PHILATELY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2059, 10 August 1893, Page 34

PHILATELY.

B* Old Stamp. _ STAMPS AND STAMP COLLECTING. (Abridged from Stanley Gibbons's Monthly.) ' While on the subject of paper, a short account of its manufacture, and of the actual process by which the various designs are produced, may be of some interest. With this object in view the writer took advantage of an opportunity to visit some extensive^millß where high-class paper is manufactured. The principal materials employed are linen and cotton rags of all kinds and colours. The colour iB of little consequence, as all the pulp is bleached before being used; but no wool is admissible, in fact all the material is of vegetable origin. The 1 rags are first boiled with soda and lime, to.get rid of actual dirt and grease, and are then put into a vat, in the middle of which & heavy cast iron roller. with steel bars on its surface revolves at a very high-speed upon a plate also furnished with steel ridges. This draws tbe fibres out, while 8 constant stream of freßh water flows through the vat, so that, as the rags are gradually reduced to finer and finer fragments, they are also further washed. The grinding being completed the pulp thus produced is soaked in a bleaching solution, forming a marked contrast -to the boiled rags seen in the early stage. It is then pressed to extract the bleaching liquor, and is now ready for conversion into, paper., Besides, the rags, which are the principal ingredients, large quantities of grass are imported from various countries. This grass is boiled "with caustic soda, and the same process used as applied to the rag?, after which it is mixed with the other pulp. The compressed I pulp is not stored long, but is made into paper as fast as it can be produced. It iS'now placed j in bratt r vats, which g-iud i& up more fiu-ly ill, Mini t»r»y tol wug m»tt+r that may be required ia now added. At this^isit a flue white paper was being made, and I was surprised to see first a red and then a blue tint put into the pulp to obtain the desired shade. Th 6» pulp? being now beaten very fine is mixed with more water and let down into large vat?, whence it flows in .a large 'stream through strainer plates, on, to a wide, endless cloth of very fine wire gauze .stretched uppn horizontal rollers, which keep it constantly moving along' at a regular rate. At the same time a shaking motion ,is imparted to the machine, which causes the particles of pulp to be evenly distributed over the, gauze cloth, thus making the paper of even substance throughout. At each side a narrow band of indiarubber, revolving- upon two wheels, and resting upon the wide wire cloth, .confines the stream of pulp within the required limits, and £he width of the paper to be made is regulated by means of these bands. This is of course the process gone through in making what is known as machine-made paper, and the very large proportion of, writing papers are made by this process. The other process— what iB known as hand-made paper— is usually adopted in making the better classes of writing papers, such as good account books and for legal work. When passing on to the wire gauze' the pulp is found in the condition of very wet, soft, blotting paper. It now passes under a roller, which performs one of the most important partsof the whole manufacture. It is this roller that determines the nature of ■ the paper — wove, laid, or any other kind — and produces the- watermark. The wire gauze cloth upon which the pulp is spread and the paper formed' being exactly the same for all. Onthis occasion, "wove" was being made, and the roller was covered with a fine wire gauze similar to the cloth upon which the pulp rested. On this roller were raised letters of metal or wire, embossed upon the wire gatfze As the rollerrevolves upon the soft pulp the letter is pressed smooth and even between the two surfaces of wire gauze, but where the raised letters occur these are pressed into the pulp, and by displacj ing the particles where they press leave theout- ' lines of the letters actually thinner in substance than the rest of the paper. In some cases the particles of pulp thus displaced make the portions of the paper enclosed within the outlines of the design thicker than the surrounding parts, and thus we may find opaque letters or figures with a transparent outline on a ground less opaque than the inside of the letters or figures. (lo he continued.)