Kathy Bepler, age 8, of Lansing, Michigan, for her question:

What was the first paper made of?

The people of China say that they know the answer. After all, they were the first people who made paper. Ages ago they wrote on fine silk. But at last somebody had a better idea. His name was Ts'ai Lun and he was the Minister of Public Works. Naturally he had to write out a lot of reports on his building projects. So he wanted something easy to write on. When he discovered it, he wrote down the first recipe for making paper.

He stripped bark from mulberry trees and peeled out the stringy inside layer. This was smashed and bashed to break the thin threads into very small pieces. They were mixed with water to make a soupy pulp. The next thing was to fix a fine net with four stiff wooden sides. This was the seive to strain the soggy mixture. The water oozed out the bottom and left a thin flat layer of the mulberry fibers. When this dried, it was a sheet of writing paper. Ts'ai Lun made this paper in 105 A.D., nearly 1900 years ago.