Sunbeam of summer, O, what is like thee, Biography.-Felicia Dorothea Hemans, an English poetess, was born at Liverpool in 1794, and died at Dublin in 1835. The first volume of her poems was published when she was fourteen years of age; and the second, when she was eighteen. Mrs. Hemans' style is both natural and pleasing. Her poem "Casabianca" is one of the most popular in the English language. Among her works, may be mentioned: "The Siege of Valencia," "The Last Constantine," and "Hymns for Childhood.” Language. — This poem, in which the Sunbeam is repeatedly addressed as a person, is an example of the figure Apostrophe. Apostrophe signifies a turning away from the ordinary form of address; an inanimate object is regarded as a person, or what is distant as near at hand. Point out two metaphors in the second stanza. 23.-PAPER. eon version, making; chang ing. com pēte, strive. ad here, stick fast. sub jĕet'ed, brought under the action of. di vĕr' si ty, variety. euï răss', (kwe răs'), a piece of armor covering the body. mi nûte, very small. flex'i ble, capable of being bent. N Egypt, China, and Japan are the countries in which the earliest manufacture of paper is known to have been carried on. The Egyptian paper was made of the plant called papyrus, a kind of grass. According to the information handed down to us, the delicate inner fibers were separated from the blade of the grass, and spread upon a table in such a manner that they overlapped one another. The table was sprinkled with water from the Nile, which had, no doubt, the effect of moistening the natural gum of the plant so as to make the fibers adhere. When this first layer of papyrus fiber was complete, succeeding layers were laid upon it transversely, until the paper was sufficiently thick. These layers were then pressed together, and the sheet of paper was dried in the sun. The best quality was preserved for religious uses, and not allowed to be exported. The Romans, however, discovered a process of cleansing this kind of paper from the marks of writing, and after this discovery they imported from Egypt sacred books written on this material, which they used for their own purposes, after the original writing had been removed. Besides the papyrus, there are remnants of ancient paper made of the inner bark of trees. Egyptian paper was in general use in Europe until the eighth or ninth century. It then slowly began to give place to paper manufactured from cotton and other materials, the art of making which was apparently learned by the Arabs in Asia, and introduced by them into Europe. This manufacture had probably spread to Western Asia from China, where it is known to have existed at a very early period. Paper was made by the Chinese from some materials at least as early as the beginning of the first century, and, according to their own account, the fabrication of paper from cotton appears to have been invented about 200 A. D. The materials that have been used for the manufacture of paper are very numerous. In China, where much of the paper made is of very excellent quality, different materials are used in different provinces. Hemp and linen rags are used in one part of the country, the inner bark of the mulberry tree in another; and in other parts the bark of the elm, straw, bamboo, etc. The Japanese make use principally of a kind of mulberry tree, and the paper manufactured by them is unequaled for strength and softness, qualities which enable it to be used for many purposes for which leather is commonly employed elsewhere, such as the making of ladies' reticules. The natives of Mexico, before the Spanish Conquest, made their paper from the leaves of the agave plant, or American aloe, in a manner resembling the ancient mode of preparing papyrus. After the introduction into Europe of cotton and linen rags as materials for paper-making, the use of other vegetable fibers was for many centuries entirely, or almost entirely, given up; not so much, however, on account of their unfitness, as because rags, besides being admirably adapted for the purpose, were cheaper than any other material. It was not until about the close of the eighteenth century that paper - manufacturers began again to turn their attention to the possibility of using vegetable fibers as substitutes for rags. In 1772, a German published a work containing sixty specimens of paper made from different vegetable substances. From this time, serious attempts were made to find a process, by which some of these vegetable materials could be used with success to replace rags. The difficulty did not consist in the mere con version into paper of the materials on which experiments were made-for any vegetable fiber with a rough edge can be made into paper-but in making paper out of them of such quality and at such a price, as would enable the manufactured product to compete with that made from rags. Straw, wood, and esparto grass are the chief vegetable fibers besides rags that have hitherto been found to answer these conditions, and all of these are now used more or less in paper-making. The combination of flexible fibers by which the paper is produced, depends on the minute subdivision of the fibers, and their subsequent cohesion. The rags used are chiefly cotton and linen. Woolen rags are no longer employed for the purpose. Cotton is used in the manufacture of paper not only in the form of rags, but also in that of waste or sweepings from spinning mills. Before the rags or other materials can be made into paper, they must be torn or cut into minute particles so small that they form a pulp when mixed with water. A sheet of paper is a thin layer of this pulpy matter, mixed with some kind of glue or size to give it firmness, and then dried. was The invention of the machine for paper-making is due to a Frenchman, and a patent was obtained for it by the inventor from the French Government in 1799. A method of treating straw so as to make it capable of being manufactured into paper, invented at the beginning of the present century. Various improvements have since been effected, and there are now some mills which turn out nothing else than paper made mostly from straw and woodpulp; but the best and most important use of wood and straw in paper-making, is to impart stiffness to the paper. Two processes have been patented for the manufacture of paper entirely from wood. By the first process the wood is reduced to a pulp by means of chemicals. By the other process the pulp is obtained by merely grinding down the wood and mixing it with water during the operation. Esparto, or Spanish grass, and the kindred plant called alfa, which is brought from Algeria, have been applied to paper-making only in comparatively recent years. The use of rushes for paper-making belongs to this country, and dates from the year 1866. The paper made from this material is white, firm, and of good quality, and considerably cheaper than that made from wood. Blotting paper is made in the same way as ordinary paper, except that the sizing is omitted. Pasteboard is made from coarse paper by pasting several sheets together, or by laying the sheets above one another when fresh from the mould and uniting them by pressure. This second method is much the better of the two, as the sheets cohere more firmly. Pasteboard made in the other way is very apt to split into separate sheets when subjected to unusual heat. Nothing is more remarkable than the great number and diversity of new uses that have been found for paper in recent years. Besides being largely employed for making collars, cuffs, and other articles of dress, it is sometimes used for making small houses in the backwoods of our Western States and territories, which are found to be warmer than those made of wood or sheet iron. It is used also |