Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c19.s1.3

c19.s1.3

The rags, thus prepared, are mixed with water in the cistern, (*Fig.2*) at the edge of which, the operator sits, and removing the stick, he extends the screen (*Fig.3*) upon the frame (*Fig.4*) with which he agitates the water in the cistern, until it appears of a milky whiteness, by the floating particles of the rags; he then dips the frame and screen, in a perpendicular manner, and raises them gently, in a horizontal position, to the surface of the water, where he gives the frame a gentle motion, from side to side, or from end to end, to make the particles of the rags fall in an equal layer upon the screen, and then he lifts them out of the water, and rests them for the space of a minute upon the stick 3 (*Fig. 3*). After repeating the dip once more in the same manner, the new sheet of paper is formed; then, taking off the extensors, *BB*, of the screen, he rolls inwards, for about an inch, the upper part of the screen and sheet, by which means, so much of the sheet will be separated from the screen; the screen is then inverted, and the already separated end of the paper is laid upon the mat (*Fig. 5*), and the screen is gently raised from the paper. In this manner he forms sheet after sheet, until he has made 250, his day’s task, laying them all upon the first sheet, in a regular manner; then he covers the whole with a coarse cloth of the *son*-plant, equal in size, with the paper; above this he lays a thick plank, somewhat larger than the paper. This by its weight presses out the water from the wet sheets; to assist which, the operator sits upon it for some time. Then the heap is set to one side until morning, when the sheets are taken up, one by one, and spread with the brush, (Fig. 6), upon the clean plastered walls of the house; as they dry, they readily peel off, and are spread upon a clean mat or cloth, and with a piece of blanket, dipped in thin rice paste water, rubbed all over, and immediately hung up, to dry, upon strings run across the house for this purpose. When sufficiently dried, they are cut into a quadrangular form, according to a standard sheet, which serves as a guide to the knife (Fig. 7). From this operation, they are carried to another person, who rubs every sheet smooth with a globular piece of moorstone granite, which he holds in both hands. Then he folds the sheets for sale. The finer paper is polished a second time. All the cuttings, and damaged sheets, are trampled to pieces in water, and renovated as above.