BANK-NOTE PAPER.
[TO TKO EDITOR OF TER EPROTATOR.1 Sin,—If not too late, I should wish to make a few,remaskicon your artiole on the last new forgery in your issue of the 8th. As to the possibility of eopying_suocessfully any engraved pattern, I quite agree with you, but I think it would be quite practicable to manufacture a paper which it would be nearly .impossible to imitate.
We may dismiss-the proposal to make-suck a paper,of "a sub- stance only procurable by a few -persona" as impracticable, as there is no substance known to the papermaker at present which
could not be procured, if need were in considerable quantity. A paper which is not likely to be imitated must, in the first place, be a machine-made paper. The advantage of this is, that there are perhaps only a dozen papermakers in thecountry who have the necessary plant to make such a paper, and as the machinery re- quired is very costly, and all the firms who possess it are of the highest respectability, this in itself would be a great safeguard against fraud. A hand-made paper can be imitated at small cost. A machine-made paper can by the initiated be distinguished at a glance from hand-made.
As to dyes, without stating anything positively, I am yet con- vinced that, if required, a paper could be coloured and marked in -such a way as completely to baffle imitation. Even the water- mark could be so made as to be extremely difficult of imitation, and in the ways of colouring there are several of which I think imitation would be impossible.
And one of the greatest safeguards would be for the Banks to use, instead of hand-made, machine-made paper.—I am, Sir, &c., SCOTCH PAPERMAKER.
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