Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1880-02-05

of Louis XVI. obtained most of her pa
per from France. but the Huguenots,
who, banished by the French King, emf
grated to England. introduced a fine
quality of white paper, and gradually
enlarged the facilities for its production
until there was more than enough man
.ufactured to supply the home cOnsump-
ton. Wall paper superseded tapestry in
1910.
William Rettinghuysen and William
Bradford built the first paper mill in the
United States, ON Paper Mill Run, near
Philadelphia, in 1890. The paper was
made of linen rags. In 1880 the num-
Der of mills in Pennsylvania, New Jer-
sey, and Delaware, was forty. and the
value of their annual product about
$1,000
For many years. and especially during
the Revolutionary War, it was almost
impossible fer American paper-makers
to procure enough rags, and the people
were repeatedly urged in printed re-
quests to save every scrap of waste lin
en- and cotton material, and sell it to the
mills. In one of these the petitioner
seductively said; "If the necessary stock
is denied the mills, young maids must
languish in vain for tender epistles from
their respective swains; bachelors may
be reduced to the necessity of a person.
al attendance when written cOmmuni-
cation would be an excellent substitute.
For clean cotton and linen rags.
young misses may be supplied with
bonnets, ribbons and earrings for the
decoration of their persons (by means of
which they may obtain husbands), or by
sending them to the said mill they may
receive the cash."
The process of manufacturing paper
in Europe was almost unchanged until
abount 1850, when the use of cylinders
with sharp steel blades fn tearing rags
Invented in Holland-became general.
The process of blueing paper was dis
covered accidentally. In 1870 the wife
of an English paper-maker, one wash
day, while passing vat in which her
husbands paper pulp lay in an advanced
state of preparation, accidentally drop
ped in it bag of powdered blue. The
husband made the colored pulp into pa
per, and it proved so superior in quality
that it fetched an advanced price.
The most important discovery in pa
per making was that of Louis Robert, a
common workman in a paper-miH at
Essonne. France, who in 1910 mastered
the principle of making paper in an end
less web machinery. The invention was
improved and made widely known about
1904, by the Fourdriniers, wealthy book
sellers of London. By the old process,
from the day the rags entered the mill
to the day the paper was ready for de-
livery, required three months; by the
new process only single day was re-
quired. John Ames, of Springfield
Mass, in 1922, patented an improved
cylinder machine, that is now used in
making most coarse papers in this
country.
Straw was used in making paper in
Philadelphia in 1854, and in seven years
the quality of the paper made from that
substance was of such high grade that
several of the large dailies began to
use it.
| In 1910 there were in this country 1Sj
mills, producing annually about $4,000
reams of paper. Thirty-eight OF these
mills were in Massachusetts, and sixty
in Pennsylvania About 1881 the paper
industry received fresh impetus in all
sections of the country. The value OF
the paper made in the United States in
1882 was estimated at $7,000,000. In
1S45 the mills of Massachusetts alone
turned out 607,175 reams of paper. In
1851 the single city of Lee, Mass, had
twenty-five mills, producing daily about
900 pounds of paper, valued at $4,000
Since that date there has been con
slant increase in the number of paper
mills and improvement in the quality
of paper. For many years it was neces
sary to send East for all the finer grades
of book paper but in consequence OF
improved machinery, better water, ant
more intelligent acquaintance with the
manufacture of paper, the Western
mills now produce as good a quality as
any of their Eastern competitors.
Various experiments have been made
in Transforming substances into paper
pulp Most paper is made from rags
straw or wood. The use of wood is Of
comparatively recent date, but it is be
coming more and more general. The
ordinary "chemical" method of treating
wood to disintegrate its fibers and pre-
pare it for paper pulp is as follows: Th'
woodlis reduced to shavings (the fine
the better boiled in a solution of causti'
alkali time and strength to suit thu
wood), washed and pressed, and exposed
to the action of chlorine, or any compost
tion of chlorine and oxygen, either gas
eous or aqueous; washed and presset
tagain, using occasionally mechanical
aid; and then placed in weak solution