S52 HISTORY OF 



cipal species of the Solitarj^- Wasps, the insect is smaller than 

 the vvoiking-wasp of the social kind. The filament by which 

 the corselet is joined to the body, is longer and more distinctly 

 seen, and the whole colour of the insect is blacker than in the 



tills valuable substance, the wasp was making it before their eyes, by very 

 much the same process as that by which human hands now manufacture it 

 with the best aid of chemistry and machinery. While some nations carved 

 their records on wood, and stone, and brass, and leaden tablets, — others, 

 more advanced, wrote with a style on wax, — others employed the inner 

 bark of trees, and others the skins of animals rudely prepared, — the wasp 

 was manufacturing a firm and durable paper. Even wlien the papyrus was 

 rendered more fit, by a process of art, for the transmission of ideas in writ- 

 ing-, the wasp was a better artisan than the Egyptians; fur the early at. 

 tempts at paper-making were so rude, that the substance produced was 

 almost useless, from being extremely friable. The paper of the papyrus 

 was formed of the leaves of the plant, dried, pressed, and polished; the 

 wasp alone knew how to reduce vegetable fibres to a pulp, and then unite 

 them by a size or glue, spreading the substance out into a smooth and deli, 

 cate leaf. This is exactly the process of paper-making. It would seem that 

 the wasp knows, as the modern paper-makers now know, that the fibres of 

 rags, whether linen or cotton, are not the only materials that can be used 

 in the formation of paper ; she employs other vegetable matters, converting 

 them into a proper consistency by her assiduous exertions. In some re- 

 spects she is more skilful even than our paper-makers, for she takes care to 

 retain her fibres of sufiicient length, by which she renders her paper as 

 strong as slie requires. Many manufacturers of the present day cut their 

 material into small bits, and thus produce a rotten article. One great dis- 

 tinction between good and bad paper is its toughness ; and this difference 

 is invariably produced by the fibre of whicli it is composed being long, and 

 therefore tough ; or short, and therefore friable. 



" The Avasp has been labouring at her manufacture of paper, from her 

 first creation, with precisely the same instruments and the same materials ; 

 and her success has been unvarying. Her macliinery is very simple, and 

 therefore it is never out of order. She Icarus nothing, and she forgets no- 

 thing. Men, from time to time, lose their excellence in particular arts, and 

 they are slow in finding out real improvements. Such improvements are 

 often the effect of accident. Paper is now manufactured very extensively 

 by machinery, in all its stages; and thus, instead of a single sheet being 

 made by hand, a stream of paper is poured out, which would form a roll 

 large enough to extend round the globe, if such a length were desirable. 

 The inventors of this machinery, Messrs Fourdrinier, it is said, spent the 

 enormous sum of 40,000/. in vain attempts to render the machine capable of 

 determining with precision the width of the roll ; and, at last, accomplished 

 their object, at the suggestion of a bystander, by a strap revolving upon an 

 axis, at a cost of three shillings and sixpence. Such is the diflerence be- 

 tween the workings of human knowledge and experience, and those of 

 animal instinct. We proceed slowly and in the dark — but our course is 

 not bounded by a narrow line, for it seems difficult to say what is the per 

 fectiou of any art ; animals go clearly to a given point — but tliey can go uo 



