I had a letter from him a day or two ago in which he 

 mentioned having given you a letter, and I have been 

 expecting you to call on me. In this letter of intro- 

 duction he states that you are engaged in the paper 

 machinery branch of my business in America. You 

 have seen in operation at his mills one of my latest 

 and most improved machines; after they have left my 

 shop I have no further control of them, and their 

 owners are at perfect liberty to show them to whom- 

 ever they please. I have in my erecting shop the 

 widest and finest machine I have ever built to fill an 

 order from France, which I will take pleasure in 

 showing you. But the tools and various machines 

 and appliances I employ in their construction have 

 been the work of almost a lifetime, and I hope you 

 won't take amiss my unwillingness to exhibit them." 

 He then added: "I am glad you have not come under 

 false colors, as I am sorry to say mechanics have done." 

 This was plain talk, and I felt that it ended my hope 

 of seeing his works. 



As he got up to lead the way to the erecting shop, I 

 mentioned to him that I had brought to England a 

 paper pulp dresser or screen, invented and patented 

 by my father in the United States, with the intention 

 of patenting it in England, if, on investigation, I 

 found it would be worth the expense of doing so, and 

 as to the cost I had obtained all the information I 

 required from Newton & Son. But having seen at 

 work on two of his machines the Ibotson grate bar 

 screen 156 working satisfactorily, I was in doubt what 

 course to pursue; that if not patented, and left free to 

 anyone, it might seriously interfere with the Ibotson 

 patent, and as he was the maker of that, and knew 

 all about their cost, I would be glad to have him 

 examine my father's, and if willing to do so to give his 

 candid opinion of their respective and comparative 

 merits. 



To this he replied by asking if I was aware of the 

 danger of showing the machine to anyone before 

 either caveating or patenting, that in case of litigation 

 the testimony of anyone having seen it would vacate 

 the patent; he would advise my entering a caveat 

 before showing it to anyone. 



156 British patent 5964, July 29, 1830, by Richard Ibotson, of 

 Poyle, Middlesex County, paper manufacturer. Ibotson's pulp 

 dresser screen consisted of a series of parallel bars about 0.01 

 inch apart, through which the long fibers of small diameter 

 were permitted to pass but which caught the "knots,'' or small 

 globular masses of pulp often noted in older paper. The 

 screens were jogged to induce flow of the paper stuff. 



He seemed pleased when I said he was the only 

 person I had thought of, believing that in showing 

 it to, and consulting him, I ran no risk, and that I 

 should highly value his opinion, and that if he did 

 not object I would have the box in which it was 

 packed forwarded to him. 



He made no reply, and we went into the erecting 

 shop where stood, certainly, the finest specimen of 

 workmanship that I had seen in England. It was 

 the long web or Fourdrinier machine, 60 inches in 

 width between the deckels. The machine stood as 

 it was to be placed in the mill, with shafting and 

 gearing all complete. Great care had been taken 

 that in no place the wet paper should come in contact 

 with iron, under the mistaken idea that such contact 

 produced the rust spots so common at that time in 

 English printing paper. The paper makers did not 

 appear to have discovered that such spots were 

 mainly due to want of thoroughly cleaning the rags, 

 that broken needles, iron button eyes and such like 

 things, after being ground up in the beating engines, 

 passed into the paper and oxidized there; that the 

 remedy that I have before referred to was sand traps 

 in the beating engines, believing them to have been 

 of American origin, had not been generally adopted 

 in England, that the freedom from such spots in the 

 high grades of the hand-made paper of the Whatman's 

 and other mills doing that character of work, was 

 almost entirely due to the care in selecting and 

 cleaning the rags. 



To return to the machine as it stood in the erecting 

 shop, the press rolls were composition metal, in 

 color that of gun metal or bronze. When I spoke 

 to Mr. Donkin of their composition he made no 

 reply. It was evidently one of his secrets. The web 

 and felt-carrying rolls were also of composition metal, 

 but in color nearer that of brass. The drying cylinders 

 were cast-iron covered with copper. These were 

 splendid specimens of workmanship. The bosses on 

 the main driving shafts were turned, the eyes of 

 the wheels bored and keyed on them; in fact, all 

 gearing was either secured by set screws or was 

 keyed on round shafts. Here was the first conclusive 

 evidence of evolution in the right direction that I 

 had seen. The mind of the great inventor who had 

 perfected that wonderful machine for the continuous 

 sheet of unbroken paper, had also been turned to 

 simplifying its construction, and making all parts 

 interchangeable. 



After viewing the machine, in which I was not in 

 any way limited in time, for Mr. Donkin seemed 



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