CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



besides straw are used for making light hats, scissors. The trough is half-filled with water, 



Chip, which is thin strips of willow wood made 

 by a plane, is employed. 



PAPER. 



The earliest kind of paper, or material for writ- 

 ing on, of which we have any account, was the 

 papyrus, used by the ancient Egyptians ; and 

 hence our modern word paper. The papyrus was 

 a plant, a kind of gigantic rush (Papyrus antiquo- 

 rurri), from which thin fibrous membranes were 

 stripped, and the membranes being pressed to- 

 gether, formed small sheets of a rude kind. The 

 Chinese are said to have understood the art of 

 making paper in very early times ; but whether 

 Europeans learned it from them is not clearly 

 known. The art was introduced amid the obscu- 

 rities of the middle ages, and most likely through 

 the ingenuity of the Arabians. In the beginning 

 of the 1 4th century, a paper-mill was established 

 at Nuremberg, in Germany; and in 1588, a mill 

 was erected at Dartford, in England. Little 

 progress was made, however, in the manufacture 

 of paper in this country before 1770, when the first 

 mill for fine paper was established at Maidstone 

 by the celebrated J. Whatman. The previous 

 supply had been derived principally from France 

 and Holland. 



The principle on which paper is made is very 

 simple : a portion of linen rags, or other suitable 

 vegetable material, is ground to pulp ; this pulp is 

 shaken in a fine wire-sieve, so as to settle in a 

 thin cake, or sheet ; the sheet is pressed, in order 

 to squeeze out the liquid ; and when dry, we have 

 a sheet of paper. This is the ordinary hand- 

 process, but paper is now made with few excep- 

 tions by very complicated and beautiful machinery, 

 which, instead of sheets, forms webs of any 

 desired length. 



Preparation of the Rags. 



After the rags arrive at the mill, they are picked 

 and sorted into four or five qualities. All sub- 

 stances not suited for paper-making, or which 

 might injure the machinery such as pins, but- 

 tons, pieces of silk, and woollen cloth must be 

 carefully removed. The rags are then cut up into 

 pieces about four inches square, by bringing them 

 up against the standing edge of a fixed knife. 

 After being cut, they are well agitated in a 

 cylinder, which frees them from particles of dust. 

 The rags are then boiled in an alkaline lye com- 

 posed of caustic soda. 



After being boiled, the rags are carried to the 

 first washing-engine, which consists of a large 

 oblong stone trough, into which a stream of water 

 is allowed to flow, and to escape by the other 

 end. This cleans the rags most effectually, the 

 run of water carrying away any impurities that 

 may still adhere to them. On one side of this 

 trough is an engine, which again washes and 

 grinds the rags, and is termed by the workmen 

 the breaking-in machine. This powerful appa- 

 ratus consists of an elliptical-shaped trough, made 

 of lined iron ; within it, a grooved roller revolves 

 horizontally over the surface of a sharply grooved 

 elevation (fig. 23^ ac), by which the rags are torn 

 to shreds. The grooves on the roller, and those 

 on the plate, act upon the pieces of rags much 

 in the same manner as cutting with a pair of 

 Ml 



which comes in at one end, and escapes through 

 holes at another part, the direction of the current 



- 



rt .'^-i 



~A\ 



*y\. 



/ N ^lBrf 





Fig. 23. 



being shewn by the arrows in fig. 23. The opera- 

 tion of grinding, as it is called, occupies about an 

 hour and a half; and when the rags are suffi- 

 ciently reduced to a pulp, the stuff is passed down 

 from the trough to the draining-boxes. On reach- 

 ing the draining-boxes, the water is allowed to 

 run off from the pulp previous to the bleaching 

 process. The common method of bleaching is 

 to steep the pulp in a solution of chloride of lime, 

 by which the fibres are not so much injured as 

 when chlorine is used. In bleaching, great care 

 should be taken that the solution is not too 

 powerful, or the texture of the paper may be 

 materially injured by the process. 



After bleaching, the pulp is again put into a 

 washing-machine, to free it thoroughly from the 

 bleaching-liquor. This process is similar to that 

 previously described, except that the roller is 

 screwed down closer to the fluted plate, so as to 

 reduce the pulp to a finer consistence. 



From the second washing or beating machine, 

 the pulp is passed down to a large tun or vat, 

 called the stuff-chest, which is merely a reservoir 

 to keep the pulp till it is put into the machine 

 which converts it into paper. This vat is fur- 

 nished with agitators at the bottom, to keep the 

 pulp of an equal thickness, which now bears a 

 strong resemblance to curdled milk. 



From the vat or stuff-chest, the pulp, prepared 

 as already described, is let out by a sluice into a 

 pipe, which leads it to one end of the making- 

 machine. 



The machine now in general use for the making 

 of paper is the invention of Louis Robert, a 

 Frenchman, and was brought to this country 

 about eighty years ago by a M. Didot, who, 

 with the assistance of M. Fourdrinier, and Mr 

 Donkin, the engineer, greatly improved the inven- 

 tion, and obtained a patent for it. The machine 

 has since been improved by numerous manufac- 

 turers, and fig. 24 is an excellent representation of 

 one of the most perfect and modern, made by 

 Mr George Bertram of Edinburgh, who has done 

 very much to perfect the machinery. This machine 

 combines the strainer for preventing knots enter- 

 ing with the pulp, invented by Ibbetson, and 

 the sizing and calendering machinery, so that the 

 paper comes out ready for cutting into sheets. 



The first part of the machinery upon which the 

 pulp comes is a brass wire-cloth, which is woven 

 in the same way as linen, and is of so fine a tex- 

 ture that there are seventy wires in the inch. This 

 wire-cloth may be described as a sort of belt 

 without any break, which is kept continually 



