Paper is made from wood. Wood is finely chopped and mixed with water to make a soft pulp. The pulp is then turned into paper.
Paper is one of mankind’s most revolutionary inventions. The invention of paper finally put an end to the cumbersome task of carving on wood or stone. In fact, the scope of information mankind could now limn was so enlarged that paper wasn’t merely used to catalogue the details of trade, but of daily events, to express feelings, wisdom, to write poems, to write stories we tell ourselves to transcend or escape the mundanity of life or stories that nature whispers to the ones who are keen to listen.
No one is quite sure when the first sheet of paper was invented. What we do know is that it was invented some centuries ago in China, from where China’s extraordinary trading network ensured that it was eventually exported to other countries. However, how did the Chinese create it?
Trees
Surely, everyone is aware that paper is made from trees, but you’d be surprised to know that it is not made from their thin and soft leaves but rather their hard and rugged logs! A logical question, of course, is how does a rigid, inflexible log bear something as flexible and foldable as paper?
What the Chinese first did was peel the bark off the logs. The large cylinders of wood were then diced into chips as small as a few inches. The chips were dissolved and cooked in boiling water to form what is called a pulp. The cooking ensured that the wood was purged of its robust attributes. The pulp was then left to dry in a rectangular vessel. The solution, like cement, would gradually and completely dry to assume the shape of its container. What materialized was a thin, rectangular sheet of paper.