Paper

(pa'pur.) [From L. papyrus.] The well-known substance on which letters and figures are written or printed. The ancients were obliged to have recourse to a variety of substitutes for our paper-stone, wood, lead, skins. ., but chiefly to papyrus. The latter was manufactured in Egypt, with great succe , up to the 5th century, when its use began to decline in Europe, and it was gradually superseded by parchment and by P., which was made from cotton at least as early as the 10th century. The Chinese and Persians were acquainted very early with the mode of manufacturing P. It must formerly have been made by a different proce from that now employed, since, in the old specimens, there are no marks of the wires through which the water is drained at present. Various materials have been latterly employed besides linen and cotton, and with great succe among others, straw; in fact, any substance will answer if it contains woody fibre, which is indispensable to a serviceable P. The substance used is first reduced to a pulp, the quality of which is of the greatest importance; size is mixed with the pulp, except in the manufacture of writing P., to which it is generally added when in sheets. The pulp is poured in moulds having wire bottoms, through which the fluid pa es off; the marks caused by those wires are called " water marks," but they are now avoided in wove P. by the use of a wire cloth. The P. is transferred from the mould to a felt or woollen cloth, and when the quantity has reached ap ost or six quires, it is subjected to great pre ure; this removes a large amount of the remaining moisture, after which it is placed in the drying-rooms; and when dry it is, if not sized before, dipped in a mixture of size and alum. After being dried, sorted, and pre ed,it is made up into quires. P. is distinguished, as to its use, into writing P., drawing P., cartridge P., copy, chancery, .; as to its size, into foolscap, post, crown, demy, medium, royal, . Some of these terms, thus foolscap, are due to the water-marks formerly used by manufacturers as a means of distinguishing their P. from that of others. Water-marks prevent frauds with regard to bank-notes, .; and they have sometimes, in courts of law, been the means of detecting forgeries of documents pretended to be of an earlier date than what was evinced by the water-mark in the P. Paper is made either by hand or by machinery; and perhaps none of the useful arts have received more attention in order to bring them to perfection than the P. manufacture. France and England manufacture P. of a very fine quality; the Italians and Germans are noted more for the durability of their P. than for its finene . France claims, and perhaps with justice, the honor of its first invention; but almost every good automatic P. mechanism at present mounted in France, England,Germany, Belgium, Italy, ., are in common use, and some of them have been improved, in the U. States, where upwards of 200,000 tons of P. are annually produced. Many and various have been the improvements introduced, till at length the art has so completely triumphed over every difficulty that a continuous stream of fluid pulp is now pa ed round the cylinders with unerring precision, and not only made into paper, but actually dried, pre ed smooth, and every separate sheet cut round the edges, in the brief space of a very few minutes. [s. 681]