called in, and while some changes were being discussed 



1 left them; having [a] considerable portion of the 

 afternoon to myself I took advantage of it to call on 

 Mr. Irenee du Pont, the founder of the Du Pont 

 Powder Mills, whom I had frequently met in my 

 father's office; he took me through the mills explaining 

 everything; this made a lasting impression, for it 

 was the first time I had seen the process of gun- 

 powder making. 



I also visited the cotton factory of my father's old 

 friend, Mr. William Young, who had, in connection 

 with his factory, a good machine shop for that period. 

 It was in this shop that my uncle, Franklin Peale, 

 served his apprenticeship .... 



We spent the evening with Mr. Gilpin in his bachelor 

 quarters, Messrs. Du Pont and Greatrake being of the 

 party. The making of paper by machinery in all 

 its aspects was discussed, also the feasibility of drying 

 the paper by steam heated cylinders. To the best of 

 my recollection Mr. Gilpin expressed great doubts, 

 fearing injurious effects on the paper. He had a 

 scheme of drying by passing the paper from the 

 machine through chamber currents of heated air, 

 the paper being carried on rack belts, partially 

 drying, then passing between heated calender rolls, 

 thence through another long chamber of air heated to 

 a higher degree, and finishing by a second set of calen- 

 der rolls. I have no knowledge of his ever having 

 essayed to put this plan in practice, though he seemed 

 to have tested the degree of heat, length of chambers, 

 speed of paper, and velocity of the current of heated 

 air necessary to produce the results aimed at. 



The Gilpin machine was that of John Dickinson. 

 The original cylinder was made in England and 

 brought out by Mr. Greatrake who had been fore- 

 man of Dickinson's "Nash Mill." 1 -' 1 My impression 

 is that the rest of the machine was constructed at a 

 machine shop erected for that purpose at the mill. 

 For many years the machine was worked with as 

 much secrecy as Dickinson had worked his in 

 England. 



The cylinder was not over 3 feet [long] and about 



2 feet in diameter, a solid brass casting bored per- 

 fectly smooth interior, and the outside was turned in 

 shallow grooves leaving between them ridges with 

 sharp edges corresponding to the bars of paper 

 moulds. In the Grooves between the ridges holes 



were drilled into the interior of the cylinder so close 

 together as to form a perfect net work, through which 

 the water from the pulp passed into the interior of the 

 cylinder; the sharp edges of the ridges that separated 

 the grooves were notched lengthways of the cylinder 

 about !>4-inch apart to receive rods of about No. 16 

 hard brass wire, that was soldered into the notches, 

 forming an underface like the underface of a paper 

 mould. Over this was a backing of wove wire of 

 about 14 meshes to the inch, on which the fine wire 

 cloth face was placed. The ends of the cylinder were 

 closed with solid brass plate heads having journals 

 cast to them on which the cylinder turned. One of 

 these journals was hollow, through which a tube 

 passed into the bottom of a V-shaped trough with 

 closed ends, the edges of the trough coming into close 

 contact with the inside of the cylinder, which it was 

 held firmly against by having a journal opposite to 

 the tube end and centering in the solid journal of that 

 end of the cylinder. 



The dilute pulp being delivered to the cylinder by 

 pumping out the water and partly exhausting the air 

 from that portion of the cylinder covered by the space 

 between the edges of the V-shaped trough, the ex- 

 terior atmospheric pressure sufficiently consolidated 

 the film of pulp to prevent it squashing and disfiguring 

 the paper as it passed under and on to the felt of the 

 couching roll, and thence between the various press 

 rolls. This V-shaped trough, in which the amount of 

 exhaust could be regulated, was the great feature of 

 the Dickinson cylinder machine, and was deemed 

 essential. 



The manner of reeling the wet paper was ingenious. 

 To prevent any undue strain that would tear the 

 wet paper asunder, the reels were driven by the 

 friction of a wooden V-edge wheel in a corresponding 

 V lined with leather wheel on the reel shaft, the 

 amount of traction being regulated by a P weight 

 sliding on a lever arm that pressed the wheels together. 



The reels were formed of six wooden slats on spider 

 arms. One of the slats had a groove from end to end 

 in which a knife was run cutting outwards. Thus 

 when the required quantity of paper was wound on 

 the reel, [the knife was drawn through it], 130 separating 

 it and allowing it to fall on to a sliding table from 

 which the porter separated the sheets, carrying and 

 hanging them in the drying loft. To prevent loss of 



128 The Nash mill was purchased by John Dickinson in 181 1. 

 (The Firm of John Dickinson ami Company Limited, cited in note 

 126 above, p. 7). 



130 Line omitted from printed version has been supplied by 

 this editor. Manuscript has not been found. 



98 



