OXFORD BIBLE PAPER.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 3581, 23 March 1886, Page 3

OXFORD BIBLE PAPER.

Tho paper on which all tho Oxford Bibles arc printed is ui:ido at the University's own mill at Wolvereole. Oxford Bible paper is a specialit v. There is a great deal of print m the Old' and New 'ligaments, and unless great care were taken tho volumes would bo thie.k and " pod.'y." The thinned paper that can possibly be made opaque is the desideratum, and rags only aro used at Wolvercoto. Old sail-cloths, being made of linen, aro m great request here, and they enter into tho composition more or le:<suf all the paper used m Oxford Bible*. There are huge piles battling with all tho breezes m all the eons under heaven. They come here to be torn into shreds and beaten into pulp, and bleached, drawn out into beautiful whitj shreds, to be presently printed on, wafted off again to all tho ends of tho carth — certainly a rathor quaint and curious metamorphosis. The paper made here, as we shall presently sec, is not confined exclusively to Bibles ; but for this year's issue, up to llio present time, more than 300 tons of paper have been turned out, and of this no less than 120 tons of a specially thin description have been consumed m tho printiug of the smaller sized edition. Altogether, no less than about -450 tons of rags have been consumed m manufacturing tho necessary paper for tho now Bibles. It has been reckoned that the paper would cover about two and a half equaro miles. Laid out m a strip tix inches wido it would moro than go round tho world. Tho sheets piled up m reams, as they come from tho mill, would make a column ten or twelve times the height of ft. Paul's Cathedral ; and if they were stacked up after folding into books, but without binding, llio pilo would tower to moro than a hundred times the height of tho Cathedral. '1 ho completed copies turned out by Oxford alone, if piled up flat ono upon another, would mako a. pillar some seventeen miles high ; aud if piled on end would rise to the height of sometliing over two thousand times tho height of tho London Monument.