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Show 2 OLD~PAPERMAKIN to enter further into a description of its substanc or manner of formation The Chinese may have first used silk, but late vegetable fibre, such as the barkof trees and the filaments of plantsand grasses, for paper material. Th original method of beating the material toa pul was by placing the mas in big stone mortars an pounding the fibres to paste with wooden mallets. It is recorded that =2 (105 A.D.), the invento of vegetable fibre paper, was still preserved as curiosity in the time of the Thang Dynasty (61807A.D.). The pointof Tvai Lun'sinventio wa that he substituted vegetable fibre in place of ani mal, for it is thought the first paper of the Chines was made from both raw and woven sillk According to the researches of Doctors Wiesne and Karabacek, both Professors in the Universit of Vienna, cotton fibre in its raw form has neve been used as a papermaking material. The papers dating from 709 to gog A. D., that have been examined by these gentlemen, were made by th Arabs from material composed almost entirely o linen. The Arabs learned the art of papermakin in Samarkand, from Chinese prisoners, in the yea 751 A.D. In their own country the Chinese ha e, i Diital image© 2004 Mariot Library, Universty o Uta. Al rights reservd |