VARIETIES. 
275 
The iron knife commonly used for cutting this pith weighs 
about 2\ pounds, and is of the roughest and coarsest work- 
manship,* and perhaps not one blade in twenty is suffi- 
ciently well tempered to be advantageously used. In cut- 
ting, the knife is kept quite steady, the cylindrical pith 
being moved round and round against the edge of the 
knife, which is just inserted into the substance, and thus a 
leaf or sheet is formed, resembling the most delicate paper, 
but rather thick in substance. When brought quickly from 
the workman's hand's, the paper is in a damp state. It 
may have been rendered so, in order to facilitate the smooth- 
ing and pressing. 
At Chang-chew, the large city of which Amoy is the 
sea-port, there is only one man who can cut this paper. 
This person ran away from his master in Formosa, and 
refuses to teach his trade except for a premium of sixty 
dollars. 
It is said that there is a neat method of joining this paper 
when broken, and that it is chiefly made from the smaller 
pieces of the Bok-shung, and that the larger pieces are 
used in medicine in the same way as Epsom salts. 
It is in vain to conjecture, from the pith alone, to what 
plant or tree this exquisitely beautiful substance belongs. 
The vulgar opinion still generally prevails, that, because it 
bears the name of Rice-paper, it is manufactured from rice; 
but the slightest inspection with a microscope exhibits the 
exquisitely-delicate medullary portion of a dicotyledonous 
stem. Again, from an affinity with the well known Sholaf 
of the East Indies, many have supposed, and even Chinese 
travellers have declared, that Bice-paper is made from this, 
the JEschynomene paludosa. But a comparison of the 
*The model (of wood) sent would indicate this. It has a very 
broad, straight blade, and a short, straight handle, and is more like 
a small bill-hook, (wanting the hook) than a knife. 
tOf which floats and buoys for fishermen, and the very light hats of 
Sincapore, are made. 
