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The article states that moralists and millers alike grinded away an epoch when the world of letters was inconceivable without paper, and when paper, though the source material was in perpetual short supply, could not be made without rag. Even paper and bread were not much different in composition, being in both cases vegetable stripped from the stalk and either cooked or dried; and the machinery that made them both was sometimes to be found under the same roof, millstone and masher blades in adjoining sheds, turned by the same gear and driven by the same wind or pure water.