The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1882-1884, 1883-01-18
PAPER MAKING.
An Interesting Sketch of one of the
Most Useful Of Arts. ''' -

In the review of recent work.
E. A. Smiths History OF Paper
Making'-the,N New. York Sun says
Ii the term paper, in the marrow
sense, is Ii nited to material manu-
featured of rags or other vegetable
fibre reduced to pulp, there car be
no uoubt that the credit ofthe 'Aven'
ton belongs to the Chinese Accord
inc to some historians it was mad
in China as early as the ear 1856 b
c., while according to others the IN
PRODUCTION of the fabric should not bt
placed earlier than the year 200 ct
our era. 1t is undisputea that -four
kinds of paper have been made III
China since the later of these dates.
and from that time to our own there
has been but little change i'll the pro.
cess of manufacture. Those papers
are known as rice, silk, bamboo ana
bark. The first is made from the
pith of legumint rs plant. imported
from India and from the island o;
Formosa. The pith having beei
prepared of the length desired fol
the sheet, is cut in thin slice, which!
is then flattened. pressed and dried
This delicate material, which is used
for writing and printing. as well as
for painting, gets its name not from
the substance of which it is comp"s-
ed, but from the sizing OF rice water
which it receives. The so-caflet'
silk paper Of China is also misno-
mcr, for it is made from hemp, un
manufactured cotton and. the like,
sometimes mingled with wood pulr
and bamboo pulp, and possibly witt
little silk. But silk rags uoul"
not by themselves be reduced to pull!
SUITABLE for maxim p;p.r he rags
cotton, and hemp are prepared b.
being cut and we'll washed they ar.
then bleached, and by,a macreation
of twelve days duration are convert
ed into a pulp. This is made into
balls weighing about four pounds,
which, after being saturated witt
water, are spread upon Il frame witt
reeds, and pressed under heavy
weights. The drying is com ,leted
by hanging the sheets upon the wall
of a room and tie process is finished
by coating them with a gum sizing.
and polishing them with some smooth
hard substance. the sheets of this So
called silk paper, which, as we have
seen is mainly cotton paper, are
sometimes of very large dimensions.
reaching, for example, twelve feet
in length and in breadth. Of the So
called bark paper we need only say
that it is made from the inner bark
OF the sma Her branches of variety
of the mulberry tree. This bark is
wrought into a pulp. and then mould.
ed into a sheet, which, after compress
sion and drying. form a material
which will take ink, though it is even
mole delicate than the rice paper
The bamboo paper, as the name i'm
plies, is made from the fibre of tn.
bamboo plant reduced to a pulp
which is formed into sheets and sub
sequently compressed and dried.
The art Of paper-making spread
from China throughout Central A STA
and it was found there about the be.
ginning of the eighth century by the
Saracens, who brought it to Spain
The material chiefly used by the
Spanish MuOrs was raw cotton, and
the manufactured products was ac-
cordingly yellow and brittle; but
about the close of the eleventh centu
ry some Christian Spaniards. who
had learned the art of paper. making
substituted cotton rags, add moi
long afterwards made the further i'm
pfovement # stamping the rags into
pulp by water power. by the close
of the twelfth century cotton paper
had come into general use in South
ern and Western Europe. but as il
was then made it did not posses:
sufficient strength or soliditv fo
maay purposes. and by the close O
the fourteenth century it was almo $
entirely superseded by paper mad.
OF hemp and linen rags. 1t was the
introduction of this strong, and We
reaso nably cheap linen paper whic!
gave a powerful impulse to the intro
auction of printing by means q
movable types.
Although it is known that a pane
mill existed in England tow ard th
close of the fifteenth centurv-tber,
is, indeed, some evidence of paper
making there as early as the BEGIN
ming of the fourteenth-it was lon.
before the manufacture florished !,
the island Of Great Britain, and i
was not until 1890 that some Huoue
not refugees who had settled in Emo
land began the manufacture of whit
writ 1g paper. Nor was it un til tn
close of the eighteenth century tina
the English fabrics were equal t.
those of the continent. The frs
paper mill in America was establish
ed in 1890. by William Rettinobuyser
(anglicized into Rettenhouse, an,
William Bradford on u small strea,
near Philadelphia, still called Pane
Mill Run. The second paper mill i
the United States was built at Orr
field. now part of Germantown. an
in 1928 the third paper m Ii in Penn
sylvania was erected by some apprer
tices of Rittenhouse. ny 177O Their