it possessed of producing paper of any length that could possibly be required. “Well,” said his friend, “I very much doubt that, but if you can make me _five miles_ of the quality I require, I shall certainly have little hesitation in admitting all the perfection and suitability which you have laboured to impress upon me.” The very next day the machine was set to work, and timed, in order to ascertain the required length wound upon the reel, which, after being charged with Excise duty, was forwarded without delay to its destination; and, as may be conceived, to the utter astonishment of his incredulous friend. It is a fact, which certainly deserves to be noticed for its singularity as well as for the strong point of view in which it places the merits of this invention, that an art of such great importance to society as that of the manufacture of paper, should have remained for at least eight centuries since paper is first believed to have been in use, and that upwards of 200 of those years should have elapsed since its first introduction into England, without any mechanical improvement whatever as regards the processes which were then employed. It is true, that various attempts from time to time were made, but in every instance they appear to have met with very little success. In France, an ingenious artist contrived three figures in wood to do the work of the vatman, the coucher, and the layer; but, after persevering for six months, and incurring considerable expense, he was at length compelled to abandon his scheme. And although paper was previously manufactured in China, in Persia, and indeed throughout all Asia, sometimes of considerable length, I might mention that it was so, not by machinery, but by means of a mould of the size of the paper intended to be made, suspended like a swing, and having men placed at the distance of about every four feet, for the purpose of producing an uniform shaking motion, after the mould had been immersed in the vat, in order to compact the pulp. Such then was the rude state of this important manufacture, even up to the commencement of the present century, when another ingenious Frenchman, named Didot, brought over to this country a small model of a continuous machine, with the view of getting the benefit of English capital and mechanical skill to bring it into an operative state; and fortunately for the vigorous development of this embryo project, which had proved an abortion in France, he communicated his ideas of the practicability of the measure to a mercantile firm of considerable opulence, who, with great public spirit, at once concluded an agreement with him for the purchase of a principle which might be said at that period never to have been tried. The firm alluded to was that of the Messrs. Fourdrinier, who at that time, and for several years afterwards, were the principal stationers and paper manufacturers in Great Britain.