Science progress. 



Vol. VII. (Vol. II. of New Series). OCTOBER, 1898. No. 9. 



PAPER AND PAPER STANDARDS. 1 



THE editor of this periodical has requisitioned a con- 

 tribution on the subject of ''Paper". The author 

 of " these presents " is perhaps directly responsible for a 

 slight disturbance of official serenity in this matter. We 

 all commit ourselves to paper, and for better for worse the 

 litera scripta manet, or should do. The suggestion that 

 this dictum may be falsified by the unexpected dissolution 

 of the paper which carries our precious cargo of records on 

 the ocean of time is sufficient ground for at least momentary 

 pause to our official publishing bodies. 



The suggestion is, we admit, a little ad captandum. But 

 it is pardonable as an opening to the consideration of the 

 much broader subject of Paper Standards. 



Paper, or rather papers, are products of industrial evo- 

 lution. The selection has been the " natural " one, and the 

 result is a compromise ; in every direction compromise. If 

 the average Englishman (himself also a compromise) were 

 asked to name his ideal in paper, he would, of course, for 

 mixed but none the less obvious reasons, name the Bank 

 of England Note. It will be considered an impertinence 

 on our part to express a doubt as to whether this prototype 

 of conventional excellence in paper is not capable of impor- 

 tant improvements ; from our point of view, however, there 



1 An informal discussion of matters dealt with in Report of Soc. of Arts 

 Committee on " Deterioration of Paper". Journ. Soc. Arts, 1898, 46, 597. 

 See also ibid., 1897, 45, 690-696. 



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