Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/144

134 without rivals in either the eastern or western world. Two hundred and sixty-three kinds of paper are now made in Yeddo. Some of them may have their origin in reasons of habit, caprice or fashion, but most of them are made for specific uses. Papers are manufactured not only for writing and printing, but for hats, umbrellas, lanterns, clothing, dolls' dresses, twine, candle-wick, and an endless variety of useful or ceremonious purposes. An anonymous author has wisely remarked: "When a people contrive to make saucepans that are used over charcoal fires, fine pocket-handkerchiefs, and sailors' water-proof overcoats out of paper, they may be considered as having pretty thoroughly mastered the subject."

The illustration on the opposite page is the reduced fac-simile of the engraving of a Japanese artist who has attempted to show how paper was made in his country in the eighteenth century. The grim old man who may be seen at the upper part of the illustration, with a leg in one page, and with head and body in another, is beating paper stock to a pulp. His only tool is a forked club, with which he pounds on the stone, and macerates the leaves and inner bark of various trees that have been previously saturated in an adjoining tub that is supposed to contain a solution of caustic alkali. How the stock could be reduced to the requisite smoothness for paper pulp by this rough manipulation is a problem that no American paper-maker will undertake to solve. We only know that it is done and well done. The long tank in the centre of the left-hand page contains the pulp dissolved in water. Two men are taking out the pulp upon paper-moulds, or sieves of bamboo splints which have been wire- drawn and boiled in oil. The water taken up with the pulp is drained through the holes in the sieve, leaving upon the woven splints a thin and flabby web of paper pulp. The web is then couched on