Lieutenant-Governor Thomason was deputy-secretary to Government, he
applied to the Society for information regarding the manufacture of
paper. Dr. Carey and Ram Komal Sen were referred to, and the former
thus replied in his usual concise and clear manner:--

"When we commenced paper-making several years ago, having then no
machinery, we employed a number of native papermakers to make it in
the way to which they had been accustomed, with the exception of
mixing conjee or rice gruel with the pulp and using it as sizing;
our object being that of making paper impervious to insects. Our
success at first was very imperfect, but the process was conducted
as follows:--

"A quantity of sunn, viz., the fibres of Crotolaria juncea, was
steeped repeatedly in limewater, and then exposed to the air by
spreading it on the grass; it was also repeatedly pounded by the
dhenki or pedal, and when sufficiently reduced by this process to
make a pulp, it was mixed in a gumla with water, so as to make it of
the consistence of thick soup. The frames with which the sheets
were taken up were made of mat of the size of a sheet of paper. The
operator sitting by the gumla dipped this frame in the pulp, and
after it was drained gave it to an assistant, who laid it on the
grass to dry: this finished the process with us; but for the native
market this paper is afterwards sized by holding a number of sheets
by the edge and dipping them carefully in conjee, so as to keep the
sheets separate. They are afterwards dried, folded, and pressed by
putting them between two boards, the upper board of which is loaded
with one or more large stones.

"In the English method the pulp is prepared by the mill and put into