416 THE PAPER-MACHINE. machines having a different object, to produce legitimate cheapness, injurious to no one, but beneficial to all. Let us attempt to convey a notion of the beautiful operations of the paper-machine. In the whole range of machinery, there is perhaps, no series of contrivances which so forcibly address themselves to the senses. There is nothing mysterious in the operation; we at once see the beginning and the end of it. At one extremity of the long range of wheels and cylinders we are shown a stream of pulp, not thicker than milk and water, flowing over a moving plane; at the other extremity the same stream has not only become perfectly solid, but is wound upon a reel in the form of hard and smooth paper. This is, at first sight, as miraculous as any of the fancies of an Arabian tale. Aladdin's wonderful lamp, by which a palace was built in a night, did not in truth produce more extraordinary effects than science has done with the papermachine. At one extremity of the machine is a chest, full of stuff or pulp. We mount the steps by its side, and see a long beam rolling incessantly round this capacious vessel, and thus keeping the fibers of rags, which look like snow flakes, perpetually moving, and consequently equally suspended, in the water. At the bottom of the chest, and above the vat, there is a cock through which we observe a continuous stream of pulp flowing into the vat; which is always, therefore, filled to a certain height. From the upper to the lower part of this vat a portion of the pulp flows upon a narrow wire frame, which constantly jumps up and down with a clacking noise. Having passed through the sifter, the pulp flows still onward to a ledge, over which it falls in a regular stream, like a sheet of water over a smooth dam. Here we see it caught upon a plane, which presents an uninterrupted surface of five or six feet, upon which the pulp THE PAPER-MACHINE. 417 seems evenly spread, as a napkin upon a table. A more accurate inspection shows us that this plane is constantly moving onward with a gradual pace; that it has also a shaking motion from side to side; and that it is perforated all over with little holes-in fact, that it is an endless web of the finest wire. If we touch the pulp at the end of the plane, upon which it first descends, we find it fluid; if we draw the finger over its edge at the other end, we perceive that it is still soft-not so hard, perhaps, as wet blottingpaper-but so completely formed, that the touch will leave. a hole, which we may trace forward till the paper is perfectly made. The pulp does not flow over the sides of the plane, we observe, because a strap, on each side, constantly moving and passing upon its edges, regulates the width. After we pass the wheels upon which these straps terminate we perceive that the paper is sufficiently formed not to require any further boundary to define its size; the pulp has ceased to be fluid. But it is yet tender and wet. The paper is not yet completely off the plane of wire: before it quits it, another roller, which is clothed with felt, and upon which a stream of cold water is constantly flowing, subjects it to pressure. The paper has at length left what may be called the region of wire, and has entered that of cloth. A tight surface of flannel, or felt, is moving onward with the same regular march as the web of wire. Like the wire, the felt is what is called endless-that is, united at the extremities, as a jack-towel is. We see the sheet traveling up an inclined plane of this stretched flannel, which gradually absorbs its moisture. It is now seized between two rollers, which powerfully squeeze it. It goes traveling up another inclined plane of flannel, and then passes through a second pair of pressing-rollers. It has now left the region of cloth, and has entered that of heat. The paper, up to this point, is quite formed; but it is fragile and damp. It is in the state in which, if the machinery were to stop here, as it did upon its first invention, it would require (having been wound upon a reel) to be parted and dried as hand-made paper is. But in a few seconds more it is subjected to a process by which all this labor and time is saved. From the last pair of cloth-pressing rollers, the paper is received upon a small roller which is guided over the polished surface of a large heated cylinder. The soft pulp tissue now begins to smoke; but the heat is proportioned to its increasing power of resistance. From the first cylinder, or drum, it is received upon a second, considerably larger, and much hotter. As it rolls over this polished surface, we see all the roughness of its appearance, when in the cloth reregion, gradually vanishing. At length, having passed over a third cylinder, still hotter than the second, and having been subjected to the pressure of a blanket, which confines it to one side, while the cylinder smooths it on the other, it is caught upon the last roller, which hands it over to the reel. The last process of the machine is to cut the continuous length of paper into sheets. In consequence of the cheaper production of the press, and the consequent extension of the demand for books, bookbinding has become a large manufacture, carried on with many scientific applications. We have rolling-machines, to make the book solid; cutting-machines, to supersede the hand-labor of the little instrument called a plow; embossing machines, to produce elaborate raised patterns on leather or cloth: embossing presses, to give the gilt ornament and lettering. These contrivances, and other similar inventions, have not only cheapened books, but have enabled the publisher to give them a permanent instead of a temporary cover, ornamental as well as useful. The number of persons employed has been quadrupled by these inventions. In 1830, the journeymen bookbinders of London opposed the introduction of the rolling-machine. Books were formerly beat with large hammers upon a stone, to give them solidity. The workmen were relieved from the drudgery of the beating-hammer by the easy operation of the rolling-machine. They soon discovered the weak foundation of their objection to an instrument which, in truth, had a tendency, above all other things, to elevate their trade, and to make that an art which in one division of it was a mere labor. If the painter were compelled to grind his own colors and make his own frames, he would no longer follow an art, but a trade; and he would receive the wages of a laborer instead of the wages of an artist, not only so far as related to the grinding and frame-making, but as effecting all his occupations, by the drudgery attending a portion of them. The commerce of literature has been doubled in twenty years. But it would be scarcely too much to assert that the influence of the press, in forming public opinion, and causing it to operate upon legislation, has doubled almost every other employment. The difficulty of procuring the material of paper has become a serious impediment to the cheap diffusion of knowledge; and in Great Britain the paper-tax works in the same evil direction. There have been innumerable obstacles to the extension of knowledge since the days when books were written on the papyrus— obstacles equally raised up by despotic blindness and popular ignorance. But it is not fitting that either of such causes should still be in action in the days of the printingmachine. CHAPTER XXIV. POWER OF SKILL.-CHEAP PRODUCTION.-POPULATION AND PRODUCTION.—PARTIAL AND TEMPORARY EVILS.-INTELLIGENT LABOR.-DIVISION OF LABOR.-GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. THE LOWELL OFFERING.-UNION OF FORCES. WE have thus, without pretending to any approach to completeness, taken a rapid view of many of the great branches of industry. We have exhibited capital working with accumulation of knowledge; we have shown labor working with skill. We desire to show that the countercontrol to the absorbing power of capital is the rapidly developing power of skill-for that, also, is capital. Knowledge is power, because knowledge is property. Mr. Whitworth, whose Report on American Manufactures we have several times quoted, says that the workmen of the United States, being educated, perform their duty "with less supervision than is required when dependence is to be placed upon uneducated hands." He adds, "It rarely happens. that a workman, who possesses superior skill in his craft, is disqualified to take the responsible position of superintendent, by the want of education and general knowledge, as is frequently the case in Great Britain." One of the most essential steps toward the attainment of an elevated position on the part of the laborer, is the conviction that manual labor, to be effective, must adapt itself almost wholly to the direction of science; and that under that direction unskilled labor necessarily becomes skilled, and limited trust enlarges into influential responsibility. |