Researches of a later date resulted in the discovery of some further interesting documents which appear to establish with some degree of certainty the approximate date at which pure rag paper, that is, paper made entirely from rag, was manufactured.
Chinese documents dated A.D. 768-786, which have been reported upon by Dr. Hoernle, and others dated A.D. 781-782-787, reported upon by Dr. Stein as recently as 1901, appear to show what materials were used by the Chinese paper-makers in Western Turkestan. The manuscripts mentioned were dug out from the sand-buried site of Dandan Uilig, in Eastern Turkestan.
Professor Wiesner found that all the papers of the Rainer collection were made of linen rag, with an occasional trace of cotton, probably added accidentally. The earliest dated paper was a letter A.D. 874, but two documents, which from other reasons could be identified as belonging to A.D. 792, proved that at the end of the eighth century the Arabs understood the art of making linen paper on network moulds, and further that they added starch for the purpose of sizing and loading the paper.
Professor Karabacek advances some ingenious explanations as to the origin of the idea that raw cotton was first used for paper-making, and he suggests that the legend owes its origin to a misunderstanding of terms. In mediæval times paper was known as Charta bombycina, and sometimes as Charta Damascena, the latter from its place of origin.
Paper was also made in Bambyce, and a natural confusion arose between the terms, since the word bombyx was used as a name for cotton, and the paper commonly in use suggested that material to the mind of the observer, and the name became corrupted to bombycina.
The suggestions of Professor Karabacek, together with the microscopical investigations of Dr. Wiesner, appear to show that paper made entirely from raw cotton fibre was not known.
Invention of Rag Paper.—Dr. Hoernle, in discussing this question, points out that, taking A.D. 751 as the date when the Arabs learnt the art of paper-making, and A.D. 792 as the date when paper made entirely of linen rag was produced, the date of the invention of rag paper must lie between these two dates. The documents discovered in Eastern Turkestan and bearing the dates mentioned, which papers fill up the gap between the years A.D. 751 and A.D. 792, were found to contain certain raw fibres, such as China grass, mulberry, laurel, as the main constituents, and macerated flax and hemp rags as the minor constituents.
The addition and substitution of rag evidently increased in course of time, and since the improvement thus effected soon became an obvious and established fact, the raw fibres were omitted. Hence the credit of the manufacture of pure rag paper would be given to the people of Samarkand, the date being between the years A.D. 760 and A.D. 792; and further the constitution of such paper has been shown by Dr. Wiesner to be linen, and not cotton, as commonly stated.
These researches are of such interest that we quote Professor Hoernle's translation of the summary of the principal results of Dr. Wiesner's examination of the Eastern Turkestani papers so recently discovered:—
“Taking into account the dates assigned to the papers on palæographic grounds, the following conclusions may be drawn from the examination of their material:—