Show THE FIRST PAPER the first invention of paper manufactured from vegetable pulp is lost in the midst of antiquity it appears to have hav e been first I 1 ed cd into the europe from the east through 0 the arabians and persians the use of paper according to the modern application of the word W ord had become common in china at an all extremely remote period and gibbon tells us in a note tb that it its manufacture was introduced from china into samarcand Sam arcand B C and thence spread over europe the chinese are said to have so b great a variety of paper that each possesses its own peculiar make the sort COM commonly known as silk paper aper p is fabricated from the inner bark of or the bamboo or mulberry tree the rice paper so called is prepared from the inner portion A of tile the stems of hardy leguminous plant that grows plentifully about the lakes near calcutta and also in ill the island of formosa whence the chinese import it in large quantities quani ties the stems of the plant being cut into the proper lengths 0 for the sheets the pith ig cut spirally into a thin slice then flattened pressed and dried the Arabi arabians aos appear first to have introduced the inan manufacture U facture of paper into sp spain till on oil the oldest specimen extant of this spanish manufacture a treaty of peace between tle king kin 0 of araron aragon 0 and a neighboring potentate A D 17 1775 1 a is transcribed ex |