With the aid of lacker varnish and skilful painting,
paper made excellent trunks, tobacco bags, cigar cases, saddles,
telescope cases, the frames of microscopes; and we even saw and used
excellent water-proof coats made of simple paper, which did keep out the
rain, and were as supple as the best macintosh . . . . . The inner walls
of many a Japanese apartment are formed of paper, being nothing more than
painted screens; their windows are covered with a fine translucent
description of the same material; it enters largely into the manufacture
of nearly everything in a Japanese household, and we saw what seemed
balls of twine, which were nothing but long shreds of tough paper rolled
up. . . . In short, without paper, all Japan would come to a dead lock."
Sizing Paper.--The coarsest foreign paper can be sized, so as to prevent
its blotting when written on, by simply dipping it in, or brushing it
well over with, milk and water, and letting it dry. A tenth part of milk
is amply sufficient. Messrs. Huc and Gabet inform us that this is the
regular process of sizing, as used by paper-makers in Thibet.
Substitutes for Paper are chips of wood, inner bark of trees, calico and
other tissues, lead plates, and slaty stone. I knew an eminent engineer
who habitually jotted his pencil memoranda on the well-starched wristband
of his left shirt-sleeve, pushing back the cuff of his coat in order to
expose it.
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