the 11th century, and the Chinese have carried it to a high degree of perfection. Several kinds of their paper evince the greatest art and ingenuity, and are applied with much advantage to many purposes. One especially, manufactured from the inner bark of the bamboo, is particularly celebrated for affording the clearest and most delicate impressions from copper plates, which we ordinarily term _india proofs_. The Chinese, however, make paper of various kinds, some of the bark of trees, especially the mulberry tree, and the elm, but chiefly of the bamboo and cotton tree, and occasionally from other substances, such as hemp, wheat, or rice straw. To give an idea of the manner of fabricating paper from these different substances, it will suffice, (the process being nearly the same in each,) to confine our observations to the method adopted in the manufacture of paper from the bamboo,—a kind of cane or hollow reed, divided by knots, but larger, more elastic, and more durable than any other reed. The whole substance of the bamboo is at times employed by the Chinese in this operation, but the younger stalks are preferred. The canes being first cut into pieces of four or five feet in length, are made into parcels, and thrown into a reservoir of mud and water for about a fortnight, to soften them; they are then taken out, and carefully washed, every one of the pieces being again cut into filaments, which are exposed to the rays of the sun to dry, and to bleach. After this they are boiled in large kettles, and then reduced to pulp in mortars, by means of a hammer with a long handle; or as is more commonly the case, by submitting the mass to the action of stampers, raised in the usual way by cogs on a revolving axis. The pulp being thus far prepared, a glutinous substance, extracted from the shoots of a certain plant, is next mixed with it in stated quantities, and upon this mixture chiefly depends the quality of the paper. As soon as this has taken place the whole is again beaten together until it becomes a thick viscous liquor, which, after being reduced to an essential state of consistency, by a further admixture of water, is then transferred to a large reservoir or vat, having on each side of it a drying stove, in the form of the ridge of a house, that is, consisting of two sloping sides touching at top. These sides are covered externally with an exceedingly smooth coating of stucco, and a flue passes through the brickwork, so as to keep the whole of each side equally and moderately warm. A vat and a stove are placed alternately in the manufactory, so that there are two sides of two different stoves adjacent to each vat. The workman dips his mould, which is sometimes formed merely of bulrushes, cut in narrow strips, and mounted in a frame, into the vat, and then raises it out again, the water passing off through the perforations in the bottom, and the pulpy paper-stuff remaining on its surface. The frame of the mould is