590 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



machine-made paper makers give this title to quite a different sort of 

 paper. In plate 2, d, a portion of a sheet of genuine antique laid 

 is shown, also a section of a mold on which this kind of paper is 

 made. The absence of backing wires will be noticed in the drawing, 

 showing a portion of a rib of this mold. 



It is thought John Baskerville invented the means of eliminating 

 the?e dark streaks in the paper by holding the laid covering away 

 from the ribs of the mold by the use of wires running parallel with, 

 and under, the laid wires. This prevented the pulp from settling at 

 either side of the chain lines, because of the peculiar suction of the 

 wedged-shaped ribs as the mold was drawn from the vat which con- 

 tained the pulp from which the sheets of paper were made. The 

 effect on the paper of these under wires is shown in plate 2, e, and 

 also a section of a mold on which this paper is formed. In plate 4 

 the large mold is for making antique laid paper, while the small one 

 is for making modern laid. The backing wires are quite apparent in 

 the small mold, running about 7 to the inch, while the top, or laid, 

 covering will average about 22 wires to the inch. Of course, only 

 the top covering is visible in the finished sheet of paper. It will also 

 be noticed that in the antique laid mold the wires are uneven to some 

 extent, while in the modern laid the lines are in perfect unison. In 

 plate 5 is shown a section of an antique laid mold dating from 

 about 1760. 



The wove mold covering was also originated by John Baskerville, 

 and the date given for this invention is 1750. Baskerville was a 

 printer of Birmingham, England, and he wished a smooth paper on 

 which to print his books. The wove, or vellum, mold covering was 

 made of fine screening, and received its name because it was woven 

 like cloth. John Baskerville had been in the japanning and metal- 

 working trade before becoming a printer, and he naturally was 

 familiar with this material, as screening had been used in England 

 for other purposes a number of years before it was put to use as a 

 mold covering. A section of a wove mold and the impression it 

 leaves in the sheet of paper is shown in plate 2, /, and in plate 6 

 a modern triple- wove mold for producing a light-and-shade water- 

 mark. 



The first book printed on wove paper was Baskerville's edition of 

 " Publii Virgilii Maronis Bucolica, Georgica, et iEneis," which was 

 published in Birmingham in 1757. He printed another edition of 

 Virgil in 1771 under the earlier date of 1757. 2 It is the first print- 

 ing of the 1757 edition that is of interest on account of the paper. 



2 In the first edition, among other peculiarities, the tenth and eleventh Books of the 

 ^Eneid are headed, " Liber Decimus iEneidos " and " Liber Undecimus JEneidos," while 

 in the 1771 edition they appear uniform with the oUier tities, " ^Jneidos Liber Decimus," 

 " /Eneidos Liber Undecimus." 



