When the operations of the beating engine have been completed, a most interesting process begins, which marks a vast advance over the earlier method of forming the sheets of paper with mold and deckel, straining off the water, and shaking the frame with a quick motion to mat the fibers together. The patient striving toward something better, which has marked all the centuries since man first learned to carve his rude records, finds its consummation in the process of making paper in a continuous web. This result is accomplished by a machine first invented by Louis Robert, a workman in a mill at Enonnes, France, who obtained a French patent, with a bounty of eight thousand francs for its development. This he later sold to M. Didot, the proprietor of the mill, and the latter crossed the Channel into England, where, with the aid of a skilled mechanic, the machine was in a measure perfected, and then sold to Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier. They, with the further aid of Bryan Donkin, their employe and expert engineer, made many additional improvements, and sunk in the enterprise some sixty thousand pounds sterling, for which their only reward was blighted hopes and embittered lives. In 1847 the London “Times” made a fruitless appeal on behalf of the surviving brother, who was eighty years of age, and in great poverty. It is seldom that the world voluntarily makes return to those who have bestowed upon it great material or moral benefits, though it is ever ready to expend its treasure for engines of destruction, and to magnify and reward those who have been most successful in destroying human life. ♦First machine mill♦ The first “machine” mill was started at Frogmore, Hertz, England, in 1803, which was the year of the great Louisiana Purchase by the United States, and it is not difficult to say which event has been productive of the greater and more beneficial results to this nation. Through this invention and its improvements the modern newspaper and magazine, with their tens and hundreds of thousands of copies daily, have been made possible, and men of all classes have been brought in touch with the best thought of the day. Whatever makes for greater intelligence and enlightenment throughout a nation makes for the greater stability of the national life, and gives new emphasis to Bulwer’s words: “Take away the sword; States can be saved without it--bring the pen.” ♦The power of the pen♦