T40 



PAPER 



fur h.>ik work tliey have no durability, 

 and are also injurious to tlie type. Another cause 

 which contributes quit as unu-li to tin- had quality 

 of many modern papers is the too rapid desiccation 

 which the sheets undergo in the preparation of 

 machine-abed paper. Admitting that many of the 

 paper* now made are infinitely liner, more beauti- 

 ful, and above all whiter than those made in 

 former times, it is equally true that in general 

 machine-made pa|>ers possess leas strength than the 

 old hand-made papers. Paper of pun* and good 

 quality ought not to leave after burning more 

 than 2 per rent, of ash. 



The question for confederation as to the future 

 is whether raw material enough can be obtained 

 in quantity to keep our mills going, since esparto 

 must gradually fail, and wood-pulp and rags will 

 alone remain to us, unless some new, cheap, and 

 abundant vegetable fibre can be met with. About 

 90,000 tons of rap* are collected in Britain, but they 

 are chiefly of cotton fabrics, and even these are 

 now much drawn upon for other purpose*. How 

 much longer will Ilelgium, France, and Germany be 

 disposed to part with tlirir rags? and without raga 

 wood pulp i- useless, however plentiful it may lie. 



The varieties of jiaper made are chiefly the follow- 

 ing four classes : ( 1 ) news and printing papers ; (2) 

 writing P.'IIMT- of various kinds, blue, cream, anil 

 yellow laid, and wove and tinted, and for account- 

 books, &c. ; (3) wrapping or pocking papers, brown 

 and purple, heavy manilla for cartridge and bags ; 

 (4) miscellaneous, ouch as light copying, tissue, and 

 pottery papers, blotting and tillering, cigarette, &c. 

 Lastly, there are all kinds of cardboards and mill- 

 boards mode. The following enumeration >how- the 

 principal kind- of papers, &c. made in the British 

 mills ; but the list might be extended to one or 

 two thousand names of various kinds and qualities. 

 Account lx>ok, luicking, baK-papers, bank-note and 

 bill, blottings, lioanl-, bowl-papers, browns (heavy 

 and culling), butter, caps ( brown for bags ), cards for 

 looms, carpet-fell, cartridge, casings, chart papers, 

 cheques, cigarette, collar, coloured, copyings, 

 drawings, drying royals, duplex, enamelled, rn-in.- 

 boards (glazed and milled, paste and portmanteau), 

 envelope -paper, filtering, fly-papers, foil or tin- 

 foil, grocery, gun-wadding, hosiery, lithographic, 

 loans, long elephants, manifold, manillas, marbled, 

 middles (browns), mill wrappers, music, news or 

 printings, parchment, pin and needle, plate, rail- 

 way-ticket, royal hands (gray, brown, blue, and 

 white), sampling, skips, small hands (brown*), tea- 

 paper, tissues, tobacco, tracings, tube-paper, water- 

 proof, wrapping, writing. It is on record that in 

 177'-' there !!.- -ixly varieties of paper made from 

 a* many different materials, and ten or t \\.-l\r 

 years later the number dad been extended to 103. 

 In those days all paper was manufactured by hand, 

 each sheet separately. The rags were pulped in 

 mortars by liip-h,imiiiers, and several days were 

 required to turn out a sample of diy finished paper. 

 The workman dipped a rectangular sieve or mould 

 into the vat and deported the sheet of fluid pulp 

 on a piece of felt to dry. 



This simple mode of manufacture, which is still 

 largely practised in Holland and Italy, has lieen 

 su|reded very generally by continuous machines, 

 and only a small quantity of paper for special 

 nook, editioni-dr-liurr, and the like, beside* a 

 *ii|MTior writing, hank-note, and drawing paper is 

 now made by hand in Kngland. Milllioards (q.v.) 

 ami pasteboard or cardboard were formerly chiefly 

 made for bookbinding ; but now they are much in 

 demand for box making, machine, packing, and 

 other purposes. Over ftO.OOO tons of straw and 

 wood board are imported from Germany, Holland, 

 Belgium, and other countries, besides what U 

 made in Britain. 



The various machines for making paiier in con- 

 tinuous lengths are wonderful productions of 

 mechanical skill, being almost automatic in their 

 action, and they work with marvellous exactness. 

 These machines consist of contrivances for causing 

 an e<|ual supply of pulp to (low II|H>II an endless 

 wire-gauze apron, which revolves ami carries on the 

 paper until it is received on an endless sheet of 

 felt, passing around and between large couching- 

 cylinders. These machines have now Keen (nought 

 to such perfection that paper can lie mode in one 

 continuous roll or web of any length, and before 

 leaving the machine is sizeif, dried, calendered, 

 hot-pressed, and cut into sheets. 



At the Edinburgh Exhibition in 1886 a weh of 

 paper was shown five miles long, and at the Pitts- 

 burgh Exhibition there was a roll 14 miles long, 18 

 inches wide, which weighed 2658 Ib. Some of the 

 machines are 75 to 100 feet long ami li'ii inches 

 wide, requiring a building to themselves, and 

 making a sheet of paper 7 feet in width. 



Fig. 1 U a side-view of a continuous paper- 

 making machine, and fig. 2 a vertical one. The 

 principle of the machine is very simple : it contains 

 a pulp-vat, A, with a hog or wheel inside to agitate 

 the pulp, and an arrangement for pouring the pulp 

 over the wire-gauze mould, 1$, 11, B, B, which, 

 instead of being in single squares, as in the 

 hand-process, is an endless sheet moving round 

 two rollers, a, b, which keep it stretched out 

 and revolving when in operation. Under the 

 part which receives the pulp there is a series of 

 small brass rollers, d ( fig. 1 ) ; these, being nearly 

 close together, keep it perfectly level a most 

 necessary condition; besides which there is a 

 shallow trough, ee (fig. 1), called the tave all, 

 which catches and retains the water that always 

 escapes with some pulp in suspension ; and an 

 arrangement of suction boxes and tulies, f, f, f 

 (fig. I ), worked by air-pumps, which draw much 

 of the water out as the pulp passes over them. 

 The pulp is kept from running over the sides hy 

 straps called deckles, which are also endless 

 bands, usually of vulcanised india-rubber, carried 

 round moving rollers so that they travel with the 

 wire-gauze, and therefore offer no resistance to it. 

 In addition to all this the framework on which 

 the surface of the wire-gauze rests has a shoggling 

 motion, or side-shake, which has an important 

 effect in working the fibres together liefore the pulp 

 finally ccttles down. When it reaches the ronr/i- 

 ing- rolls, which press out most of the remaining 

 moisture, and carry it forward to the lii.-t and 

 second series of press-rolls by means of an end- 

 less web of felt which passes round them, the s|>ecd 

 of these rollers and the travelling sheet of felt, 

 CC (figs 1 and 2), is nicely calculated, so as to 

 prevent a strain upon the still very tender web 

 of paper. Sometimes the upper rollers of these 

 two series are filled with steam in order to com- 

 mence drying the wet). The paper is now trusted 

 to itself, and passes on, as indicated by the arrows, 

 from the second press-rolls to the fust set of dry- 

 ing cylinders, DD (tigs. 1 and 2), where it again 

 meets with a felt sheet, which keeps it in close 

 contact with the drying cylinders, which are of 

 large size, and filled with steam. Around these it 

 passes, drying as it goes, and is then received 

 between the tvtoxmoothing-rolls, or damp calenders, 

 which press both surfaces, and remove the marks 

 of the wire ami felt, which are until then visible 

 on the paper. This necessarily is done liefore the 

 drying is quite completed ; arid from the smooth- 

 ing-rolls it passes to the second series of drying 

 cylinders, E (figs. 1 and 2), where the drying is 

 finished, and thence to the calenders, which are 

 polished rollers of hard cast-iron, so adjusted as 

 to give a considerable pressure to the paper, and 



