1829.] 
On the Manufacture of Writing Paper. 
301 
side; so that the side of the lever passed parallel to his face, and he was in no dan- 
ger of being hurt by the bucket coming up between his legs, as happens when the 
man’s face looks toward the end of the lever. The lever was made of a bamboo, and 
theweight was a large stone fixed by a swivel. The bucket was made of an excava- 
ted piece of wood, shaped like the half of a Cheshire cheese, and when full of water 
was lighter than the stone, which, of course, raised it without any exertion of the 
labourer. From a well lfi feet deep, the man raised four buckets in a minute 5 each 
containing 209^ cubical inches, or about 178 ale gallons in the hour.” VoL II . — • 
page 461. 
Great Balapura. — “ In sonic places of this vicinity, the ground for sugar cane is 
watered by the machine which the Mussulmans call Puckdli , and the natives 
Capilli.— It consists of two bags of .‘•kin raised by a cord passing over a pulley, and 
drawn by two oxen or buffaloes, descending on an inclined plane. The great imper- 
fection of this contrivance seems to be, that the cattle are forced to re -ascend the in- 
clined plane backwards ; but it appears to be a manner of raising water very capable 
of being improved, so as to become highly valuable ; one man manages both the 
cattle ; but these work only one half of the day, so that the puckdli requires the 
labour of one man and four beasts. The cultivators here, reckon that one puckdli 
will raise as much water as nine men working with the largest pat am, on which 
two men work the lever, or as seven men, each working a single pa tarn. This seems 
to confirm my opinion of the superiority of the last mentioned machine. The 
cost of the cattle is not reckoned to be more than that of one man, as they get 
no other provision than the straw of the farm, which they convert into manure, 
and which would otherwise be lost.” — Vol. I. p. 356. 
Madhugtri “ A capitli which I examined, the water being 19 feet 8 inches below 
the surface, emptied its bucket, on an average, once every 36 seconds, and at each 
time brought up 32/ 0 5 o ale gallons of water. One man and two oxen could work it for 
eight hours in the day, and thus draw up daily 26,280 gallons — Double the quantity 
may be had, from the same well, by a double set of cattle ; stops however, fre- 
quently intervene, that very considerably diminish the quantity actually raised.” — 
Vol. l.p. 387- 
VII.— On the Manufacture of Writing Paper. 
Various are the materials on whirl, mankind, in different ages and countries, 
have contrived to embody their sentiments; as on stones, bricks, the leaves of 
herbs, and trees, and their rinds and barks ; also on tables of wood, wax, and 
ivory ; to which may be added, plates of lead, linen rolls, &c. At length the 
Egyptian papyrus was discovered ; then parchment, cotton paper, and, lastly, the 
common, or linen paper. In some places and ages they have written on skins of 
fishes ; in others, on the intestines of serpents ; and in others, on the hacks of 
tortoises. There are few sorts of plants, hut have at some time been used for pa- 
per and books ; and hence the several terms, biblo.i, coflex , liber,folim,i, tabula, ',7- 
fora, schtda, Sfc. which express the several parts of the plant on which they were 
written. In Ceylon, for instance, they wrote on the leaves of the talipot ; and the 
Bramin manuscripts in the Telinga language, are written on leaves of the avipanu, 
or Palma nmlariharica. Ilerinannus gives an account of a monstrous palm tree, 
called crtdda pan" , or Palma montana molabaiica, which about the 35th year of its 
age, rises to he sixty or seventy feet high, with plicated leaves nearly round, twen- 
ty feet broad, with which they commonly cover their houses, and on which they 
also write ; part of one leaf sufficing to make a moderate hook. They write 
between the folds, making' the characters on the outward cuticle. In the Mal- 
dive islands, the natives are said to write on the leaves of a tree called maca- 
raqvcan, which are a fathom and a half long, and about a foot broad. But the 
most remarkable is the xaqua, which has something in it extraordinary; its leaves 
are so large, and of so close a texture, that they cover a man from top to toe, and 
shelter him from rain and other inclemencies of the weather, like a cloak ; and 
from the innermost substance of these leaves, a paper is taken ; being a white 
and fine membrane, like the sk'in of an egg, as large as a skin of our vellum 
or parchment, and nothing inferior for beauty and goodness to the best of 
our paper. Paper is chiefly made among us of linen, or hempen rags, beaten 
to a pulp in water ; and moulded into square sheets, of the thickness requir- 
ed. But it may also be made of nettles, hay, turnips, &c. as tea is, or of any 
