AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER BY THE APPLICATION OF A CERTAIN VEGETABLE SUBSTANCE NOT HITHERTO USED FOR THAT PURPOSE
Year: 1837

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, EDMUND
SHAW, of Fenchurch Street, in the City of London, Stationer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Fourteenth day of September, in the first year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Edmund Shaw, Her especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority,
that I, the said Edmund Shaw, my exors, admors, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said Edmund Shaw, my exors, admors, or assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times during
the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use,
exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, the Invention of "AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER
BY THE APPLICATION OF A CERTAIN VEGETABLE SUBSTANCE NOT HITHERTO USED FOR
THAT PURPOSE," communicated to me by a certain Foreigner residing abroad;
in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that I, the said Edmund
Shaw, shall cause a particular description of the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in .Her
said Majesty's High Court of Cancery within six calendar months next
and immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as
in and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large
appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Edmund Shaw, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention, and the
manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully described and ascer-
tained in and by the following statement thereof (that is to say):

page_text: I take the envellopes or leaves which cover the ears of corn, and put them
into a vessel containing water. The water may be pure, or slightly alkaline or
acid. I then boil the water in the vessel either by steam or fire heat, and mace-
rate the aforesaid envellopes or fellicular leaves. When they have imbibed
water and become thickened and swollen, so that the matter interposed
between the fibres is reduced to a state of pulp or jelly, a slight beating by
fulling mallet, or other mechanical means, will effect a separation of the fibre
from the adherent glutinous matter; and washing or rincing with water, during
the beating, will cleanse it entirely from the glutinous matter. I bleach the
fibre produced as above by immersing, or immersing and beating or stirring
it about in a solution of chloride of lime, or with beating engines, as it is at
present practised for the bleaching of rags in paper mills, and the fibre is in
like manner reduced to pulp, and paper manufactured therefrom; or the quality
of the paper may be varied by the admixture of a portion of rags or other
filamentous substance.
I would remark, that I am aware that some attempts have before been made
to produce paper from the above-mentioned material, but were abandoned from
the incapability of producing good white paper.
What I claim is, the mode. or process herein described for making white
paper by the application of bleached pulp produced from the stalks or leaves of
Indian corn, which bleached material has not heretofore been so used.
In witness whereof, I, the said Edmund Shaw, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Thirteenth day of March, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight.
EDMUND (L.S.) SHAW.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Thirteenth day of March, in
the year of our Lord 1888, the aforesaid Edmund Shaw came before our
said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to
the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Fourteenth day of March, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight.