PAPER 



5958 



PAPER AND PAPER-MAKING 



Arthur Baker, Chairman, Technical Section of the Paper 

 Kakers' Association of Great Britain and Ireland, 1921-22 



This Encyclopedia contains articles on the materials from which 



paper is mzde, e.g. Bamboo; Esparto; Pulp. See Grand Falls; 



Gravesend ; Newfoundland ; also Book ; Newspaper ; Printing 



Papyrus and parchment were 

 the actual forerunners of paper. 

 Papyrus making was a flourishing 

 industry in Egypt about 3,000 B.C. 

 The stem of a water reed used was 

 cut in sections, split, opened out, 

 and the fine pellicles surrounding 

 the stem cemented together, on 

 the same principle that three-ply 

 wood is made to-day. The Ro- 

 mans improved the process and 

 made different kinds. They named 

 the water reed papyrus, from which 

 our word paper is derived. 



Parchment, made from the skin 

 of goats, sheep, pigs, and other 

 animals, in use long before Christ, 

 attained its greatest consumption 

 in the Middle Ages, and is still 

 used for certain legal documents. 

 Real paper, defined by one modern 

 writer as " an aqueous deposit of 

 vegetable fibre," is prepared from 

 fibrous pulp. 



The art of paper-making was 

 cradled in the East. Ts'ai-Lun, 

 Chinese minister of the interior 

 about A.D. 105, is credited with 

 having first produced paper from 

 fibrous material, reduced to the 

 condition of pulp. Paper discov- 

 ered in Eastern Turkistan, be- 

 longing to the 4th century, or even 

 earlier, contains flax and hemp as 

 minor constituents, but it was not 

 until about A.D. 760 that paper 

 was prepared entirely from linen 

 rags by the people of Samarkand. 

 The art was acquired by the Arabs 

 during their conquests in Tartary, 

 became established in Egypt in 

 the 10th century, was introduced 

 by the Moors in Spain early in the 

 llth century, and brought to 

 Europe proper by the Crusaders. 



The First Paper Mills 

 Paper mills were first erected in 

 Hainault in 1189, in Germany by 

 the brothers Holbein at Ravens- 

 berg in 1336, in England by John 

 Tate at Hertford about 1496, in the 

 U.S.A., near Philadelphia, in 1690, 

 and in Canada at St. Andrews in 

 1803. Cotton and linen rags were 

 in general use as raw materials. 

 They were moistened with water, 

 allowed to ferment, washed, and 

 finally reduced to paper pulp in 

 stamping machines constructed of 

 stone and wood, operated on the 

 principle of the pestle and mortar. 

 For a long period the Dutch 

 hand-made papers dominated the 

 markets of the world, and, al- 

 though a tremendous impetus was 

 given to the industry by the inven- 



tion of the Hollander beating 

 engine, England remained very 

 backward. It was not till 1725, 

 when De Portal was granted a 

 monopoly of making paper for 

 Bank of England notes, and 1739, 

 when Whatman erected his Maid- 

 stone mill, that positive progress 

 was made. 



The Hollander paved the way 

 for a greater invention. In 1798, 

 Louis Robert, manager of Didot's 

 paper mills at Essones, invented his 

 paper machine. Didot's brother- 

 in-law, Gamble, took out an Eng- 

 lish patent in 1801, and intro- 

 duced the idea to the brothers 

 Fourdrinier, of London, who in- 

 duced Bryan Donkin to build the 

 first Fourdrinier paper machine, 

 which was erected in Two Waters 

 Mill, Hertford, in 1804. 



Important Inventions 



The original French model, im- 

 proved by Donkin, who made it 

 capable of producing a continuous 

 web of moist paper, had been 

 erected at Frogmore mill a year 

 earlier. The vat machine, a 

 different type, was invented in 1809 

 by John Dickinson. Canson 

 applied suction pumps. Crompton 

 invented the drying cylinders, 

 Marshall the dandy roll, and in 

 1831 a machine was constructed in 

 all essentials like the one in use 

 to-day. The first English news- 

 paper appeared in 1698, and from 

 that time onward the demand for 

 paper steadily grew. In 1861 the 

 duty on paper imported into Great 

 Britain was abolished. 



Following the increased con- 

 sumption of paper due to better 

 education, British paper-makers 

 were compelled to search for new 

 sources of raw material. Relief 

 came by the application of two 

 chemical discoveries made at the 

 close of the 18th century. Berth ol- 

 let discovered the bleaching action 

 of chlorine, and Leblanc prepared 

 artificial soda. The latter discovery 

 enabled paper-makers all over 

 the world to produce cheap cellu- 

 lose pulp from a wide range of 

 fibre material. 



In 1800 Koops published a book 

 printed on straw paper. In 1852 

 Routledge introduced esparto, and 

 was the first to use bamboo in 

 1875, but it is to Keller, a Saxon 

 watchmaker, who produced ground 

 wood in 1840, and Tilghman of 

 Philadelphia, who took out his 

 memorable patent for the sulphite 



PAPER 



process of producing chemical 

 pulp from wood in 1866, that we 

 owe our cheap press and the 

 modern newspaper. Developed by 

 others, these two discoveries soon 

 became of pronounced industrial 

 value, and led to the establishment 

 of immense pulp and paper indus- 

 tries in Scandinavia, the U.S.A., 

 and Canada. 



Mills a* Grand Falls 



By the enterprise of the Harms- 

 worths, paper manufacture was 

 initiated in Newfoundland, where 

 the large mills erected at Grand 

 Falls by the Anglo-Newfoundland 

 Development Co. were opened by 

 Viscount Northcliffe in Oct., 1909. 

 They also built the Imperial Paper 

 Mills, Gravesend, in 1911, and 

 later acquired the Empire Paper 

 Mills, Greenhithe. Both mills are 

 the most modern of their kind in 

 Europe, and have acted as a great 

 stimulus" to paper production in 

 Great Britain. 



Raw material used for paper 

 manufacture may be divided into 

 two classes : rags and substitutes 

 for rags. Cotton and linen rags are 

 used for the highest class hand- 

 made and machine- made papers, 

 from which great durability is ex- 

 pected. ;. Rag substitutes, for 

 general and special use, are drawn 

 from the rejecta of the textile in- 

 dustries, crop plants, esparto grass, 

 bamboo, spruce, pine, and some 

 deciduous trees, such as poplar 

 and birch. Old ropes, bags, hes- 

 sians, and waste papers are used 

 in the manufacture of wrapping 

 paper. The pine forests of Scandi- 

 navia, U.S.A., and Canada provide 

 raw material for much of the paper 

 in everyday use. 



Paper- makers all over the world 

 are constantly on the lookout for 

 new sources of fibre material, ac- 

 counts of which are to be found in 

 the regular bulletins of the Imperial 

 Institute. The report on timber 

 and paper materials published by 

 the Imperial Institute committee 

 for India in 1921 is exception- 

 ally valuable. From among the 

 numerous materials brought for- 

 ward in recent years, cotton hull 

 fibre, or " linters," stands out as 

 an established source of paper- 

 making material. 



Hand-made papers are usually 

 prepared from cotton and linen 

 rags, and unused white cuttings 

 from the textile industries. The 

 raw material is carefully sorted, 

 cut by hand or mechanical means, 

 dusted, and subjected to digestion 

 with alkaline lye under pressure, 

 after which it is partially disin- 

 tegrated in a breaking machine, 

 washed, and finally bleached, when 

 it arrives at what is called the 

 " half- stuff " stage, ready for the 



