The Chinese workman makes his paper exactly on the same principle, but the bottom of his mould is made of bulrushes instead of wires.
As for machine-made paper, the process seems absolutely magical. Endless bands of felt and wire are substituted for the hand frames, and, the pulp being poured in at one end, the finished paper is poured out at the other, and self-wound on rollers. Without any exaggeration, paper is now made by the mile, the only limit to its length being the size of the rolls.
When I mention Paper-making in the world of Nature, many of my readers will at once know that I am about to refer to the Wasp tribe.
These insects were paper-makers long before even the Chinese had invented the art, and, so exactly similar is the mode of action, that man might well have copied from the insect.
The Wasp gnaws a bundle of vegetable fibres, mostly of wood, sound or decaying, according to the species. It masticates them until it has reduced them to a pulp, and then, by means of its jaws, spreads the pulp into sheets of various shapes and sizes.
With some of the pulp it forms hexagonal cells like those of the bee, and with some it makes the roof-like covering which defends the cells. Not only that, but it can make a sort of papier-mâché, which it uses for the flooring, if we may so call it, of the different strata of cells, and for the pillars which bind them together.
Like our own paper manufacturers, it is economic of material, will re-masticate any superabundant paper, and is only too glad if it can get hold of any paper made by man. I have seen a wasps’ nest which was made entirely from the empty blue and white cartridges that were thrown away by soldiers.
Then there is as much difference in the papers made by wasps as in those made by man. In this country all wasps’ nests are made of very fragile material, but in South America there are some wasps which make the external covering of their nests as hard and white as the stiff cardboard employed by artists.
Having now got our paper, we will glance at one or two modes of using it for Art. Papier-mâché has already been mentioned, and it is worthy of notice that there are now in existence many decorated ceilings which are made of this material, on account of its great strength and its non-liability to fire.
