ABSTRACT
True paper, as distinct from writing materials made from strips of bark and papyrus, may be defined as a substance made from cellulose fibres which have been mixed with water and macerated until each individual filament has become a separate unit. The resulting pulp must then be spread evenly over a sieve-like wire screen or mould through which the water drains, leaving a sheet of matted fibre behind. It is generally accepted that paper was first produced in this way by the Chinese eunuch Ts'ai Lun about 105 A.D. The French papermaking industry dates from at least 1326. The rise of the newspaper press and the growing demand for books in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries meant that paper mills using the new 'hollanders' were faced with an acute raw material shortage, for the supply of the linen and the cotton rags was relatively inelastic.
