FIRST BLOTTING PAPER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 144, 8 April 1940, Page 7

FIRST BLOTTING PAPER

DISCOVERED BY ACCIDENT Blotting paper, in a crude form, ivas known as early as the 1460"5. \pparently its use was extremely limited, for references to it in records of the .sixteenth and -seven:eenth centuries arc rare. San<l. continued to be the universal drier of writing fluids, as it had been for centuries. Blotting paper was rediscovered quite by accident in a paper mil! in Berkshire, just as the nineteenth century was dawn ing. A workman in charge of the mixing vats forgot tb add some of the stipulated sizing ingredients, and the entire run had to be set aside as unsaleable. By some quirk of fate the irate proprietor decided that some of it might be used for his own rough note-making and calculations. However, to his great annoyance, the paper soaked up the ink as rapidly as it was applied and utterly defied facile writing. Suddenly it Hashed upon him that he had stumbled across and admirable substitute for the sand that was spreading its dust over practically every writing tablo in Europe. He advertised his discovery as "blotting paper"-—sold the entire lot of paper and met with instead demands for more.

For many .years blotters in.pinkish hues "were the only ones available. Red rags, being difficult to bleach, Avere used in making them* since they had no value in the

manufacture of writing papers, Strangely enough, though 'blotters came to be accepted universally for about a hundred shears, sand was used by many as late as 1908. —A. 11. Armstrong in This Week Magazine (New York).