PAPER, MANUFACTURE OF 485 



mechanical parts, for which they likewise obtained a patent, and finding eventually 

 that there was little prospect of being recompensed for labour and risk, or even 

 reimbursed their expenses, unless Parliament should think proper to grant an exten- 

 sion of the patent, they determined upon making a fresh application to the Legislature 

 for that purpose. But, it would appear that although in the Bill as it passed the 

 House of Commons, such prolonged period extended to fourteen years, in the Lords 

 it was limited to seven, with an understanding that such term should be extended to 

 seven years more in the event of the patentees proving, upon a future application, 

 that they had not been sufficiently remunerated. No such application, however, was 

 made, in consequence of a Standing Order of the House of Lords, placed on their 

 Journals subsequently to the passing of the said act ; which regulation had the effect 

 of depriving the Messrs. Fourdrinier of any benefit whatever from the invention ; 

 and ultimately, so great were the difficulties they had to encounter, and so little en- 

 couragement or support did they receive, that the time and attention required to 

 mature this valuable invention, and the large capital which it absorbed, were the 

 means of reducing those wealthy and liberal men to the humiliating condition of 

 bankruptcy. 



In reverting strictly to the manufacture of paper, the nature of some of the 

 materials employed first claim attention. Silks, woollens, flax, hemp, and cotton, in 

 all their varied forms, whether as cambric, lace, linen, holland, fustian, corduroy, 

 bagging, canvas, or even as cables, are or can be used in the manufacture of paper of 

 one kind or another. Still, rags, as of necessity they accumulate and are gathered 

 up by those who make it their business to collect them, are very far from answering 

 the purposes of paper-making. Rags, to the paper-maker are almost as various in 

 point of quality or distinction, as the materials which are sought after through the 

 influence of fashion. Thus the paper-maker, in buying rags, requires to know 

 exactly of what the bulk is composed. If he is a manufacturer of white papers, no 

 matter whether intended for writing or printing, silk or woollen rags would be found 

 altogether useless, inasmuch as it is well known, the bleach will fail to act upon any 

 animal substance whatever. And although he may purchase even a mixture in proper 

 proportions adapted for the quality he is in the habit of supplying, it is as essential in 

 the processes of preparation that they shall previously be separated. Cotton in its 

 raw state, as may be readily conceived, requires far less preparation than a strong hempen 

 fabric, and thus, to meet the requirements of the paper-maker, rags are classed under 

 different denominations, as for instance, besides fines and seconds, there are thirds, which 

 are composed of fustians, corduroy, and similar fabrics ; stamps or prints (as they arc 

 termed by the paper-maker), which are coloured rags, and also innumerable foreign 

 rags, distinguished by certain well-known marks, indicating their various peculiarities. 

 It might be mentioned, however, that although by far the greater portion of the 

 materials employed are such as have already been alluded to, it is not from their 

 possessing any exclusive suitableness since various fibrous vegetable substances 

 have frequently been used, and are indeed still successfully employed but rather on 

 account of their comparatively trifling value, arising from the limited use to which 

 they are otherwise applicable. 



To convey some idea of the number of substances which have been really tried ; in 

 the library of the British Museum may be seen a book printed in Low Dutch, containing 

 upwards of sixty specimens of paper, made of different materials, the result of one 

 man's experiments alone, so far back as the year 1772. In fact, almost every species 

 of tough fibrous vegetable, and even animal substance, has at one time or another 

 been employed : even the roots of trees, their bark, the bine of hops, the tendrils of 

 the vine, the stalks of the nettle, the common thistle, the stem of the hollyhock, the 

 sugar-cane, cabbage-stalks, beet-root, wood-shavings, sawdust, hay, straw, willow, 

 and the like. Straw is frequently used in connection with other materials, such 

 as linen or cotton rags, and even with considerable advantage, providing the pro- 

 cesses cf preparation are thoroughly understood. "Where such is not the case, and 

 the silica contained in the straw has not been destroyed (by moans of a strong 

 alkali), the paper will invariably be found more or less brittle ; in some cases so much 

 so as to be hardly applicable to any purpose whatever of practical utility. The 

 waste, however, which the straw undergoes, in addition to a most expensive process 

 of preparation, necessarily precludes its adoption to any great extent. Two inventions 

 have been patented for manufacturing paper entirely from wood. One process consists 

 in first boiling the wood in caustic soda-lye in order to remove the resinous matter, 

 and then washing to remove the alkali ; the wood is next treated with chlorine gas 

 or an oxygenous compound of chlorine in a suitable apparatus, and washed to free it ' 

 from the hydrochloric acid formed : it is now treated with a small quantity of caustic 

 soda, which converts it instantly into pulp, which has only to be washed and bleached, 

 when it will merely require to be beaten for an hour or an hour and a half in the 



