382 
B. 
MATERIALS FOR PAPER-MAKING. 
The deficient supply of and an increasing price for, the 
materials for making paper, with the prospect of a still greater 
consumption, having for some time excited the attention of 
manufacturers and of the public, the Author has, like others, been 
requested to state what probable sources of supply were open 
to the manufacturer. 
In histories of the manufacture of paper, the Chinese are 
generally acknowledged to have been the first to have made 
paper from pulp. The Egyptian paper, or Papyrus, was made 
by gumming slices of vegetable tissue together under pressure. 
So what is called Rice paper consists only of thin slices of 
cellular tissue of a little-known plant. The Arabs are supposed 
to have learnt the art in the eighth century from the Chinese, 
but much more probably from the Hindoos, as they translated 
many of their works and adopted much of their science. (v. the 
Author’s ‘Essay on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine.’) The 
Arabs are further said to have introduced the art of paper- 
making into Spain in the ninth or tenth century. Paper was 
first made at Nuremburg in the year 1390, but in England not 
till the year 1450. 
There is no doubt that the manufacture of paper from pulp 
has been known in China from very early times: it is said for 
at least 2000 years. They employ a vast variety of fibrous 
substances for this manufacture, and apply paper to a variety 
of uses little thought of in other countries. They make up an 
infinite variety of kinds, from the coarse, heavy, half-inch-thick 
touch-paper, for retaining a slow, enduring fire, to the beautiful 
so-called India paper suited for our finest proof engravings, 
In the tea-chests there is a lavish use of many thicknesses of 
paper. If a hut or boat is leaky over-head, the bed is protected 
by a large sheet of oiled paper. Ifa shopkeeper wants to tie 
up a parcel, he seizes a strip of tough paper, and by rolling it 
on his thigh at once converts it into a strong pack-thread. 
Even patches on a torn sail are at times made of tough paper, 
