Figure 46. — Paper mold and deckel. The 

 deckel (frame), a. provides a lip around the 

 laid wire mold. B. while the sheet is being 

 dipped from the dilute pulp in the vat. The 

 deckel is then removed from the mold in order 

 to couch (transfer) the formed sheet to a felt. 

 From Louis Figuier, Les Merveilles de ^Industrie 

 (Paris, 1873?), v °l- 2 - 



whether it be the long web or the cylinder machine, 

 packers may begin putting up the order. 



And to whom does the credit belong for this vast 

 advance? The question is easily answered: mainly 

 to Bryan Donkin and John Dickinson in their different 

 lines. The first who took up the long web idea of 

 Robert, a French workman, in principle correct but 



104 



in detail so imperfect that the machine of Robert & 

 Didot, the mill owner, was an absolute failure; but 

 Donkin's brains and skillful hands made it a perfect 

 success. Not at once, but by long years of persever- 

 ance, improvements and additions [he] produced the 

 splendid perfect machine that is known now as the 

 Fourdrinier Long Web Machine, a misnomer, it 

 should have been a Donkin. Fourdrinier's part was 

 like that of Boulton to Watt, capital and confidence. 136 



John Dickinson was a blacksmith making the fly- 

 knives and bed plates for the pulp beaters. He con- 

 ceived the idea of a wire covered cylinder inserted to, 

 say two-thirds its diameter in a pulp vat, which by a 

 properly arranged inside suction the pulp could be 

 couched on an endless belt and be carried to press 

 rolls. This idea was the foundation of the cylinder 

 machine. His cylinder was an elaborate affair and 

 one of very difficult construction. At the time of my 

 visit to London he was carrying on five or six separate 

 extensive paper mills, had the most extensive paper 

 warehouses and was said to be the most extensive 

 paper dealer in London. 



My first interview with Mr. Dickinson was not at 

 all pleasant, for on learning that I was an American 

 and interested in paper machinery he launched out in 

 most bitter denunciation of our friend Thomas Gilpin, 

 whom he accused of having wormed himself into his 

 confidence, became acquainted with what he was 

 doing with his first paper machine, bribed Greatrake 

 his right hand man and took him to America, fore- 

 stalling him there. The nature of my introduction 

 was such that I hoped to get some information I 

 wanted and Mr. Donkin had told me that Mr. Dickin- 

 son was the only person who could give me this, but 

 he had added that everything would depend on my 

 getting on his right side. I made my visit short and 

 was leaving greatly discouraged when Mr. Dickinson 

 asked my address in London, and when I gave 

 Mathews, Crooked Lane, he said "he is a most 



136 Nicholas Louis Robert, while employed in the mill of 

 Leger Didot, of Essone, France, in 1 798 patented the con- 

 tinuous web machine. Didot took his patents and a model 

 to London, where Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier, stationers and 

 mill owners, took a half interest in the British patent (taken in 

 the name of John Gamble: 2847, April 20, 1801). Bryan 

 Donkin. who was called in to help perfect the model, built the 

 first full-scale machine in 1803. (Clapperton, cited in note 

 133 above.) See also D. C. Coleman, The British Paper Industry, 

 ijq--i86o (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), pp. 179-199. 

 Donkin's part in the success of the machine is developed more 

 fully in chapters 14-16, below. 



