5. _Greens_, are Scheele’s green, a combination of arsenious acid, and
oxide of copper; the green of Schweinfurth, or green verditer; as also a
mixture of blues and yellows.
6. _Violets_ are produced by a mixture of blue and red in various
proportions, or they may be obtained directly by mixing a decoction of
logwood with alum.
7. _Browns, blacks, and grays._ Umber furnishes the brown tints. Blacks
are either common ivory or Frankfort black; and grays are formed by
mixtures of prussian blue and Spanish white.
All the colours are rendered adhesive and consistent, by being worked up
with gelatinous size or a weak solution of glue, liquefied in a kettle.
Many of the colours are previously thickened, however, with starch.
Sometimes coloured lakes are employed. See LAKES.
PAPER, MANUFACTURE OF. (_Papeterie_, Fr.; _Papiermacherkunst_, Germ.)
This most useful substance, which has procured for the moderns an
incalculable advantage over the antients, in the means of diffusing and
perpetuating knowledge, seems to have been first invented in China,
about the commencement of the Christian era, and was thence brought to
Mecca, along with the article itself, about the beginning of the 8th
century; whence the Arabs carried it, in their rapid career of conquest
and colonization, to the coasts of Barbary, and into Spain, about the
end of the 9th or beginning of the 10th century.
By other accounts, this art originated in Greece, where it was first
made from cotton fibres, in the course of the tenth century, and
continued there in common use during the next three hundred years. It
was not till the beginning of the 14th century that paper was made from
linen in Europe, by the establishment of a paper-mill in 1390, at
Nuremberg in Germany. The first English paper-mill was erected at
Dartford by a German jeweller in the service of Queen Elizabeth, about
the year 1588. But the business was not very successful; in consequence
of which, for a long period afterwards, indeed till within the last 70
years, this country derived its supplies of fine writing papers from
France and Holland. Nothing places in a more striking light the vast
improvement which has taken place in all the mechanical arts of England
since the era of Arkwright, than the condition of our paper-machine
factories now, compared with those on the Continent. Almost every good
automatic paper mechanism at present mounted in France, Germany,
Belgium, Italy, Russia, Sweden, and the United States, has either been
made in Great Britain, and exported to these countries, or has been
constructed in them closely upon the English models.
Till within the last 30 years, the linen and hempen rags from which
paper was made, were reduced to the pasty state of comminution requisite
for this manufacture by mashing them with water, and setting the mixture
to ferment for many days in close vessels, whereby they underwent in
reality a species of putrefaction. It is easy to see that the organic
structure of the fibres would be thus unnecessarily altered, nay,
frequently destroyed. The next method employed, was to beat the rags
into a pulp by stamping rods, shod with iron, working in strong oak
mortars, and moved by water-wheel machinery. So rude and ineffective was
the apparatus, that forty pairs of stamps were required to operate a
night and a day, in preparing one hundred weight of rags. The pulp or
paste was then diffused through water, and made into paper by methods
similar to those still practised in the small hand-mills.
About the middle of the last century, the cylinder or engine mode, as it
is called, of comminuting rags into paper pulp, was invented in Holland;
which was soon afterwards adopted in France, and at a later period in
England.
The first step in the paper manufacture, is the sorting of the rags into
four or five qualities. They are imported into this country chiefly from
Germany, and the ports of the Mediterranean. At the mill they are sorted
again more carefully, and cut into shreds by women. For this purpose a
table frame is covered at top with wire cloth, containing about nine
meshes to the square inch. To this frame a long steel blade is attached
in a slanting position, against whose sharp edge the rags are cut into
squares or fillets, after having their dust thoroughly shaken out
through the wire cloth. Each piece of rag is thrown into a certain
compartment of a box, according to its fineness; seven or eight sorts
being distinguished. An active woman can cut and sort nearly one cwt. in
a day.
The sorted rags are next dusted in a revolving cylinder surrounded with
wire cloth, about six feet long, and four feet in diameter, having
spokes about 20 inches long, attached at right angles to its axis. These
prevent the rags from being carried round with the case, and beat them
during its rotation; so that in half an hour, being pretty clean, they
are taken out by the side door of the cylinder, and transferred to the
engine, to be first washed, and next reduced into a pulp. For fine
paper, they should be previously boiled for some time in a caustic lye,
to cleanse and separate their filaments.
[Illustration: 785 786]
The construction of the _stuff-engine_ is represented in _figs._ 785,
786. _Fig._ 785. is the longitudinal section, and _fig._ 786. the plan
of the engine. The large vat is an oblong cistern rounded at the angles.
It is divided by the partition _b_, _b_, and the whole inside is lined
with lead. The cylinder _c_, is made fast to the spindle _d_, which
extends across the engine, and is put in motion by the pinion _p_, fixed
to its extremity. The cylinder is made of wood, and furnished with a
number of blades or cutters, secured to its circumference, parallel to
the axis, and projecting about an inch above its surface. Immediately
beneath the cylinder a block of wood _k_ is placed. This is mounted with
cutters like those of the cylinder, which in their revolution pass very
near to the teeth of the block, but must not touch it. The distance
between these fixed and moving blades is capable of adjustment by
elevating or depressing the bearings upon which the necks _e_, _e_, of
the shaft are supported. These bearings rest upon two levers _g_, _g_,
which have tenons at their ends, fitted into upright mortises, made in
short beams _h_, _h_, bolted to the sides of the engine. The one end of
the levers _g_, _g_, is movable, while the other end is adapted to rise
and fall upon bolts in the beams _h_, _h_, as centres. The front lever,
or that nearest to the cylinder _c_, is capable of being elevated or
depressed, by turning the handle of a screw (not seen in this view),
which acts in a nut fixed to the tenon of _g_, and comes up through the
top of the beam _h_, upon which the head of the screw takes its bearing.
Two brasses are let into the middle of the levers _g_, _g_, and form the
bearings for the shaft of the engine to turn upon. The above-mentioned
vertical screw is used to raise or lower the cylinder, and cause it to
cut coarser or finer, by enlarging or diminishing the space between the
fixed cutters in the block and those in the cylinder.
To the left hand of _i_, _fig._ 785., is a circular breasting made of
boards, and covered with sheet lead; it is curved to fit the cylinder
very truly, and leaves but very little space between the teeth and
breasting; at its bottom, the block _k_ is fixed. The engine is supplied
with water from a pump, by a pipe, which delivers it into a small
cistern, near to and communicating with the engine. A stopcock cuts off
or regulates the supply of water at pleasure, and a grating covered with
hair-cloth is fixed across that small cistern, to intercept any filth
that may be floating in the water; in other cases a flannel bag is tied
round the nose of the stopcock, to act as a filter.
The rags being put into the engine filled with water, are drawn by the
rapid rotation of the cylinder between the two sets of cutters, whereby
they are torn into the finest filaments, and by the impulsion of the
cylinder they are floated over the top of the breasting upon the
inclined plane. In a short time more rags and water are raised into that
part of the engine vat. The tendency in the liquid to maintain an
equilibrium, puts the whole contents of the cistern in slow motion down
the inclined plane, to the left hand of _i_, and round the partition
_b_, _b_, (see the arrow), whereby the rags come to the cylinder again
in the space of about 20 minutes; so that they are repeatedly drawn out
and separated in all directions till they are reduced to the appearance
of a pulp.
[Illustration: 787]
This circulation is particularly useful, by turning over the rags in the
engine, causing them to be presented to the cutter at different angles
every time; otherwise, as the blades always act in one direction, the
comminution would not be so complete. The cutting is performed as
follows: The teeth of the block are set somewhat obliquely to the axes
of the cylinder, as shown by _fig._ 787.; but the teeth of the cylinder
_c_ itself are set parallel to its axis; therefore the cutting edges
meet at a small angle, and come in contact, first at the one end, and
then towards the other, by successive degrees, so that any rags coming
between them, are torn as if between the blades of a pair of forceps.
Sometimes the blades _k_ in the block are bent to an angle in the
middle, instead of being straight and inclined to the cylinder. These
are called elbow plates; their two ends being inclined in opposite
directions to the axis of the cylinder. 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 a line traced on the cylinder will
necessarily have. The plates or blades are united by screwing them
together, and fitting them into a cavity cut into the wooden block _k_.
Their edges are bevelled away upon one side only.
The block is fixed in its place by being made dovetailed, and truly
fitted into the bottom of the cistern, so that the water will not leak
through its junction. The end of it comes through the woodwork of the
chest, and projects to a small distance on its outside, being kept in
its place by a wedge. By withdrawing this wedge, the block becomes
loose, and can be removed in order to sharpen the cutters, as occasion
may be. This is done at a grindstone, after detaching the plates from
each other.
The cutters of the cylinder, are fixed into grooves, cut in the wood of
the cylinder, at equal distances asunder, round its periphery, in a
direction parallel to its axis. The number of these grooves is twenty,
in the machine here represented. For the _washer_, each groove has two
cutters put into it; then a fillet of wood is driven fast in between
them, to hold them firm; and the fillets are secured by spikes driven
into the solid wood of the cylinder. The _beater_ is made in the same
manner, except that each groove contains three bars and two fillets.
In the operation of the cylinder, it is necessary that it should be
enclosed in a case, or it would throw all the water and rags out of the
engine, in consequence of its great velocity. This case is a wooden box
_m_, _m_, _fig._ 785., enclosed on every side except the bottom; one
side of it rests upon the edge of the vat, and the other upon the edge
of the partition _b_, _b_, _fig._ 786. The diagonal lines _m_, _r_,
represent the edges of wooden frames, which are covered with hair or
wire cloth, and immediately behind these the box is furnished with a
bottom and a ledge towards the cylinder, so as to form a complete
trough. The square figures under _n_, _n_, in _fig._ 785., show the
situation of two openings or spouts through the side of the case, which
conduct to flat lead-pipes, one of which is seen near the upper _g_ in
_fig._ 786., placed by the side of the vat; the beam being cut away from
them. These are waste pipes to discharge the foul water from the engine;
because the cylinder, as it turns, throws a great quantity of water and
rags up against the sieves; the water goes through them, and runs down
to the trough under _n_, _n_, and thence into the ends of the flat
leaden pipes, through which it is discharged. _o_, _o_, _fig._ 785., are
grooves for two boards, which, when put down in their places, cover the
hair sieves, and stop the water from going through them, should it be
required in the engine. This is always the case in the beating engines,
and therefore they are seldom provided with these waste pipes, or at
most on one side only; the other side of the cover being curved to
conform to the cylinder. Except this, the only difference between the
washing engine and the beater, is that the teeth of the latter are
finer, there being 60 instead of 40 blades in the periphery; and it
revolves quicker than the washer, so that it will tear out and comminute
those particles which pass through the teeth of the washer. In small
mills, when the supply of water is limited, there is frequently but one
engine, which may be used both for washing and beating, by adjusting the
screw so as to let the cylinder down and make its teeth work finer. But
the system in all considerable works, is to have two engines at least,
or four if the supply of water be great. The power required for a 5 or 6
vat mill, is about 20 horses in a water-wheel or steam engine.
In the above figures only one engine is shown, namely, the _finisher_;
there is another, quite similar, placed at its end, but on a level with
its surface, which is called the _washer_, in which the rags are first
worked coarsely with a stream of water, running through them to wash and
open their fibres; after this washing they are called _half-stuff_, and
are then let down into the bleaching engine, and next into the _beating_
engine, above described.
By the arrangements of the mill gearing, the two cylinders of the
_washer_ and _beater_ engines make from 120 to 150 revolutions per
minute, when the water-wheel moves with due velocity. The beating engine
is always made to move, however, much faster than the washing one, and
nearly in the ratio of the above numbers.
The vibratory noise of a washing engine is very great; for when it
revolves 120 times per minute, and has 40 teeth, each of which passes by
12 or 14 teeth in the block at every revolution, it will make nearly
60,000 cuts in a minute, each of them sufficiently loud to produce a
most grating growling sound. As the beater revolves quicker, having
perhaps 60 teeth, instead of 40, and 20 or 24 cutters in the block, it
will make 180,000 cuts in a minute. This astonishing rapidity produces a
coarse musical humming, which may be heard at a great distance from the
mill. From this statement, we may easily understand how a modern engine
is able to turn out a vastly greater quantity of paper pulp in a day
than an old mortar machine.
The operation of grinding the rags requires nice management. When first
put into the washing engine they should be worked gently, so as not to
be cut, but only powerfully scrubbed, in order to enable the water to
carry off the impurities. This effect is obtained by raising the
cylinder upon its shaft, so that its teeth are separated considerably
from those of the block. When the rags are comminuted too much in the
washer, they would be apt to be carried off in part with the stream, and
be lost; for at this time the water-cock is fully open. After washing in
this way for 20 or 30 minutes, the bearings of the cylinder are lowered,
so that its weight rests upon the cutters. Now the supply of water is
reduced, and the rags begin to be torn, at first with considerable
agitation of the mass, and stress upon the machinery. In about three or
four hours, the engine comes to work very smoothly, because it has by
this time reduced the rags to the state of _half-stuff_. They are then
discharged into a large basket, through which the water drains away.
The bleaching is usually performed upon the _half-stuff_. At the
celebrated manufactory of Messrs. Montgolfier, at Annonay, near Lyons,
chlorine gas is employed for this purpose with the best effect upon the
paper, since no lime or muriate of lime can be thus left in it; a
circumstance which often happens to English paper, bleached in the
washing engine by the introduction of chloride of lime among the rags,
after they have been well washed for three or four hours by the rotation
of the engine. The current of water is stopped whenever the chloride of
lime is put in. From 1 to 2 pounds of that chemical compound are
sufficient to bleach 1 cwt. of fine rags, but more roust be employed for
the coarser and darker coloured. During the bleaching operation the two
sliders _o_, _o_, _fig._ 785., are put down in the cover of the
cylinder, to prevent the water getting away. The engine must be worked
an hour longer with the chloride of lime, to promote its uniform
operation upon the rags. The cylinder is usually raised a little during
this period, as its only purpose is to agitate the mass, but not to
triturate it. The water-cock is then opened, the boards _m_, _m_ are
removed, and the washing is continued for about an hour, to wash the
salt away; a precaution which ought to be better attended to than it
always is by paper manufacturers.
The half-stuff thus bleached, is now transferred to the beating engine,
and worked into a fine pulp. This operation takes from 4 to 5 hours, a
little water being admitted from time to time, but no current being
allowed to pass through, as in the washing engine. The softest and
fairest water should be selected for this purpose; and it should be
administered in nicely regulated quantities, so as to produce a proper
spissitude of stuff for making paper.
For printing paper, the _sizing_ is given in the beating engine, towards
the end of its operation. The size is formed of alum in fine powder,
ground up with oil; of which mixture about a pint and a half are thrown
into the engine at intervals, during the last half-hour’s beating.
Sometimes a little indigo blue or smalt is also added, when a peculiar
bloom colour is desired. The pulp is now run off into the stuff chest,
where the different kinds are mixed; whence it is taken out as wanted.
The chest is usually a rectangular vessel of stone or wood lined with
lead, capable of containing 300 cubic feet at least, or 3 engines full
of stuff. Many paper-makers prefer round chests, as they admit of
rotatory agitators.
When the paper is made in single sheets, by hand labour, as in the older
establishments, a small quantity of the stuff is transferred to the
working-vat by means of a pipe, and there diluted properly with water.
This vat is a vessel of stone or wood, about 5 feet square, and 4 deep,
with sides somewhat slanting. Along the top of the vat a board is laid,
with copper fillets fastened lengthwise upon it, to make the mould slide
more easily along. This board is called the bridge. The maker stands on
one side; and has to his left hand a smaller board, one end of which is
made fast to the bridge, while the other rests on the side of the vat.
In the bridge opposite to this, a nearly upright piece of wood, called
the ass, is fastened. In the vat there is a copper, which communicates
with a steam pipe to keep it hot; there is also an agitator, to maintain
the stuff in a uniform consistence.
The moulds consist of frames of wood, neatly joined at the corners, with
wooden bars running across, about an inch and a half apart. Across
these, in the length of the moulds, the wires run, from fifteen to
twenty per inch. A strong raised wire is laid along each of the cross
bars, to which the other wires are fastened; this gives the laid paper
its ribbed appearance.
The water-mark is made by sewing a raised piece of wire in the form of
letters, or any figured device, upon the wires of the mould, which makes
the paper thinner in these places. The frame-work of a _wove_ mould is
nearly the same; but instead of sewing on separate wires, the frame is
covered with fine wire cloth, containing from 48 to 64 meshes per inch
square. Upon both moulds a _deckel_, or movable raised edge-frame, is
used; which must fit very neatly, otherwise the edges of the paper will
be rough.
A pair of moulds being laid upon the bridge, the workman puts on the
deckel, brings the mould into a vertical position, dips it about half
way down into the stuff before him, then turning it into a horizontal
position, covers the mould with the stuff and shakes it gently. This is
a very delicate operation; for if the mould be not held perfectly level,
one part of the sheet will be thicker than another. The sheet thus
formed has, however, no coherence; so that by turning the mould, and
dipping the wire cloth surface in the vat, it is again reduced to pulp
if necessary. He now pushes the mould along the small board to the left,
and removes the deckel. Here another workman called the _coucher_
receives it, and places it at rest upon the ass, to drain off some of
the water. Meanwhile the _vat-man_ puts the deckel upon the other mould,
and makes another sheet. The coucher stands to the left side of the vat,
with his face towards the vat-man or maker, on his right is the press
furnished with felt cloths, or porous flannels; a three-inch-thick plank
lies before him on the ground. On this he lays a cushion of felts, and
on this another felt; he then turns the paper wire mould, and presses it
upon the felt, where the sheet remains. He now returns the mould by
pushing it along the bridge. The maker has by this time another sheet
ready for the coucher; which, like the preceding, is laid upon the ass,
and then couched or inverted upon another felt, laid down for the
purpose.
In this way, felts and paper are alternately stratified, till a heap of
six or eight quires is formed, which is from 15 to 18 inches high. This
mass is drawn into the press, and exposed to a force of 100 tons or
upwards. After it is sufficiently compressed, the machine is relaxed,
and the elasticity of the flannel makes the rammer descend (if a
hydraulic press be used) with considerable rapidity. The felts are then
drawn out on the other side by an operative called a _layer_, who places
each felt in succession upon one board, and each sheet of paper upon
another. The coucher takes immediate possession of the felts for his
further operations.
Two men at a vat, and a boy as a layer or lifter, can make about 6 or 8
reams in 10 hours. In the evening the whole paper made during the day,
is put into another press, and subjected to moderate compression, in
order to get quit of the mark of the felt, and more of the water. Next
day it is all separated, a process called parting, and being again
pressed, is carried into the loft. Fine papers are often twice parted
and pressed, in order to give them a proper surface.
The next operation is the drying, which is performed in the following
way. Posts about 10 or 12 feet high are erected at the distance of ten
feet from each other, and pierced with holes six inches apart; two spars
with ropes stretched between them, at the distance of 5 inches from one
another, called a treble or tribble, are placed about 5 feet high
between these posts, supported by pins pushed into the holes in the
posts. The workman takes up 4 or 8 sheets of paper, and puts them upon a
piece of wood in the form of a T; passing this T between the ropes, he
shifts the sheets upon them, and proceeds thus till all the ropes are
full. He then raises the treble, and puts another in its place, which he
fills and raises in like manner. Nine or ten trebles are placed in every
set of posts. The sides of the drying-room have proper shutters, which
can be opened to any angle at pleasure.
When the paper is dry, it is taken down, and laid neatly in heaps to be
sized. Size is made of pieces of skin, cut off by the curriers before
tanning, or sheep’s feet, or any other matter containing much gelatine.
These substances are boiled in a copper to a jelly; to which, when
strained, a small quantity of alum is added. The workman then takes
about 4 quires of paper, spreads them out in the size properly diluted
with water, taking care that they be equally moistened. This is rather a
nice operation. The superfluous size is then pressed out, and the paper
is parted into sheets. After being once more pressed, it is transferred
to the drying-room, but must not be dried too quickly. Three days are
required for this purpose. When the paper is thoroughly dry, it is
carried to the finishing-house, and is again pressed pretty hard. It is
then picked by women with small knives, in order to take out the knots,
and separate the perfect from the imperfect sheets. It is again pressed,
given to the finisher, to be counted into reams, and done up. These
reams are compressed, tied up, and sent to the warehouse for sale. A
good finisher can count 200 reams, or 96,000 sheets in a day.
Hot pressing is executed by placing a sheet of paper between two
smoothed pasteboards, alternately, and between every 50 pasteboards a
heated plate of iron, and subjecting the pile to the press. This
communicates a fine smooth surface to writing-paper.
The grain of the paper is often disfigured by the felts, when they are
too much used, or when the loose fibres do not cover the twisted thread.
The two sides of the felt are differently raised, and that on which the
fibres are longest is applied to the sheets which are laid down. As the
felts have to resist the reiterated action of the press, their warp
should be made stout, of long combed wool, and well twisted. The woof,
however, should be of carded wool, and spun into a soft thread, so as to
render the fabric spongy, and capable of imbibing much water.
This operose and delicate process of moulding the sheets of paper by
hand, has for nearly thirty years past been performed, in many
manufactories, by a machine which produces it in a continuous sheet of
indefinite length which is afterwards cut into suitable sizes, by the
PAPER-CUTTING MACHINE.
In 1799, Louis Robert, then employed in the paper works of Essonne in
France, contrived a machine to make paper of a great size, by a
continuous motion, and obtained for it a patent for 15 years, with a sum
of 8000 francs from the French government, as a reward for his
ingenuity. The specification of this patent is published in the second
volume of _Brevets d’Invention expirés_. M. Leger-Didot, then director
of the said works, bought Robert’s machine and patent for 25,000 francs,
to be paid by instalments. Having become proprietor of this machine,
which, though imperfect, contained the germ of a valuable improvement in
paper-making, M. Didot came over with it to England, where he entered
into several contracts for constructing and working it.
Meanwhile M. L. Didot having failed to fulfil his obligations to Robert,
the latter instituted a law-suit, and recovered possession of his patent
by a decision dated 23d June, 1810. Didot then sent over to Paris the
Repertory of Arts, for Sept. 1808, which contained the specification of
the English patent, with instructions to a friend to secure the improved
machines described in it, by a French patent. The patent was obtained,
but became inoperative in consequence of M. L. Didot failing to return
to France, as he had promised, so as to mount the patent machine within
the two years required by the French patent law. It was not till 1815,
that M. Calla, machine-maker at Paris, constructed the paper apparatus
known in England by the name of Fourdrinier’s, and which, on the
authority of the _Dictionnaire Technologique_, was very imperfect in
comparison of an English-made machine imported about that time into
France. _La construction de ces machines, qui n’offre pourtant rien de
difficile, est restée jusqu’à ce jour exclusivement dans les mains des
Anglais_, is the painful acknowledgment made in 1829, for his
countrymen, by the author of the elaborate article Papeterie in that
national work. If there be nothing difficult in the construction of
these machines, the French mechanicians ought to be ashamed of forcing
their countrymen to seek the sole supply of them in England; for the
principal paper works in France, as those of MM. Canson, Montgolfier,
Thomas Varenne, Firmin Didot, Delcambre, De Maupeon, &c., are mounted
with English-made machines.
The following, for example, are a few of the paper-mills in France which
are mounted with the self-acting machines of Messrs. Bryan Donkin &
Co.:--
Messrs. Canson, at Annonay.
M. de la Place, at Jean d’Heures, Bar-le-duc.
Société anonyme, at Sainte Marie, under M. Delatouche.
Echarcon près Mennecy, (Seine et Oise).
Firmin Didot, Mesnil sur l’Estrée.
M. F. M. Montgolfier, à Annonay.
Muller, Bouchard, Ondin and Co’s., at Gueures, near Dieppe.
MM. Richard et Comp. à Plainfoing.
M. Callot-Bellisle; Vieuze et Chantoiseau.
M. Bechétaile, near St. Etienne, at Bourg Argental.
It deserves particularly to be remarked, to the honour of English
mechanism, that the proprietors of the first five of the above works
received gold medals at the last exposition of their papers at the
Louvre, and all the rest received medals either of silver or bronze.[37]
[37] Rapport de Jury Central, par M. Le Baron Charles Dupin, vol. ii.
p. 278; Paris, 1836.
The following is a true narrative of the rise and progress of the paper
automaton.
M. Leger Didot, accompanied by Mr. John Gamble, an Englishman who had
resided for several years in Paris, obtained permission from the French
government, in 1800, to carry over the small working model of Robert’s
continuous machine, with the view of getting the benefit of English
capital and mechanical skill to bring it into an operative state upon
the great scale. Fortunately for the vigorous development of this embryo
project, which had proved an abortion in France, they addressed
themselves on the one hand, to a mercantile firm equally opulent and
public spirited, and on the other, to engineers distinguished for
persevering energy and mechanical resource. A first patent was granted
to Mr. Gamble on the 20th of April 1801, and a second, for certain
improvements upon the former, on the 7th of June 1803. In January 1804,
Mr. Gamble, for certain considerations, assigned these two patents to
Messrs. Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier, the house above alluded to, who
were at that period, and for several years afterwards, the most
considerable stationers and paper-makers in Great Britain. By an act of
parliament passed on the 4th of August 1807, Mr. Gamble’s privilege of
14 years from April 1801, was prolonged to 15 years after the date of
the act, being an extension of about 7 years upon the original patent.
The proprietors showed good reasons, in the enormous expense of their
experiments, and the national importance of the object, why the patent
should have been extended 14 years from the latter date, and would have
obtained justice from parliament in this respect, but for an unworthy
artifice of Lord Lauderdale in the House of Lords. “He, and he only, was
the person who took the objection,” and, by introducing a regulation in
a standing order of the House of Lords, that none but the original
inventor should have an extension, though Mr. H. Fourdrinier was the
inventor substantially of the operative machine, he defeated the
honourable intentions of his brother peers, whose committee said, “We
will give seven years, and Mr. Fourdrinier may apply again, if it should
turn out that the seven years that we propose to give to Mr. Fourdrinier
should not give sufficient time to afford any chance of his receiving
any remuneration for the expense that he has incurred in introducing
this invention.” The bill passed in the House of Commons for 14 years,
but it was limited by this _ruse_ of Lord Lauderdale to 7, “who put the
standing order upon the books (of the upper house) which prevented
Messrs. Fourdrinier from having any benefit from the invention.”[38]
[38] See this shabby piece of diplomacy unveiled in the Minutes of
Evidence taken before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on
Fourdrinier’s patent; May, 1837.
In February 1808, Mr. Gamble, after losing both his time and money
savings during eight years of irksome diligence, assigned over to
Messrs. Fourdrinier the whole right of his share in the patent to which
he was entitled under the act of parliament.
Dartford in Kent, which had been long conspicuous as the seat of a good
manufactory of paper and paper moulds, was selected by the proprietors
of the patent as the fittest place for realizing their plans; and
happily for them it possessed, in Mr. Hall’s engineering establishment,
every tool requisite for constructing the novel automaton, and in his
assistant Mr. Bryan Donkin, a young and zealous mechanist, who,
combining precision of workmanship with fertility of invention, could
turn his local advantages to the best account. To this gentleman, aided
by the generous confidence of Messrs. Fourdrinier, the glory of rearing
to a stately manhood the helpless bantling of M. L. Didot is entirely
due. In 1803, after nearly three years of intense application, he
produced a self-acting machine for making an endless web of paper, which
was erected at St. Neot’s, under the superintendence of Mr. Gamble, and
performed in such a manner as to surprise every beholder.
Since that important era Mr. Donkin has steadily devoted his whole mind
and means to the progressive improvement of this admirable apparatus;
and has, by the unfailing regularity, precision, promptitude, and
productiveness of its work, earned for himself a place along with Watt,
Wedgewood, and Arkwright, in the temple of mechanical fame.
“_La France_,” says a late official eulogist of her arts, and
interpreter of her sentiments, “ne craint plus la rivalité des autres
peuples pour la fabrication des divers genres de papiers et de
cartons.”[39] After this boast, one would not expect to hear him
immediately confess that in 1823 his country possessed only one
manufactory of the _papier continu_, containing one of the Fourdrinier
machines made at London by Mr. Donkin, for M. Canson, at
Vidalon-les-Annonay; that in 1827 there were only 4 of these machines in
France, and that in 1834 there were not many more than a dozen. He
justly observes, that “this mode being more economical, more rapid, and
more powerful, will become henceforth the only one which can be
practised without loss. Then will disappear the antient system of
hand-work, which likewise involved the inconveniences, we may say
dangers, resulting from combinations among the operatives. The
machine-made papers possess many advantages: they can receive, so to
speak, unlimited dimensions; they preserve a perfectly uniform thickness
throughout all their length; they may be fabricated in every season of
the year; nor do they require to be sorted, trimmed, and hung up in the
drying-house, operations which occasioned great waste, amounting to no
less than one defective sheet out of every five. The continuous paper at
one time retained the impression of the wire-wove web on its under side;
a defect from which it has been freed by a pressure apparatus of Mr.
Donkin, recently imported from England by M. Delatouche.”
[39] Rapport de Jury Central, sur les Produits de l’Industrie
Française exposé en 1834, par Le Baron Charles Dupin, Membre de
l’Institut, Rapporteur-général et Vice President du Jury Central; ii.
278.
It appears from documents presented to a committee of the House of Lords
in 1807, that the Messrs. Fourdrinier had, by that time, withdrawn from
their stationery business the large sum of 60,000_l._, to further the
object of their patent; so many difficulties did they encounter in
bringing the machinery to its then comparatively complete state, and so
little encouragement or support did they receive from the paper
manufacturers throughout the kingdom.
The patentees laid a statement before the public in 1806, containing the
following comparative estimate of the expense attending seven vats, and
that attending a machine employed upon paper sized in the engine,
performing the same quantity of work as seven vats, at the rate of 12
hours daily.