17. With this vat is connected the paper-making machine; and the part of the latter which first comes in contact with the material is a hollow cylinder, surrounded with a fine web of wire-cloth. This cylinder being immersed in the contents of the vat more than one-half of its diameter, the water passes off with a uniform rapidity, and the fibrous particles which had been suspended in it, settle with a remarkable uniformity on the outside of the brazen web. As the cylinder revolves, a continued sheet is produced, which is taken up by an endless web of woollen cloth, and carried round another cylinder of equal diameter, and then between two more, by which it is partially pressed. 18. From between these rollers, the paper passes out, in a continued sheet, upon a large cylindrical reel, called the _lay-boy_; and when a certain quantity of it, which is determined by a gauge, has been accumulated, the lay-boy is removed to a low table. The paper is then cut, with a toothless handsaw, into sheets twice the size of letter-paper. This part of the operation is very quickly performed, as a workman can cut up and pile in heaps, to be pressed, twenty reams in half that number of minutes, and attend to the machine at the same time. 19. After the paper has been successively pressed, and handled by separating the sheets two or three times, it is hung up on small poles, in an airy room, to be dried; and having been again pressed, it is sized by holding a quantity of the sheets at a time in a thin solution of glue and alum, the former of which is prepared in the paper-mill for the purpose, from shreds and parings of raw hides. The paper is freed from superfluous portions of the size, by submitting it to the action of a press. It is again dried as before, and again pressed; after which, the several sheets are examined, and freed from lumps and other extraneous substances. 20. They are then severed in half with a cutting machine, and afterwards calendered, by passing the sheets successively between rollers; or they are pressed between smooth pasteboards. In the latter case, hot metallic plates are sometimes interposed between every few quires of the sheets. The paper, when treated in this way, is called hot-pressed. It is next counted off into half-quires, put up into reams, pressed, trimmed, and finally enveloped in two thick sheets of paper, which completes the whole process of the manufacture.