PAP 



PAP 



elegantly variegated with black dots and 

 bands ; the tail of the male insect, which 

 is generally carried in an upright position, 

 is furnished with a forceps, somewhat in 

 the manner of a lobster's claw P. coa, 

 inhabits the Greek islands; upper wings 

 spotted with brown, lower ones extreme- 

 ly narrow, and as long again as the upper 

 pair, alternately brown and yellowish. It 

 is much larger than the communis, and is 

 distinguished by its beautiful colours. 



PANTO METER, the name of an in- 

 strument used 10 take all sorts of angles, 

 distances, and elevations. 



PA PAVER, in botany, poppy, a genus 

 of the Polyandria Monogynia cias.s and 

 order. Natural order of Rhoeadex. Pa. 

 paveraceae, Jussieu. Essential character : 

 calyx two-leaved; corolla four-petalled; 

 capsule one-celled, opening by holes un- 

 der the permanent stigma. There are 

 nine species. See POPPY. 



PAPER, sheets of a thin matter, made 

 of some vegetable substance. The ma- 

 terials on which mankind have, in different 

 ages, contrived to write their sentiments, 

 have been extremely various ; in the ear- 

 ly ages they made use of stones, and ta- 

 bles of wood, wax, ivory, &c. Paper, 

 with regard to the manner of making it, 

 and the materials employed therein, is re- 

 ducible to several kinds ; as Egyptian pa- 

 per, made of the rush papyrus; bark pa- 

 per, made of the inner rind of several 

 trees ; cotton paper ; incombustible pa- 

 per; and European paper, made of linen 

 rags. 



Egyptain paper was principally used 

 among the ancients ; being made of the 

 papyrus, or biblus, a species of rush, 

 which grew on the banks of the Nile : in 

 making it into paper, they began with 

 lopping off the two extremes of the 

 plant, the head and the root : the re- 

 maining part, which was the stem, they 

 cut lengthwise into two nearly equal 

 parts, and from each of these they strip- 

 ped the scaly pellicles of which it con- 

 sisted. The innermost of these pellicles 

 were looked on as the best, and that 

 nearest the rind as the worst : they were 

 therefore kept apart, and made to con- 

 stitute two different sorts of paper. As 

 the pellicles were taken off, they extend- 

 ed them on a table, laying them over each 

 other transversely, so as that the fibres 

 made right angles ; in this state they 

 were glued together by the muddy wa- 

 ters of the Nile ; or, when those were 

 not to be had, with paste made of the 

 finest wheat flour, mixed with hot water 

 and a sprinkling of vinegar. The pelli- 



cles were next pressed, to get out the 

 water, then dried, and lastly flatted and 

 smoothed by beating them with a mallet ; 

 this was the Egyptian paper, which was 

 sometimes further polished by rubbing it 

 with a glass ball, or the like. 



Bark paper was only the inner whitish 

 riiicl, inclosed between the bark and the 

 wood of several trees, as the maple, 

 plane, beech, and elm, but especially the 

 tilia, or linden tree, which was that most- 

 ly used for ,this purpose. On this, strip- 

 ped off, flatted, and dried, the ancients 

 wrote books, several of which are said 

 to be still extant. 



Chinese paper is of various kinds ; 

 some is made of the rinds or barks of 

 trees, especially the mulberry tree and 

 elm, but chiefly of the bamboo and cot- 

 ton tree. In fact, almost each province 

 has its several paper. The preparations 

 of paper made of the barks of trees may 

 be instanced in that of the bamboo, which 

 is a tree of the cane or reed kind. The 

 second skin of the bark, which is soft and 

 white, is ordinarily mude use of for pa- 

 per : this is beat in fair water to a pulp, 

 which they take up in large moulds, so 

 that some sheets are above twelve feet in 

 length : they are completed by dipping 

 them, sheet by sheet, in alum water, 

 which serves instead of the size among 

 us, and not only hinders the paper from 

 imbibing the ink, but makes it look as if 

 varnished over. This paper is white, 

 soft, and close, without the least rough- 

 ness, though it cracks more easily than 

 European paper ; is very subject to be 

 eaten by the worms, and its thinness 

 makes it liable to be soon worn out. 



Cotton paper is a sort of paper which 

 has been in use upwards of six hundred 

 years. In the grand library at Paris are 

 manuscripts on this paper, which appear 

 to be of the tenth century ; and from the 

 twelfth century, cotton manuscripts are 

 more frequent than parchment ones. 

 Cotton paper is still made in the East 

 Indies, by beating cotton rags to a pulp. 

 Linen or European paper appears to 

 have been first introduced in England to- 

 wards the beginning of the fourteenth 

 century, but by whom this valuable com- 

 modity was invented is not known. The 

 method of making paper of linen or 

 hempen rags is as follows : the linen rags 

 being carried to the mill, are first sorted ; 

 then washed very cleun in puncheons, 

 whose sides are graced with strong wires, 

 and the bottoms bored full of holes. Af- 

 ter this they are fermented, by laying 

 them in heaps close covered with sack 



