PA 
to the manner of making it, and the mate- 
rials eiiipldyed therein, is reducible to seve- 
ral kinds ; as Egyptian paper, made of the 
rush papyrus; bark paper, made of the 
inner rind of several trees ; cotton paper ; 
incombustible paper ; and European paper, 
made of linen rags. 
Egyptian paper was principally used 
among the ancients ; being made of the 
papyrus, or biblns, a species of rush, which 
grew on the bank* of the Nile : in making 
it into paper, they began with lopping off 
the two extremes of the plant, the head and 
the root: the remaining part, which was 
the stem, they cut lengthwise into two 
nearly ecpial parts, and from each of these 
they stripped the scaly pellicles of which it 
consisted. The innernlost of these pellicles 
were looked on as the best, and that near- 
est the rind as tlie worst : they were there- 
fore kept apart, and made to constitute 
two different sorts of paper. As the pelli- 
cles were taken off, they extended them on 
a table, laying them over each otlier trans- 
versely, so as that the fibres made right an- 
gles ; in this state they were ghied together 
by the muddy waters of the Nile ; or, when 
those were not to be had, with paste made 
of the finest wheat flour, mixed with hot 
water and a sprinkling of vinegar. The 
pellicles were next pressed, to get out the 
water, then dried, and lastly flatted and 
smootiied by beating them with a mallet : 
this was the Egyptian paper, which was 
sometimes further polished by rubbin<' it 
with a glass ball, or the like. 
Bark paper was only the inner whitish 
rind, inclosed between the bark and the 
wood of several trees, as the maple, plane, 
beech, and elm, but especially the tilia, or 
linden tree, which was that mostly used 
for this purpose. On this, stripped off, 
flatted, and dried, the ancients wrote 
books, several of which are said to be still 
extant. 
Chinese paper is of various kinds ; some 
is made of the rinds or barks of trees 
especially the mulberry tree and elm, but 
chiefly of the bamboo and cotton tree. In 
fact, almost each province has its several 
paper. The preparations of paper made 
of the barks of trees may he instanced in 
that of the bamboo, which is a tree of the 
cane or reed kind. The second skin of 
the bark, whicli is soft and white, is ordi- 
narily made use of for paper : this is beat 
in fair water to a pulp, which they take 
up in large moulds, so that some sheets are 
above twelve feet in length ; they are com- 
pleted by dipping them, sheet by sheet, in 
alum water, which serves instead of the 
size among us, and not only hinders the 
paper from imbibing the ink, but makes it 
look as if varnished over. This paper is 
white, soft, and close, without the lea.st 
roughness, though it cracks more easily 
than European paper ; is very subject to he 
eaten by the worms, and its thinness makes 
it liable to be soon worn out. 
Cotton paper is a sort of paper which has 
been in use upwards of six hundred years. 
In the grand library at Paris are manu- 
scripts on tliis paper, which appear to be 
of tJie tenth century ; and from the twelfth 
century, cotton manuscripts are more fre- 
quent than parchment ones. Cotton paper 
IS still made in the East Iqdies, by beating 
cotton rags to a pulp. 
Linen or European paper appears to have 
been first introduced among us towards the 
beginning of the fourteenth century, but 
by whom this valuable commodity was in- 
vented is not known. The method of 
making paper of linen or hempen rags is 
as follows ; the lineu rags being carried to 
the mill, are first sorted; then washed very 
clean in puncheons, whose sides are grated 
with strong wires, and the bottoms bored 
full ofholes. After this they are fermented, 
by laying them in heaps close covered with 
sacking, till they sweat and rot ; which is 
commonly done in four or five days. When 
duly fermented, they are twisted into hand- 
fuls, cut small, and thrown into oval mor- 
tars, made of well-seasoned oak, about half 
a yard deep, with an iron plate at bottom, 
an inch thick, eight inches broad, and thirty 
long ; in the middle is a washing block, 
grooved, with five holes in it, and a piece 
of hair sieve fastened on the inside : this 
keeps the hammers from touching it, and 
prevents any thing from going out, except 
tlie foul water. These mortars are continu- 
ally supplied with water, by little troughs, 
from a cistern, fed by buckets fixed to the 
several floats of a great wheel, which raises 
the wooden hammers for pounding the rags 
in the mortars. When the rags are beaten 
to a certain degree, called the first stuff, 
the pulp is removed into boxes, made like 
cornchandlers’ bins, with the bottom board 
aslant, and a little separation on the front, 
for the water to drain away. The pulp of 
the rags being in, tliey take away as many 
of the front boards as are needful, and press 
the mass down hard with their hands : the 
next day they put on another board, and 
add more pulp, till the box is full, and here 
