Paper-Making
an account of paper-making from its earliest
known record down to the present time by
J.W. Butler Paper Company 1901
which finds expression in Tennyson's verse, that we are the heirs
of the ages, the inheritors of all that has gone before us.
Through countless cycles of time have been struggling and
aspiring; now" mounting up with wings, as eagles," now thrown
back to earth by the crushing weight of defeat, but always rising
again, undaunted and determined. "The fathers have wrought,
and we have entered into the reward of their labors." We have
profited by their We are striving and aspiration. All the wisdom of
the the heirs past, garnered by patient toil and effort, all the of
the ages wealth of experience gained by generations of men
through alternating defeat and triumph, belongs to us by right of
inheritance. It has been truly said, "Weare what the past has
made us. The results of the past are ourselves."
But to what agency do we owe the preservation of our
inheritance? What conservator has kept our rich estate from
man's instinctive- desire, manifested in all ages, to perpetuate his knowledge and achievements. Before the thought
of a permanent record had begun to take shape in. men's minds, oral tradition, passing from father to son, and from
generation to generation, sought to keep alive the memory of great achievements and valorous deeds. But tradition
proved itself untrustworthy. Reports were often imperfect, misleading, exaggerated. Through dull ears, the spoken
words were received into minds beclouded by ignorance, and passed on into the keeping of treacherous memories. As
the races advanced in learning and civilization, they realized that something more permanent and accurate was
necessary; that without written records of some sort there could be little, if any, progress, since each generation must
begin practically where the preceding one had begun, and pass through the same stages of ignorance and
inexperience.
In this strait, men sought help from Nature, and found in the huge rocks and bowlders shaped by her mighty forces a
means of perpetuating notable events in the histories of nations and the lives of individuals. From the setting up of
stones to commemorate great deeds and solemn covenants, it was but a step to the hewing of obelisks, upon which
the early races carved their hieroglyphs, rude pictures of birds and men, of beasts and plants. As early as four
thousand years before Christ, these slender shafts of stone were reared against the deep blue of the Egyptian sky,
and for ages their shadows passed with the sun over the restless, shifting sands of the desert. Most of the ancient
obelisks have 1 crumbled to dust beneath Time's unsparing hand, g, but a few fragmentary specimens are still in
existence, while the British Museum is so fortunate as to be in possession of one shaft of black basalt that is in perfect
condition. A part of it is covered with writing, a part with bas-reliefs. In Egypt these hieroglyphs were employed almost
exclusively for religious writings-a purpose suggested by the derivation of the word itself, which comes from the
Greek, ieros, a priest, and glypha, a carvmg.