle is a very thin frame of wood which fits close upon the mould, and is required to retain the stuff on the mould and to limit the size of the sheet. The dipper, or retent«tr, inclining the mould a little towards him, dips it into the vat with the deckle upon it, and lifts it up again horizontally. He shakes it to distribute the stuff equally, and the water drains through the wire. He lays the mould on the edge of the vat, and takes off the deckle, which he requires to apply to another mould.. After remaining two or three seconds to drain, the mould is taken by another workman, the fmteher, who, leering deposited the layer of pulp upon a felt, or piece of woollen cloth, returns the mould to the dipper, who in the mean time has made another sheet, which stands on the vat ready to be couched upon another felt spread over the former sheet. Thus the two workmen proceed till they have made a pile of sheets, called a pest, consisting of six or eight quires. This post, with its felt, is placed in the rerprees and subjected to a strong pressure to force out time imperfluotia water, and to give firmness and solidity to the paper. The pile is then removed from the vat.-press, the felts are taken out sod the sheet.. promed again by themselves. They are then taken from the (ems, and hung up, five or six together, in the drying-room.