Papermaking.

In the beginning of this work, when treating of paper, I took notice of the various descriptions of it, made by the Chinese, Japanese, Egyptians, and the Europeans. I will now give a brief account of the paper made by the natives of America, before this country was known to the nations of the old world.

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The ancient Mexicans made great use of paper. They manufactured it from the leaves of a genus of the aloe, or the palm icxotl, and from the thin bark of other trees, by a process not now known. They formed it into sheets of various dimensions and thicknesses, so as to answer sundry purposes; some of the sheets were similar, in thickness, to the thin pasteboard, and press paper for clothiers, manufactured in Europe; and some were thinner, but softer, smoother, and easy to write on. The sheets were generally made very long, and were polished suitably for the use to which they were intended to be applied. For preservation they were made up into rolls, or folded in the manner of bed skreens, and thus formed into books. Clavigero, who saw and handled several sheets which are now preserved in Mexico, informs us, that on this kind of paper ancient Mexicans painted, in beautiful and permament colors, the representations of their gods, their kings, their heroes, their animals, their plants, and whatever objects their fancy dictated, or circum

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stances might require. On paper they delineated, in hieroglyphics, painted with colors which were appropriated to the subject" the symbols of their religion, accounts of remarkable events, their laws, their rites, their customs, their taxes or tributes.Some of these paintings on paper were chronological, astronomical, or astrological, in which were represented their calendar, the position of the stars, eclipses, changes of the moon, prognostications of the variations of the weather-this kind of painting was called, by them, tonalamatl-Other paintings were topographical, or chorographical, which served not only to shew the extent and boundaries of possessions, but, likewise, the situation of places; the direction of the coasts, and course of the rivers.* The Mexican empire abounded with all these kinds of paintings on paper, for their painters were innumerable, and there was hardly any thing left unpainted. If those had been preserved, there would have been nothing wanting to explain the history of Mexico; but, after the conquest of the country by the Spaniards, the first preachers of the gospel, suspicious that superstition was mixed with all these paintings, made a furious destruction of them."

* Cortes says, in his first letter to Charles V, of Spain, that having made inquiry if there was any safe harbor for vessels in the Mexican gulf, Montezuma, the Mexican king, presented him with a painting of the whole coast, from the port of Chalchiuhcuecan, where at present Vera Cruz lies, to the river Coatzacualco. This account is confirmed by Bernal Diaz.

† Clavigero's Hist. Mex.

Paper similar to that of Mexico, it is said, was made in Peru.

Whether the European method of making paper has ever been introduced into Spanish America, I am not competent to say; but, in some of the English colonies, making paper from rags of cotton and of linen, has long been practised.

Papermills were erected in Pennsylvania many years before the revolution.

There were several in Newengland, and two or three in Newyork.

About the year 1730, an enterprising bookseller in Boston,* having petitioned for, and received some aid from the legislature of Massachusetts, erected a paper mill, which was the first set up in that colony. Since 1775, paper mills have increased rapidly, and paper is now, I believe, manufactured in all parts of the union.†

Type Foundries.

A FOUNDRY, principally for Gothic, or German types, was established at Germantown, Pennsylvania, several years before the revolution; but that foundry was chiefly employed for its owner, Christopher Sower, who printed the Bible, and several other valuable works, in the German language.

*Daniel Henchman. He produced, in 1731, to the general court, a sample of paper made at his mill.

† The paper on which this work is printed, was manufactured in Worcester, at a mill built some years since; which has been for some time past owned by Elijah Burbank.

Some attempts were made about 1768, to establish foundries for types-one at Boston by mr. Mitchelson, from Scotland; another in Connecticut by a mr. Buel; but they were unsuccessful. In 1775, dr. Franklin brought from Europe to Philadelphia, the materials for a foundry; but little use was made of them.

Soon after the close of the revolutionary war, John Baine, type founder, of Edinburgh, sent the materials for a foundry to this country, by a kinsman, I believe his grandson, who settled at Philadelphia. Baine came over himself, soon after; and they were the first who regularly carried on the business of type founders in the United States. They were good workmen, and had full employment. The types for the Encyclopedia, twenty one volumes quarto, printed some years since by Dobson, at Philadelphia, were cast at their foundry. Baine died in August, 1790, aged 77. He must have been 70 years of age when he arrived at Philadelphia. His kinsman returned to Scotland.

At the commencement of the late commotions in Holland, an ingenious type founder, from that country, came and settled at Newyork. His foundry was calculated, principally, for Dutch and German types, the casts of which were handsome. The faces of his English letter were very ordinary. He was a Dutch patriot, who had lost most of his property, and was obliged to fly from his country. His want of funds disabled him from carrying on the business here with success.

At this time we have three or more type foundries in the United States. The types from which this work is printed, were manufactured by Binney and Ronaldson, at Philadelphia.

Stereotype Printing.

ABOUT the year 1775, an attempt at stereotype printing was made by Benjamin Mecom, printer, nephew of doctor Franklin. He cast the plates for a number of pages of the New Testament; but never completed them. I shall have occasion to mention Mecom, in the course of this work, several times. He was skilful, but not successful.

The ingenious Jacob Perkins, of Newburyport, Massachusetts, has lately invented a new kind of stereotype, for impressing copper and other plates. From plates so impressed, most of the bank bills of Massachusetts and Newhampshire, are printed at rolling presses, and are called stereotype bills.

Engraving.

I HAVE already observed, that man, in his primeval state, discovered a propensity to represent, by figures, on various substances, the animated work of his Creator.

From sketching, painting, or engraving these images, or representations on the surface of those substances, he proceeded to the business of the