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CHAPTER I

RAW MATERIALS

is an industry which is in many ways handmaiden to other industries. In the case of letterpress, lithographic, and plate printing it furnishes the supporting medium, without which the dissemination of knowledge would be more difficult. Long ago the printer appreciated the fact that the invention of the art of typography enlarged the sum of the world's knowledge, but perhaps he has not always been ready to give the papermaker a fair share of the credit. It must be conceded that while many things will serve as printing surfaces, the question of cost decides against their general use, and that paper is the principal material employed for written and printed books. It is with these uses that this work deals, while some others are touched upon.

The history of papermaking takes us back beyond the Christian era—the Chinese being credited with the production of paper from vegetable fibres about 80 to 150 B.C. The ancient Egyptians made paper from the stems of the tall reed which we know as the papyrus. By skilfully flattening out layers of the stems, forming them into sheets, and preparing the