then removed, and the bottom is pressed against the side of one of the stoves, so as to make the sheet of paper adhere to its surface, and allow the sieve, (as it were) to be withdrawn. The moisture, of course, speedily evaporates by the warmth of the stove, but before the paper is quite dry, it is brushed over on its outer surface with a size made of rice, which also soon dries, and the paper is then stripped off in a finished state, having one surface exquisitely smooth, it being seldom the practice of the Chinese to write or print on both sides of the paper. While all this is taking place, the moulder has made a second sheet, and pressed it against the side of the other stove, where it undergoes the operation of sizing and drying, precisely as in the former case. The very delicate material, which is brought from China in pieces only a few inches square, and commonly, but erroneously, termed _rice paper_, is in reality but a membrane of the breadfruit tree, obtained by cutting the stem spirally round the axis, and afterwards flattening it by pressure. That it is not an artificial production may very readily be perceived by contrasting one of the more translucent specimens with a piece of the finest manufactured paper, by the aid of the microscope. The precise period at which the manufacture of paper was first introduced into Europe appears to be rather a matter of uncertainty. Paper mills, moved by water power, were in operation in Tuscany at the commencement of the fourteenth century; and at Nuremberg, in Germany, one was established in 1390, by Ulman Stromer, who wrote the first work ever published on the art of paper making. He seems to have employed a great number of persons, all of whom were obliged to take an oath that they would not teach any one the art of paper making, or make it on their own account. In the following year, when anxious to increase the means of its production, he met with such strong opposition from those he employed, who would not consent to any enlargement of the mill, that it became at length requisite to bring them before the magistrates, by whom they were imprisoned, after which they submitted, by renewing their oaths. Two or three centuries later, we find the Dutch in like manner, so extremely jealous with respect to the manufacture, as to prohibit the exportation of moulds, under no less severe a penalty than that of death.