A paper-mill, the first built in the British American provinces, was erected at what is now Bedford, and in the same year, 1816, a paper factory was put into operation at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. It was operated by a 16 horse-power steam-engine, employed forty persons, and with an annual output valued at only $20,000 required the consumption of 10,000 bushels of coal and the use of 120,000 pounds of rags, showing that the method must have been slow and cumbersome, and the margin of profit small. ♦Duty on books♦ It is believed that the Gilpins, who were celebrated paper-makers on the Brandywine, near Philadelphia, were the first to introduce paper machinery from France and England, about the year 1820, but the experiment proved so expensive that it met with little encouragement at that time. Some interesting facts were brought out during this year by a petition to Congress from the paper-makers of Pennsylvania and Delaware, who asked for a duty on paper, claiming that seventy paper-mills, with ninety vats, employing 950 persons, and using 2,600 tons of rags, with an annual output of $500,000 in value, had by foreign competition been reduced to seventeen vats. The allied trades of printing and publishing were so closely connected with paper-making that what affected one affected all; it was this community of interests that led representatives of the three industries to unite, in 1822, in a memorial to Congress, urging that the duty on books should not be reduced, as the books, entirely of American products and manufacture, which were issued in the country, amounted in value to more than $1,000,000 per annum. [Illustration: CUT--PAGE 59 WASHED--PAGE 62 BLEACHED--PAGE 63 RAGS IN VARIOUS STAGES] ♦The calender invented♦