Did you ever stop to think of all the things we use that are made of paper ? There are the newspapers and magazines we read, the books , note pads and papers we use for school work. Governments and businesses could not run without record keeping and letter writing. We use paper for bags, boxes, cups, plates, wrapping paper and for many other purposes.
Today, paper is so common that it is hard to imagine life without it. But men lived for thousands of years without paper. Before paper was made, people wrote on blocks of clay or stone. Then the ancient Egyptians learnt to make paper from papyrus plants. Government and business records were kept on rolls of papyrus. The Engish word for paper comes form " papyrus ". Today, ancient pieces of Egyptian papyrus can still be seen in museums. Although ragged, dry and brown, they have remainde for thousands of years.
A type of paper more like what we use today was made in china more than tow thousand years ago. A man nemed Ts' ai' Lun was responsible for its discovery. Ts' ai ' Lun carried out many experiments with a mixture of mulberry bark , pieces of silk and parts of the hemp plant. He soaked these in water , and then added lime. After soaking, the mixture was removed from the water and crushd. Crushing broke down the material , and then the fibers of which it was flattered to make paper .
For hundreds of years , the results of T s ' ai ' Lun ' s experiments were not know outside of China , and learned how to make paper from them.
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