THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER.
Father.I will now, as I promised, give you an account of the elegant and useful manufacture ofpaper, the basis of which is itself a manufacture.This delicate and beautiful substance is made from the meanest and most disgusting materials, from old rags, which have passed from one poor person to another, and have perhaps at length dropped in tatters from the child of the beggar. These are carefully picked up from dunghills, or bought from servants by Jews, who make it their business to go about and collect them. They sell them to the rag-merchant, who gives them from two pence to four pence a pound, according to their quality; and he, when he has got a sufficient quantity, disposes of them to the owner of the papermill. He gives them first to women to sort and pick, agreeably to their different degrees of fineness; they also with a knife cut out carefully all the seams, which they throw into a basket for other purposes; they then put them into the dusting-engine, a large circular wire sieve, where they receive some degree of cleansing. The rags are then conveyed to the mill. Here they were formerly beat to pieces with vast hammers, which rose and fell continually with a most tremendous noise, that was heard at a great distance. But now they put the rags into a large trough or cistern, into which a pipe of clear spring water is constantly flowing. In this cistern is placed a cylinder, about two feet long, set thick round with rows of iron spikes, standing as near as they can to one another without touching. At the bottom of the trough there are corresponding rows of spikes. The cylinder is made to whirl round with inconceivable rapidity, and with these iron teeth rends and tears the cloth in every possible direction; till, by the assistance of the water, which continually flows through the cistern, it is thoroughly masticated, and reduced to a fine pulp; and by the same process all its impurities are cleansed away, and it is restored to its original whiteness. This process takes about six hours. To improve the colour they then put in a little smalt, which gives it a bluish cast, which all paper has more or less: the French paper has less of it than ours. This fine pulp is next put into a copper of warm water. It is the substance of paper, but the form must now be given it: for this purpose they use a mould. It is made of wire, strong one way, and crossed with finer. This mould they just dip horizontally into the copper and take it out again. It has a little wooden frame on the edge, by means of which it retains as much of the pulp as is wanted for the thickness of the sheet, and the water runs off through the interstices of the wires. Another man instantly receives it, opens the frame, and turns out the thin sheet, which has now shape, but not consistence, upon soft felt, which is placed on the ground to receive it.On that is placed another piece of felt, and then another sheet of paper, and so on, till they have made a pile of forty or fifty. They are then pressed with a large screw-press, moved by a long lever, which forcibly squeezes the water out of them, and gives them immediate consistence. There is still, however, a great deal to be done. The felts are taken off, and thrown on one side, and the paper on the other, whence it is dexterously taken up with an instrument in the form of a T, three sheets at a time, and hung on lines to dry. There it hangs for a week or ten days, which likewise further whitens it; and any knots and roughness it may have are picked off carefully by the women. It is then sized. Size is a kind of glue; and without this preparation the paper would not bear ink; it would run and blot as you see it does on gray paper. The sheets are just dipped into the size and taken out again. The exact degree of sizing is a matter of nicety, which can only be known by experience. They are then hung up again to dry, and when dry, taken to the finishing-room, where they are examined anew, pressed in the dry-presses, which give them their last gloss and smoothness; counted up into quires, made up into reams, and sent to the stationer’s, from whom we have it, after he has folded it again and cut the edges; some too he makes to shine like satin, by hot-pressing it, or glossing it with hot plates. The whole process of papermaking takes about three weeks.
Har.It is a very curious process indeed. I shall almost scruple for the future to blacken a sheet of paper with a careless scrawl, now I know how much pains it costs to make it so white and beautiful.
Fa.It is true that there is hardly anything we use with so much waste and profusion as this manufacture: we should think ourselves confined in the use of it, if we might not tear, disperse, and destroy it in a thousand ways; so that it is really astonishing whence linen enough can be procured to answer so vast a demand. As to the coarse brown papers, of which an astonishing quantity is used by every shopkeeper in packages, &c., these are made chiefly of oakum, that is, old hempen ropes. A fine paper is made in China of silk.
Har.I have heard lately of woven paper; pray, what is that? they cannot weave paper, surely!
Fa.Your question is very natural. In order to answer it, I must desire you to take a sheet of common paper, and hold it up against the light. Do not you see marks in it?
Har.I see a great many white lines running along lengthwise, likeribs, and smaller that cross them. I see, too, letters and the figure of a crown.
Fa.These are all the marks of the wires; the thickness of the wire prevents so much of the pulp lying upon the sheet in those places, consequently wherever the wires are the paper is thinner, and you see the light through more readily, which gives that appearance of white lines. The letters, too, are worked in the wire, and are the maker’s name. Now, to prevent these lines, which take off from the beauty of the paper, particularly of drawing-paper, there have been lately used moulds of brass wire, exceeding fine, of equal thickness, and woven or latticed one within another: the marks therefore of these are easily pressed out, so as to be hardly visible; if you look at this sheet you will see it is quite smooth.
Har.It is so.
Fa.I should mention to you, that there is a discovery very lately made, by which they can make paper equal to any in whiteness, of the coarsest brown rags, and even of died cotton; which they have till now been obliged to throw by for inferior purposes.
Har.That is like what you told me before of bleaching cloth in a few hours.
Fa.It is indeed founded upon the same discovery. The paper made of these brown rags is likewise more valuable, from being very tough and strong, almost like parchment.
Har.When was the making of paper found out?
Fa.It is a disputed point, but probably in the fourteenth century. The invention has been of almost equal consequence to literature with that of printing itself; and shows how the arts and sciences, like children of the same family, mutually assist and bring forward each other.