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Show 5 PAPERMAKIN 1765 he commenced a treatise® on the subject which was issue i x volumes, the last appearing in 1771. This is the rarest work o the specific subject of paper that has ever been published, but fiv O six copies being known in America. Schiffer was born in Querfurt, near Merscburg in Saxony in the year 1718, but his fumil early removed to Regensburg, or Ratisbon, the capital of the Bavarian province of Oberpfalz, about one hundred and fifty mile south of his birthplace. Schiffer studied for the ministry and became a well-known clergyman in Regensburg, but it scems tha he derived his greatest pleasure outside the Church, as he devote most of his time to the study of science and natural history. Hi work on the fungi of Bavaria is still regarded as a standard author Schiffer's interest in the flora of Bavaria directed his attentio o the p sibility of new materials for papermaking, and it is wit his rescarches in this direction that we are concerned. In his si volume treatise Dr. Sch has left a permanent record of hi periments in the new papermaking materials, and th actual specimens of his paper establish the fact that he was the pioneer in the use of many vegetable fibres for the fabrication o paper. It was not Schiffer's desire, as he explains, to make wellfinished paper; he simply wished to show the vast variety of vege tation available for the purpose. As his experiments were carrie on previous to the discovery of bleach, his examples of paper hav the tint of the original materials from which they were made. T most of the samples about one-ifth part cotton rags were added t the pulp to help bind the fibres together. A number of the specimens are sized, and nearly all have been printed upon, showin from what plant or fibre they had been made It is curious to note that one of the first specimens shown i Schiffer's books was made from wasps' nests,-for was not th 1 Versuche und Muster ohne alle Lumpen oder doch mit cinem geringen Zusatz dersclben Papicr zu machen. Regensburg, 176571 6 volumes. 13 x18cm al Imag © 2004 University of Utah. Al rights reserved |