ON THE PAPER MANUFACTURE. 389 



nate of soda or potash, is put into the beating-engine, and mixed with 

 the stuff before emptying into the chests before the machine, — given a 

 certain weight of resin, a sufficient quantity of water to be added thereto 

 to bring the resin, when incorporated with it, to a certain consistence, 

 and a sufficient weight of alkali to effect the digestion of the resin. To 

 the chemist these are all known quantities, and the result can be predi- 

 cated with certainty under the ordinary conditions of proper and uniform 

 heat, &c, ; but, in order to arrive at these conclusions, he must ascertain 

 the percentage of real alkali in the ash or crystals he may be required 

 to use ; and he must also ascertain the constitution of the parcel of resin 

 from which he is working. Our paper-maker, on the contrary, puts to 

 so many parts of water so many pounds of resin and so many pails or 

 hand-bowls of crystals of soda, and considers himself fortunate if he get 

 a resulting parcel of very ordinary size indeed. As a rule, it is found 

 that there is a great excess of water as well as excess of alkali in solu~ 

 tion, constituting one of the waste products of the paper manufacture. 

 We have seen many parcels of size in different parts of the country, but 

 not one sample made in the manner just described which at all came up 

 to our standard of a perfect size. In order to size paper evenly in the 

 engine a certain weight of resin to a certain weight of paper is, of course, 

 necessary. Our paper-maker, however, is ignorant as to the variation g 

 in the constitution of his different parcels of size ; but calling uniformity 

 to his aid, the hand-bowl is brought into requisition for all alike, and he 

 is afterwards -puzzled, to account for his paper bearing unevenly. In a 

 paper mill, difficulties are of constant occurrence, admitting only of 

 chemical solution; and although the routine of a well-ordered mill, 

 realizes to the mind of the amateur observer nothing but the greatest 

 simplicity, it is yet one of the most complex and harassing arts in which 

 any person can engage. The amount of intelligence required from the 

 artizan is not extraordinary, but the individual judgment of the director 

 is called into play with a frequency that would astonish the uninitiated : 

 the paj>er is not bearing well — the paper is breaking most unaccountably 

 on some part of the machine — the colour is not quite up to standard — 

 the engines are frothing ; in short, every contretemp, however insignifi- 

 cant, occurring in a large establishment is brought under the notice of 

 the director ; and wisely so, as they all bear more or less directly on the 

 genera] operative results. 



Two descriptions of size are used in the manufacture of paper — viz., 

 vegetable and animal. The former is mixed with the pulp, by being put in 

 the beating engine when in course of final preparation for the machine, 

 thus becoming directly incorporated with the stuff ; but when the inten- 

 tion is to use gelatine size, the stuff is sent down to the machine either 

 entirely without or with an exceedingly small portion of vegetable size, 

 and in this state is made into paper, termed, from its porosity, water- 

 leaf. After having passed over a complete set of steam-drying cylinders, 

 the web is either conducted through a trough full of warm dilute 



