CHAPTER 13 

 WHERE OUR PAPER COMES FROM 



With abundant paper the intellectual life of the world entered upon 

 a new phase. H. G. WELLS. 



IT would be hard to picture a world without paper. In one 

 form or another paper has come to be an ever-present necessity 

 either as writing paper, wrapping paper, books, newspapers, 

 or a dozen other commodities. We have come to take it for 

 granted as something civilization has always known. Yet not 

 so very long ago this was a paperless world and were it not for 

 wood, paper might still be an exceedingly scarce and costly 

 thing. 



Ancient civilizations carved their laws and history in stone 

 and upon rocks. Brick, wood and skin have all at one time 

 or another been called into use to perpetuate the events or 

 thoughts man sought to make more permanent than the spoken 

 word. Papyrus, the nearest approach to modern paper was a 

 substance made by early peoples from the Egyptian paper 

 weed. As far back as 3500 B.C. its use was known and it con- 

 tinued to be valued for writing material by the Arabs in Egypt 

 down to the eighth or ninth century when the secret of paper 

 making began to spread out of China and across the world. 



In strict reality the first paper makers were not men, but 

 insects. The wasps first learned the secret of manufacturing 



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