Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/237

P A P E K In the second half of the 14th century the use of paper for all literary purposes had become well established in all western Europe; and in the course of the 15th century it gradually superseded vellum. In MSS. of this latter period it is not unusual to find a mixture of vellum and paper, a vellum sheet forming the outside leaves of a quire while the rest are of paper. With regard to the early use of paper in England, there is evidence that quite at the beginning of the 14th century it was a not uncommon material, particularly for registers and accounts. Under the year 1310, the records of Merton College, Oxford, show that paper was purchased " pro registro, " which Prof. Rogers (Hist. Ayricul. and Prices, i. p. 644) is of opinion was probably cotton paper of the same character as that of the Bordeaux customs register in the Public Record Office, which date from the first year of Edward II. The college register referred to, which was probably used for entering the books that the fellows borrowed from the library, has perished. There is, however, in the British Museum a paper MS. (Add. 31,223), written in England, of even earlier date than the one recorded in the Merton archives. This is a register of the hustings court of Lyme Regis, the entries in which commence in the year 1309. The material is cotton paper, with apparently an admixture of rag, the threads of which are^ visible, imbedded in the pulp similar to the kind which was used in Spain. It may indeed have been imported direct from that country or from Bordeaux ; and a seaport town on the south coast of England is exactly the place where such early relics might be looked for. Professor Rogers also mentions an early specimen of paper made from rag in the archives of Merton College, on which is written a bill of the year 1332; and some leaves of water-marked paper of 1333 exist in the Harleian collec tion. Of a date only a few years later is the first of the registers of the King s Hall at Cambridge, a series of which, on paper, are preserved in the library of Trinity College. Of the middle of the 14th century also are many of the municipal books and records still to be found among the archives of ancient cities and towns. The knowledge, however, which we have of the history of paper- making in England is extremely scanty. The first maker whose name is known is one Tate, who is said to have set up a mill in Hertford early in the 16th century; and a German named Spielman had works at Dartford in 1588. But it is incredible that no paper was made in the country before the time of the Tudors. No doubt at first it was imported. But the comparatively cheap rates at which it was sold in the 15th century in inland toAvns, as well as in those nearer the coast, seem to afford ground for assum ing that there was at that time a native industry in this commodity, and that it was not altogether imported. As far as the prices have been observed at which different kinds of paper were sold in England in the early period of its introduction, it has been found that in 1355-56 the price of a quire of small folio paper Avas 5d. 3 both in Oxford and London. In the 15th century the average price seems to have ranged from 3d. to 4d. for the quire, and from 3s. 4d. to 4s. for the ream. At the beginning of the 16th century the price fell to 2d. or 3d. the quire, and to 3s. or 3s. 6d. the ream ; but in the second half of the century, owing to the debasement of the coinage, it rose, in common with all other commodities, to nearly 4d. the quire, and to rather more than 5s. the ream. The relatively higher price of the ream in this last period, as compared with that of the quire, seems to imply a more extensive use of the material which enabled the trader to dispose of broken bulk more quickly than formerly, and so to sell by the quire at a comparatively cheap rate. Brown paper appears in entries of 1570-71, and was sold in bundles at 2s. to 2s. 4d. Blotting paper is appar ently of even earlier date, being mentioned under the year 1465. It was a coarse, grey, unsized paper, fragments of which have been found among the leaves of 15th century accounts, where it had been left after being used for blotting. See Gcrardi Meerman ct doctorum viroi um ad eum Epistolse atquc Observationes de Charts vulgaris sen lincae oriyinc, Hague, 1767 ; G. F. "Welirs, Vom Papier, Halle, 1789 ; M. Koops, Historical Account of the substances used to describe events and to convey idea*, from the earliest date to the Invention of Paper (London, 1801), in great part repeating Welirs the book is printed on paper manufac tured from straAV ; Erscli and Gruber, Allgem. Encyklopadie, art. "Papier," Leipsic, 1838; Sotzmann, "Ueber die altere Papier- fabrikation," in Scrapeum, Leipsic, 1846 ; "W. Wattenbach, Das Schriftivescn im Mittclaltcr, Leipsic, 1875, pp. 114-123 ; J. E. T. Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Oxford, 1866-82, passim. (E. M. T.) MANUFACTURE OF PAPER. Paper is a thin tissue composed of vegetable fibres (rarely of Avoollen fibres), resulting from their deposition on wire- cloth Avhile suspended in vater. At first it was entirely made by hand, but the invention in 1798 of the paper machine by Louis Robert, a clerk in the employment of Messrs Didot, of the celebrated Essonnes paper-mills, near Paris, gave a new impetus to the industry. The invention Avas introduced into England through the agency of Messrs Fourdrinier, Avho employed Bryan Donkin, the engineer, to assist in working it out ; but, although they expended a large fortune in developing the invention, their enterprise resulted only in bankruptcy. Their first paper machine Avas erected in 1804 at Frogmoor Mill, near Boxmoor, Herts. In the United States it was not till 1820 that such a machine Avas started for the first time by Messrs T. Gilpin & Co., on the BrandyAvine. Since that period, machine-made paper has gradually supplanted that made by hand for all except special purposes, and has been brought to a high state of perfection by subsequent* im provements in the machinery. Paper may be divided into three main classes : Avriting paper, printing paper, and AATapping paper. The staple of Avhich writing and printing paper is made is, in Britain, rags and esparto ; in America a considerable quantity of Avood pulp is used. The staple of Avrapping papers is old ropes and in some cases jute. The best AA^riting and print ing papers are still made, Avhether by hand or by machine, from rags. Manufacture of Paper from Rags. The first process is the cutting and sorting of the rags, which is invariably done by Avomen. The rag-cutter stands behind a knife about 14 inches long set in an oblique position in a table before her; the rags are cut into pieces about the size of the hand, and the linen pieces separated from the cotton, the various qualities being put into different receptacles. After being cut they are subjected to the action of the AvilloAv and duster, which knocks the loose dust off. The AvilloAv is composed of two conical cylinders, inside of Avhich iron spikes project. In the interior of these cylinders an iron drum, also provided Avith spikes, revolves at about 300 revolutions per minute. The rags are fed into the first cylinder by a travelling felt, and dashed through from the one to the other by the action of the revolving drum, and from the second cylinder throAvn for- Avard into the duster. This consists of a large rectangular wooden case, in the interior of Avhich an iron cage, covered with coarse wirecloth, revolves slowly at right angles to the AvilloAv. This cage is set at a slight incline, so that the rags AA hich are thrown into it by the AvilloAv at one end slowly pass to the other, Avhile the dust, &c., Avhich has been disengaged by the action of the Avillow, falls through the Avirecloth, and the dusted rags pass out at the other end, IIOAV ready for the boiler. The boiler is of different