The present work is founded upon Lectures recently delivered at the London Institution.
The subject of Paper and Paper Making is one which has been at all times regarded with considerable interest, independently of that attention to it which commercial pursuits, of necessity, demand. The confidence, however, which originally prompted me to treat the subject, has, been in no slight degree, augmented by the advantage which I possess in the experience of my father, extending over a period of nearly half a century.
In the illustration of the Lectures, (which here stand as Chapters 1 and 2),—the syllabus furnished by the London Institution being retained as a heading in each instance—I have the pleasing duty to acknowledge myself much indebted to the kind assistance of many friends in connection with the Royal Asiatic Society, the Hon. East India Company, the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, the London Missionary Museum, and the Bank of England.
So far as it has been found practicable to illustrate the present work, no effort has been spared, and in order to sustain the interest which was so strikingly exhibited at the delivery of the Lectures—the remembrance of which throughout life will be to me a constant source of gratification;—I have appended, amongst other specimens, a sheet manufactured from the same mould as I then employed.
R. H.
Walbrook, April, 1855.