In our own times we have seen, in the invention of the new machinery applied to papermaking, the most important addition that has been made to the art; and such an one as nearly equals in importance the original suggestion of making it from rags. At such a period we must indulge a smile at the standing definition of linen, or European paper' in the most extensive of our modern Encyclopedias, as chiefly made of linen rags beaten to a pulp with great hammers, and the soil carried off by a continual supply of fresh water, conveyed among the pulp in little troughs, till it be rendered perfectly white.' The fact is hammers have been entirely discontinued in this country for these forty years, and long before the invention of the machine.

The modern process may be considered as divided into paper-making as conducted by the hand-and by the machine: the greater part of the best writing and printing papers taken together being, perhaps, at length made by the latter; for so strong is the attachment to particular names, with regard to writing papers, that though an article every way as perfect and beautiful can be manufactured by the machine, an equal quantity at least of that paper separately considered is made by the old method.

I. OF PAPER-MAKING BY THE HAND. Even this, as conducted in the more respectable establishments, will not fail to strike an intelligent stranger to the process as a surprisingly simple and beautiful art. He may be first led into the rag-house, where a number of women and children will be found employed in cutting and sorting the washed rags.

Rags are sold to the paper-makers sorted into four or five different kinds: No. 1, sometimes called London superfine, being all linen, and reserved for the finest paper. No. 5 is generally the coarsest sort, and includes canvas; a sixth sort calledrag-bagging' is, however, sometimes kept separate. Colored rags' include cotton of all colors except blue, which is kept apart for making blue paper.

Some mills use a duster, made of wire net, in the form of a cylinder, four feet in diameter and five feet long. It is put in motion on pivots in connexion with some part of the general machinery, and enclosed in a tight box, into which it casts off the dust. In different establishments very different degrees of care are exercised in the sorting some separate cloth of hemp from cloth of flax; others keep hemps and seams apart; and think that the coarseness of the cloth should be considered, and the degree of wear it has had attended to; for, if rags which are almost new be mixed with those that are much worn, the one will not be reduced to a pulp in the mill, whilst the other will be so attenuated as to be carried away by the water, to the real loss of the manufacturer, and the deterioration of the article made; or the particles carried off will be those which would give it a smooth and velvet-like softness. Nor is this all: a pulp of uneven tenuity produces those cloudy papers in which are seen at intervals parts more or less clear, and more or less weak, occasioned by the flakes assembled on the mould not being sufficiently tempered and diluted together.

The general furniture of the rag-house is a number of chests or boxes divided into five or more separate cases for the different sorts of rags; and in some cases having a large knife fixed on the top each woman has a piece of pasteboard hung from her girdle and extended on her knees, upon which, with the assistance of the knife, she unrips seams and stitches, and scrapes off all filth. Whatever can be used, after being well shaken, is distributed according to the degree of fineness, and the women throw the rest at their feet. The more exact manufacturers have six cases, i. e. for the superfine, the fine, the seams and stitches of the fine; the middling, the seams and stitches of the middling; and the coarse; without including the very coarse parts, reserved for brown and other coarse papers.

Sometimes the rags are bleached in the first stage of the process, or immediately after they are sorted, and Mr. Campbell took out a patent for a method of performing this in 1792. It is similar to the process of bleaching cotton thread. He directs that the rags should, before they are put into the receiver to be bleached, contain not more than their own weight of fair water. They should first be opened by a machine, called by the cotton manufacturers a devil, or some machine of that nature, and they are to be distributed in the receivers, in layers spread on frames, so that they will not come in contact with each other, or they may be placed in the body of the receiver, and have stirrers or agitators, provided to expose every part of them to the action of the bleaching gas. After the process, which must be concluded as soon as ever the rags are sufficiently bleached, lest the gas should act upon and injure their quality, they are to be washed in water, and will be ready for the mill.

Many manufacturers and printers consider that this mode of bleaching the rags makes them rotten; that it injures the quality of the paper, which it doubtless does if carried too far; and that it enables makers to pass off an article of inferior staple. This is no doubt the case in some instances; but, with all the just suspicion of bleached papers that obtains in many quarters, bleaching may clearly be delicately and judiciously applied; though whether in this stage or in the state of half-stuff we will not here decide; and it is certainly capable of making the same good materials into a better paper, when well managed. In many mills printing papers are bleached by muriate of lime inserted in the washing engine.

We may now describe the paper-mill in its principal parts. This is represented in the plates, PAPER-MAKING I. and II., through which, for the convenience of arrangement, the figures run on. Fig. 1 is a front, and fig. 2 a side elevation of the mill; the same letter expressing the same part in both. AB is the great water-wheel, giving motion to the whole on its shaft or axis C; a crown, or face wheel, DD is framed, and gives motion to the pinion G; this is fixed on the lower part of a vertical axis FF, which goes up into the upper room of the mill, and has two face wheels I and K fixed upon it; these actuate two pinions L M, upon

the end of the spindles of the two engines N and O, where the rags are ground.

W, fig. 1, is a wheel turned by the teeth of the great wheel DD; the axis of this wheel is formed into a triple crank v, w, x, which gives motion to two or three pumps, by means of levers or beams y, z, y, which cannot be fully seen in the figures, but, may be easily imagined. These pumps raise up a constant stream of clean water, which is necessary to be kept running through the rags in the engine to wash away the dirt separated from them in the process. By the arrangement of the cog wheels, the pinions L. M and cylinders of the engines are caused to revolve at the rate of 150 times per minute, when the water wheel moves with its proper velocity.

The internal construction of the engine is explained by the remaining figures. Fig. 3 is a longitudinal section, showing the cylinder in action; Fig. 4, a plan looking down upon it; fig. 6, the cylinder separate; N and O, in fig. 1, represent a large cistern or vat of an oblong figure, with the angles removed, as shown by fig. 4; it is lined with lead inside, and divided in the middle by a partition ef, figs. 3 and 4. On the front and back of the engine two short beams TT, figs. 2, 4, and 5, are bolted; they have long mortises through them to receive tenons at the ends of two horizontal levers SS, which rise and fall in bolts in one of the beams T as centres; the front one of these beams, or that nearest to the cylinder R, is capable of being elevated or depressed by turning the nut of the screw r, which, as shown in fig. 5, is fixed to the tenon of S, and comes up through the top of the beam T, upon which the nut takes its bearing. Two brasses are let into the middle of the levers S, S, and form the bearing for the spindle of the engine to turn upon. R is the cylinder made of wood and fixed fast upon the spindle; it has a number of knives or cutters fixed upon it, parallel to its axis, and projecting from its circumference about an inch: e, fig. 3 and 4, is a circular breasting, made of boards and covered with sheet lead, which fits the cylinder very truly, and leaves but very little space between the teeth and breasting. An inclined plane leads regularly from the bottom of the engine trough to the top of the breasting, at the bottom of the breasting beneath. The axis of the cylinder, a block a, fig. 3, is fixed, and has, cutters of the same size and exactly similar to those in the cylinder, which at all times of the process pass very close to the teeth in the block, but do not touch. This block is fastened by a dove-tail fixed in the wooden bottom of the breasting; it comes through the woodwork of the chest, and projects a small distance on the outside of it, and is kept up to its place by a wedge, so that by withdrawing this wedge the block becomes loose, and can be removed to sharpen the cutters as occasion requires. The great velocity of the cylinder draws the rags, with which the engine trough is filled between the cylinder and the cutters in the block a, and by this they are cut in pieces; then by the rapid motion of the cylinder the rags are thrown over the top of the breasting, and they run down the

inclined plane, and passing round the partition ef come to the cylinder again, so as to be repeatedly cut till they are reduced to a pulp. This circulation or turning the rags over in the engine, causes them to present themselves to the cutters in a different direction every time; for as the cylinder cuts or clips in straight lines, in the same manner as a pair of shears, it is requisite to cut the rags across in different directions, to reduce them to a pulp. The screw r is used to raise or lower the cylinder, and cause it to cut finer or coarser by enlarging or diminishing the space between the cutters in the block and those of the cylinder. These cutters act in the same manner as a pair of scissars cut, the teeth of the cylinder being as before-mentioned parallel to the axis of the cylinder, and those of the block are placed rather inclined to them, so that the teeth of the cylinder come first in contact with the cutters of the block at one end, and then successively the contact proceeds along to the other end, so that any rags interposed between them are cut in the same manner as they would be between the blades of a pair of shears. Sometimes the plates or cutters in the block are bent to an angle in the middle instead of being straight and inclined to the cylinder; in this case they are called elbow plates, and of course the two ends are both inclined to the axis of the cylinder in an opposite direction; in either case the edges of the plates of the block cannot be straight lines, but must be curved to adapt themselves to the curve which an inclined line traced on the cylinder will of course have. The plates of the block are united by screwing them altogether, and their edges are bevelled away on one side only.

The cutters of the cylinder are fixed in, as shown in fig. 7; here R is the cylinder, formed of a solid piece of wood, and having grooves cut on its circumference parallel to its axis; each of these grooves has two cutters put into it, and a fillet of wood is driven fast in between them to hold them in; the fillets are kept in by spikes driven into the solid wood of the cylinder. A cover is put over the cylinder to prevent the water or rags being thrown out of the engine by its great velocity; it is a square box, g h ki, fig. 3, and marked P, figs. 1 and 2; it has two small troughs, k and i, coming through the sides of the box; at mm are two hair or wire sieves sliding in grooves made in each side of the box. The cylinder as it turns throws a great quantity of water and rags up against these sieves; the water goes through them and runs down into the troughs at k and i, and thence into the ends of the leaden pipes pp, fig. 2, by which it is conveyed away; n, n, fig. 3, are grooves for two boards, which when down in their places cover the hair sieves and stop the water from going through them. A considerable part of the rags thus thrown up bythe cylinder passes quite through it, and goes down under it again. The water is brought to the engine by a pipe from the pump; this pipe delivers it into a small cistern adjoining and communicating with the engine; the pipe has a cock to stop the entrance of the water when required; the exit of the foul water is, as before-mentioned, made by the cylinder throw

ing it up into the troughs and k. The two engines N and O are placed at different levels as shown by fig. 1, the bottom of N being higher than the top of 0; the latter is called the washer, where the rags are first worked coarsely with water running through them, to wash and open the fibres of them, which after washing are called half-stuff, and are then let down into the beaten engine O; here they are ground and reduced to a finished pump, or prepared stuff, as it is called.

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For making superfine paper, the following has been given as the established system of manufacture for the London market: 1 cwt. of the best white rags, called No. 1, is put into the washing engine, and the cock opened to let a considerable stream of water run through it. The screw of the cylinder is adjusted to raise it up, so that its teeth do not actually touch the teeth of the block the rags are not therefore cut, but rather rubbed in a violent manner, so as to open and expose every fibre to the action of the water, that it may carry off all dirt; this gentle washing continues for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, when the cylinder is laid down, that is, the screw is turned back till the cylinder is let down upon the cutters of the block, and rests its weight upon them; in this state they begin with a tremendous noise and vibration to cut the rags into pieces; this is continued for about four hours, by which time the engine will come to work very steadily and with less noise, because the rags are cut into pieces and chopped up very much, though not yet reduced to a pulp. The bleaching now commences, if it has not been done in the first stage upon the rags. To bleach the stuff in the engine they stop the water from running in, and throw in a quantity of bleaching salt, or muriate of lime; for fine rags, one or two pounds, more or less, are used according to circumstances; the two sliders, n, n, fig. 3, are put down in the cover of the cylinder to prevent the water getting away, and in this state the engine is worked about an hour for the bleaching. During this time the rags lose their color, but this does not color the water, though it is rendered rather white and milky by the salt. The very best rags, when first put into the en-, gine, are of a yellow and dirty color, but they become by the bleaching a very perfect snow white. The cylinder is usually raised up a very little during the bleaching; which being concluded, the water-cock is opened again, the boards n, n, removed, and the washing continued about an hour to wash the salt away. This concludes the operation, and the half-stuff, as the rags are now called, is let off into a basket which suffers the water to drain through it: or if the manufacture is proceeding with despatch, and every thing is ready, it is let off into the beating engine at once; here the stuff is worked for about five hours with a sufficient quantity of water to make a pulp; in this affair great judgment is required, as it materially influences the quality of the paper; the water is not suffered to run through the beater, as in the other engine. The only difference between the two engines is the firmness of their teeth. The cylinder of the washer has twenty grooves in it, each containing two

bars or teeth, as shown in fig. 7, but the beater has three in each, so as to have sixty teeth in all. The beater is made to turn with a greater velocity than the other; the pinion L, fig. 1, which turns the beater, having only twenty teeth, while the other, M, has twenty-two. This greater velocity and number of teeth in the beater cause the strokes of the several knives passing by each other to be so rapid that they produce a coarse musical note or humming, which may be heard to a great distance from the mill; but the washer, being coarser and less rapid, produces the most horrible growling that can be conceived, and is so violent as to shake the whole building. In small mills, and where perhaps there is a deficiency of water, they only use one engine bott: for washing and beating, as it will do for either purpose; but the mills near London, chiefly at Maidstone, in Kent, have two, three, or even five engines. These require an immense body of water to turn them, and the steam engine has been, of course, very successfully applied in some mills. The stuff when finished is conveyed to a general receptacle called the stuffchest, where it is kept till wanted to be made into paper; for the engines work day and night, though the making the paper, as it requires many workmen, is of course only carried on in the daytime.

The implements employed in this department of the manufacture are as follows: the vat with its stirrer, sometimes called a hog, the moulds and deckles, the felts, the vat press, another similar press to it for giving the paper a second pressure, &c.

The vat is made of wood in the form of a tub, and generally about five feet in diameter and two and a half in depth. It is kept at a proper temperature by means of a grate introduced at a hole in the side, and surrounded on the inside of the vat with a case of copper. For fuel to this grate charcoal or wood is used, and frequently to prevent smoke the wall of the building comes in contact with one part of the vat, so that the fire has no communication with the place where the paper is made. Every vat is furnished on the upper part with planks, enclosed inwards, and even railed in with wood to prevent any of the stuff from running over in the operation. Across the vat is a plank pierced with holes at one of the extremities, and resting on the planks which surround the vats. This is used to rest the mould upon when a sheet of paper has been made. In different mills two methods are made use of to mix up the stuff and water with which the vat is filled, and keep it in such an agitation as will prevent any coagulation or subsidence of the pulp, which would render the paper flaky and the different sheets of unequal thickness; in one, two instruments are employed to mix them, one of which is a simple pole, and the other a pole armed with a piece of board, rounded and full of holes. The operation of stirring is repeated as often as the stuff falls to the bottom. In the principal paper mills for making writing paper, they use for this purpose what is called a hog; which is a machine within the vat, that by means of a small wheel on the outside is made to turn constantly round, and keep the stuff in

is sometimes seen on both sides of each brass wire than towards the midst of the space. This is occasioned by the pulp, which the motion of the mould could not distribute, being stopped by the wires, or the manicord, that serves to string them; a defect, however, almost wholly remedied by the improvement of weaving the wire of the mould like cloth. In order to avoid drops of water, which, if they fall upon the paper will make disagreeable spots, the mould is to be laid gently, and raised readily; and, as often as the coucher returns his mould to the drainer, he ought to be careful to shake his hands behind him, for, without this precaution, his fingers, which are wet, would drip upon the sheet already laid, whilst he is covering it with the felt. If he is also too quick in laying, the air, detained and compressed under the sheet, occasions a blemish.

The coucher, having taken off the several sheets from the mould as fast as they are made,. lays them one by one in a pile under the press, with the felt between each individual sheet, until they have in this manner made six quires of paper, called a post, and containing 144 sheets. When the last sheet of the post is covered with the last felt, the workmen about the vat assist each other to submit the whole heap to the action of the press. They begin, at first, to press it with a middling lever, and afterwards with a lever fifteen feet in length; this operation expresses the water, and thus gives the paper a strength which it did not possess before. The vestiges of the protuberances made by the wires of the mould are altogether flattened, and, of consequence, the hollows opposite to them disappear also; but the traces formed by the interstices of the wire, in consequence of their thickness, appear on both sides, and are rounded by the press.

The business of the third workman, called the lifter, begins after the operation of the press, and consists in taking the sheets off the felts (for they are caused to adhere to them by the action of the press), and making them up in a second neat and compact pile; for this is very necessary to make the paper of a regular and equal thickness. It is now put under a second press, with all the sheets in contact with each other: this expresses a great quantity of water from the paper, and gives the sheets a very considerable strength; it also tends to take out those freckles in the surface which were occasioned by the impression of the felt; though it is necessary to have felts in the first pressure, because the paper is then so wet that it would be pressed into a solid mass if the sheets touched each other. The paper remains in the second press until another pile is made ready by the lifter, when it is taken out and sometimes separated sheet from sheet, which is called parting the packs: at other times it is taken in small masses of six or seven sheets into the drying-house.

For when the sheets are very thin, and it is found after the second pressure that they are formed by a fecula which is still saturated with a great deal of water, so that they have little consistence, it is probable that the second press has so joined them to one another that it is dif

ficult to separate them; and, indeed, they cannot well be taken off, one by one, without tearing a great number: this, however, generally shows improper management in the second pressing. But, happily, this separation, sheet by sheet, is not necessary for drying, so that seven or eight may be taken together, which is called forming the pages; sometimes, also, a less number may do when the paper is of a large size, but never less than three sheets are hung up together. It is of more importance than we are at first aware of, that the sheets should remain, as it were, pasted several of them together; if they were single, and one by one, they could not resist the moisture of the size, yet this moisture is sufficient to facilitate their operation; and to hinder their separating, when they are hung up to dry, they should be so placed that the pages may receive the wind in the surface and not in the sides and edges.

The drying-lofts are extensive apartments, usually the upper parts of all the buildings of the mill; the sides are formed by loffer boards, which are a kind of lattice, or boarding, which can be opened and shut to admit more or less air at pleasure. The sheets are taken up upon a piece of wood like a T, and hung upon hair lines, stretched across large horizontal wooden frames, called tribbles; and then, as they are filled, are lifted up between upright posts, to the top of the room, and retained by pegs put in the posts; then another frame, being filled, is put up in its turn, and so on, till the loft is filled from top to bottom.

Mr. Bramah has suggested an improvement in this method, which enables women or children to perform the business of the drying-house instead of men, and adds considerable facility to the process of hanging and re-hanging the sheets. Instead of using tribbles, he has a proper number of frames, made of wood, mounted with' leaves, to represent so many frames or clothes' horses, similar to those used by any common laundress, but of a length proportioned to the dimensions of the drying-house, which may be divided into two or more rows, so as to leave room and proper aisles or passages for the convenience of the operators to hang and re-hang the sheets; and the height of the frames may be equal, or nearly equal, to one half the story in which they are fixed. They are stationed at proper distances from each other by means of upright posts with grooves fitted to the frames so that each may slide vertically up and down, by means of lines and pulleys affixed to each, just like sash windows that are double hung; so that, while one of the frames is sliding up to touch the ceiling of the building with its upper edges, the alternate one may be depressed till its lower edge, or the paper which hangs upon it, may come nearly in contact with the floor. By this means children can reach to hang the paper, and can afterwards elevate the frames to their proper height in the loft.

Writing paper, when dry, is carried to an apartment where it is sized by dipping each page, that is, each bundle of thirty-four or thirtyfive sheets, which have been dried together, into a vat, containing a weak size. Printing-papers