SCIENCE IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD 



MAKING PAPER BY HAND 



The early process of paper-making, which is all but 

 obsolete at the present time, was slow, arduous, and 

 expensive. First of all was the difficulty of getting the 

 material, rags, for making the paper, as new cloth was 

 obviously too expensive, and as a sufficient quantity of 

 rags from any limited locality was usually difficult to 

 obtain. When obtained in sufficient quantities, however, 

 these rags were moistened well, and piled in heaps in 

 some warm, damp place such as a cellar, and left to 

 decay for twenty days or more. By the end of this time 

 the perishable portion would have fermented and de- 

 cayed, leaving only the fibrin, or long elastic filaments. 

 These were separated from the perishable portions by 

 boiling, and finally beaten to a smooth pulp by mallets. 



With the earlier paper-makers the color of the rags 

 determined the color of the paper, as the chemical 

 process of decoloring was then unknown. White paper, 

 therefore, was very expensive, as white rags were not 

 common. But later the process of using such chemicals 

 as lye, lime, chlorine, etc., was discovered, and the price 

 of white paper materially lessened. 



When the beaten fibers had been separated from all 

 foreign substances, the mass was placed in a vat and the 

 proper amount of water added to form a pasty pulp. 

 To make a sheet of paper from this the operator used a 

 mold made of a fine-wire screen, or cloth, which was 

 stretched over a light frame. Above this frame and 

 corresponding to it in shape and size, was another 

 called a "deckel." In using these frames the operator 



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