SUPPORTS 247
process (Keck, loc. cit.} has for its bleach very dilute sodium hypochlorite and
hydrochloric acid in a practically neutral mixture. Free chlorine is evolved from
this. Hypochlorous acid, formed by the action of chlorine on water, oxidizes the
organic coloring substances that make up the stains. Besides this, of course, there
is a wide range of operations in the mending and repair of paper.
Paper, history in painting. The history of paper as a support for drawings and
paintings is, to a large extent, the history of the development of paper itself. The
oldest papyrus now preserved is Egyptian and has on it the accounts of King
Asa (3580-3536 B.C.). The manufacture of this ancient forerunner of paper was
probably carried on largely in the delta of the Nile, but the use of it became com-
mon all through the Mediterranean region and reached to imperial Rome. The
plant from which it was made came to be grown rather widely—in Syria, Arabia,
India, Nubia, and as far west as Sicily. By the X century A.D. paper had dis-
placed it.
The Chinese, using plant fibre reduced to pulp, were making paper certainly
in the II century A.D and may have started the practice even before the Christian
era. Introduction of the manufacture to the West is usually dated from a Chinese
attack on Samarkand, 721. Arabs held the place and, according to tradition,
learned the art of paper-making from Chinese prisoners taken at that time.
Karabacek (p. xxi) says that the dissemination of paper through the West began
with the establishment of the second paper factory at Bagdad in 794-795 under
the reign of Harun Al-Rashid. He lists (p. 245) items 917 and 918 in the collection
of the Archduke Rainer, two letters on paper of about 800. A large number of
Arabic MSS on paper dated in the IX century are still preserved. The Arabs
practiced and spread the craft for some centuries. Apparently linen fibre was
principally used in their product, but other materials, raw cotton or rags, were
sometimes added in small amounts. This eastern-made paper of the middle ages
was strong and glossy and it contained no water-marks. Coming through Greece
it got to be known as charta bombycina^ or charta^ or even papyrus.
By uoo paper was being manufactured at Morocco. In 1102, King Roger of
Sicily made a deed on paper that is still preserved. The first manufacture in Europe
was by Moorish workmen located largely at Xativa, Valencia, and Toledo.
France had a paper mill at Herault in 1189, Italy had mills at Montefano and at
Fabriano in 1276, Germany, one at Cologne in 1320 and another at Niirnberg in
1390. Italy's first great center of manufacture was Fabriano and it was here that
the first known water-marks were made in 1293 and 1294. Paper was used in
England as early at least as the first years of the XIV century. A MS. in the
British Museum (Add. 31, 223), a register of the hustings court of Lyme Regis,
is on paper and the entries begin in 1309. This paper is like that made in Spain,
There is no record of English manufacture before the XVI century but probably
there were mills before then.
Until the XVIII century practically all European paper was made from rags.
A publication of a * Society of Gentlemen/ London, 1716, Essay VI3 suggests