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to state that these blocks were fraudulently obtained from 
the printers, and applied by others to the printing of paper. 
Although the Author has put himself in communication 
with parties there, he has not yet arrived at any distinct 
corroboration of this curious tradition. The history of inven- 
tion, however, as relates to the arts of printing fabrics and 
type printing, gives great weight to the supposition that 
such was the case, for it is a continuous fact for at least two 
hundred and fifty years that the art of printing fabrics was 
the advancing art, while that of paper only followed, and 
at a considerable distance as regards dates. 
In making an attempt to grapple with the scattered 
elements of this subject, the Author has found it necessary 
to attack the subject in detail, and for this purpose has 
proposed to himself to begin with the patented inventions. 
The material is before one, and the chief duty is selection. 
Of the twelve hundred inventions connected with printing, 
of course, the large majority are now of no historical interest. 
Many of them also are repeats of what had been patented 
years before. Many are of an utterly puerile character, and 
some are evidently mistakes or delusions. The attempt to 
make indigo by fermenting carrots, for example, may with 
some safety be laid aside as belonging to this latter class. 
In this first Paper which the Author laid before the 
Society, he described the principal inventions relating to 
Chemistry for which letters patent have been obtained be- 
tween the years 1617 and 1850. 
Among the more interesting of those alluded to, commen- 
cing with the grant to George Wood, in 1619, of the sole 
privilege of printing linen with colours; were the celebrated dis- 
covery by Dr. Bancroft of the dyeing properties of quercitron 
bark ; the introduction of the chlorides for the purposes of 
bleaching by Bourboulon de Boneuil, Crooks, and Tennant ; 
the introduction of manganese brown by Frith, on May 25, 
1798; the application of caoutchouc for the purposes of water- 
