Note 3 — The Physical Description

“In China they commonly made paper of bamboo, but more principally from cotton and a plant which travellers have cited only by its common name, which they transcribe in various ways, calling it kochu, kotsu, or kotzu. Today it is known that this plant is an ulmacea (Broussonetia papyrifera) from a mash of which they [5] still make cloth in Japan. Cotton paper is superior to it, and naturally more expensive; but the paper of inferior quality which was received in Manila, where nothing was imported regularly but common articles of low price, was of kotsu. As all Chinese-made paper it was coated with alum, the finer [the paper] the thicker [the coating], for the purpose of whitening it and making the surface smooth, a deplorable business, for it made the paper very moisture absorbent, a condition fatal in such a humid climate as in these islands. Moreover, as the alum used is impure and contains a large proportion of iron salts, the humidity and weather oxidize it which finally darkens the paper, so that Philippine books present a coloration which runs the gamut of tones from the color of bone to that of dark cinnamon.”3