472 Paper at the International Exhibition. [OCtober, 
Artocarpus, or bread-fruit tree. The pith is carefully taken 
out, cut into sheets, and smoothed with an iron preparatory 
to use. 
The most important paper made in China is that from the 
bamboo. In the month of June the bamboos, which are 
on the point of producing new shoots, are cut down and 
divided into lengths of 6 or 7 feet each. These pieces are 
placed in a pit dug in the earth, and kept full of water, and 
remain there for one hundred days or more; they are then 
beaten with a mallet to remove the green bark which covers 
their surface. The bamboo, thus prepared, is boiled in a 
large wooden vessel full of water containing slaked lime, 
and placed within a metal boiler. The fire is generally kept 
up for eight days, and at the expiration of that time the 
fibres are taken out and carefully washed; they are after- 
wards plunged in a ley made from wood ashes, and then laid 
in a boiler covered an inch thick with ashes from burnt rice- 
straw, when water is added, and the whole is boiled; these 
last operations are repeated in rotation during ten days. 
By this time the fibres begin to rot, and they are then 
pounded in large mortars, the stampers or pestles being 
generally moved by water-power in a very simple manner. 
When reduced to pulp, it is placed in vats, and a liquid 
added, which is supposed to contain chlorine to whiten the 
mass. ‘The sheets of paper are formed in the same manner 
as hand-made paper in Europe, but the frame is composed 
of woven fibres of the bamboo instead of wire; when formed 
the sheets are laid one upon another upon a table, till a heap 
of about a thousand is produced, when a plank is laid on 
the top, and pressed down with great force by means of 
cords passed round the table, and the paper is left to drain. 
The drying is achieved by placing the sheets, one by one, 
by means of a brush, on the outer surfaces of a hot stove 
built of brick. 
Some of the Chinese, and especially the Corean papers, 
are smooth on both sides; this dress is produced by first 
polishing the surface with dried leaves, and afterwards 
pressing it by means of heavy rollers moved by hand. 
The manufacture of paper from the Broussonetia papyrifera, 
or paper mulberry, is thus condu¢ted by the Japanese :— 
The mulberry stalks are cut into lengths of 23 to 3 feet, 
which are then steamed in a vessel made of straw until the 
skin begins to separate at thecut ends. The skins are then 
stripped off by hand and dried, the stripped sticks being 
used as firewood. ‘The drying is effected by hanging them 
over transverse poles in the open air. After drying they 
