The first lead pencils are supposed to have been manufactured in England in the second half of the sixteenth century. The raw plumbago, or "wad," as it was locally termed, was subjected to the following treatment: "On reaching the surface it was sawn into strips of the required size, and these, without any further manipulation, were inserted into the wood. Strange though it may appear, the lead pencils first manufactured in this manner are acknowledged to have been the best—and even at the beginning of the present century they remained unsurpassed upon the score of the softness and fine tone of the lead. Although the Cumberland lead pencils were in great demand owing to the fact that they were the first to successfully meet a long-felt want, they nevertheless owed their permanent and wide-spread reputation— more especially in artistic circles—to their excellent quality.

Towards the end of the last century the black-lead pencil industry was introduced into France, where with some restrictions it soon developed.

With the removal of all restrictions on industrial freedom in 1795, the idea was entertained of using clay as a binding medium for black-lead. This method offered several advantages, for not only did the addition of clay cause a saving of a large percentage of the valuable mineral, but it greatly facilitated the method of manufacture, so that lead pencils could now be offered at greatly reduced prices.

By these improvements a new era in the manufacture of lead pencils was begun in France. Still, there remained much to be done in the field of black- lead pencil making in order to do justice to the increasing demands of art and the requirements of more civilized life.

It is true, different kinds of lead pencils of various degrees were produced, but they did not comply by a long way with the different uses for which they were needed. The manipulation of the brittle material required not only deep study, but also conscientious and skillful workmen, in order to impart the necessary standard of perfection to the lead pencil.

Among the various German industries the manufacture of black-lead pencils occupied but a very modest place.

The first traces of its existence are to be found at Stein, a village not far from Nuremberg. As far back as the year 1726 the church registers mention marriages between "black-lead pencil makers," and, at a later date references are found in the same registers to "black-lead cutters" of both sexes.

The manufacture of black-lead pencils, however, occupied a position on the very lowest rung of the industrial ladder.

But is time proceeded the Bavarian government directed their attention to this branch of industry, and did all in their power to encourage it; and, as early as the year 1766, a Count von Kronsfeld obtained a concession to establish a lead pencil factory at Jettenbach. Later on, in the year 1816, the Bavarian government established a royal lead pencil manufactory at Obernzell (Hafnerzell), and introduced into it the French process, described above, of using clay as a binding medium for graphite.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

ANCIENT INK BACKGROUNDS (THE ORIGIN OF PAPYRUS).

FROM WHENCE COMES THE NAME PAPER—FIRST CENTURY COMMENT ABOUT IT—KNIGHT'S COMMENTS MORE THAN 1,800 YEARS LATER—PAPYRUS AN EGYPTIAN REED—NAMES BESTOWED BY ANCIENT WRITERS—THE SAME NAMES AS EMPLOYED IN MODERN TIMES—LEAVES OF PLANTS PRECEDED THE INVENTION OF PAPYRUS— WHEN IT WAS THAT ROLLED RECORDS CAME INTO VOGUE—VARRO'S ESTIMATION AS TO THE ORIGINAL USE OF PAPYRUS NOT CORRECT—REAL FACTS RESPECTING THE INTRODUCTION OF PAPYRUS BEYOND THE LIMITS OF EGYPT—CHARACTER OF MATERIALS EMPLOYED BY THE GREEKS BEFORE THAT EPOCH—EMPLOYMENT OF IT FOR LITERARY PURPOSES—ADOPTION OF PARCHMENT AND VELLUM—PAPYRUS MSS. EMPLOYED IN THE FORM OF ROLLS AND THE REASON FOR SAME—ANCIENT MANUFACTURE OF PAPYRUS IN EGYPT—SOME OF THE NAMES USED TO DESIGNATE DIFFERENT KINDS—PLINY'S DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPYRUS AND HIS MISINFORMATION ABOUT IT—WHERE IT FLOURISHED BEST—PAPYRUS AS KNOWN TO THE HEBREWS AND ITS BIBLICAL MENTION—MANUFACTURE OF PAPYRUS IN THE ANCIENT CITY OF MEMPHIS—CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PAPER EMPLOYED BY THE MEXICANS—MR. HARRIS'S DISCOVERY OF ANCIENT FRAGMENTS OF PAPYRUS— THE STORY ABOUT IT AS TOLD BY THE LONDON ATHENaeUM—DATES OF THE OLDEST KNOWN SPECIMENS OF GREEK PAPYRI—DATE OF THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF GREEK PAPYRI—USE OF OTHER PLIABLE MATERIALS WITH PAPYRUS—HOW THEY WERE PREPARED FOR WRITING PURPOSES—DOUBTS AS TO TIME THAT ROLLED RECORDS SUPERSEDED TABLET FORMS—SUGGESTIONS BY NOEL HUMPHREYS—VIEWS ENTERTAINED BY EARLIER WRITERS.

THE name paper is derived from papyrus, a reed grown in Egypt, whose stalk furnished for so many centuries the principal material for writing upon to the people of that country and those bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. In the first century of the Christian era the younger Pliny remarks:

"All the usages of civilized life depend in a remarkable degree upon the employment of paper. At all events, the remembrance of past events."

A statement which has caused Mr. Knight to make the following comment:

"This observation, undoubtedly true 1,800 years ago, is much more remarkably so now; indeed, in considering that paper as we now understand it was entirely unknown to Europe in the time of Pliny, the expression of the great dependence upon what seems to us so fragile and inefficient a substitute for real paper appears strange."

Mr. Knight also says that the Greek name papuros, mentioned by Theophrastus, a contemporary of Aristotle and Alexander, was probably the Egyptian name of the reed with a Greek termination. It was also called biblos by Homer and Herodotus, whence our term bible. The term volumen, a scroll, indicates the early form of a book of bark, papyrus, skin, or parchment, as the term liber (Latin, a book, or the inner bark of a tree) does the use of the bark itself. Hence also our terms library and librarian. "Book" is also derived from the Danish word bog, the bark of the beech. Pliny quoting Varro, who preceded him some two centuries, asserts that before the invention of papyrus, the large leaves of certain plants were prepared so that they could be written upon. Hence originates our term "leaves" of a book which in the Latin form folium has also given us the modern term folio.

When, however, the reed pen and the pencil brush and their kindred substances denominated colored liquids or inks, came into vogue, some material on which characters could be inscribed and preserved in the shape of continuous rolls for record and other uses became necessary. The papyrus plant seems to have met every requirement. It is a noteworthy fact that all information which can be derived from any source, specifically calls attention to papyrus and sometimes the inner barks of trees as being coexistent with pen and ink.

Varro has been credited with many statements which in the light of investigation and discovery are proved to be incorrect. One of these is in effect that the use of papyrus was an incident pertaining to the expeditions of Alexander the Great. This assertion is not only contradicted by Pliny, the historian, who calls attention to "books of papyrus found in the tomb of Numa " (Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, B. C. 716-672,) but even at this late day many monuments of ancient papyri are still extant and belonging to periods more than a thousand years before Alexander's time.

The real facts in respect to this matter are, that the introduction of the use of papyrus to nations beyond the limits of Egypt was an event that did not take place until after the reign of the first Macedonian sovereign of Egypt, Ptolemy Lagus (B. C. 323) when, in return for Greek literature, Egypt gave back her papyrus. Before this epoch the Greeks had been in the habit of employing such materials as linen, wax, bark and leaves for ordinary writing purposes, while their public records were inscribed on stone, brass, lead or other metals.

Papyrus as then introduced into those western countries was the only substance for a long period employed for literary purposes.

Parchment and vellum, which were adopted there as writing materials about two centuries later, were too costly to be used so long as papyrus was within reach.

When the use of this ancient paper had become established in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, all the MSS. assumed the form of rolls, being rolled on cylinders of wood, ivory, bronze, glass and other substances. Sometimes, the ends were decorated by various ornaments. As a rule only one side of the material was written upon. This was due largely to the fact of its brittle character which would cause it to break if rolled or bent the wrong way.

The ancient manufacture of papyrus for export was carried on in Egypt on an extensive scale and in the most systematic manner. A gradual improvement in quality was the result, some of the kinds being given well-known Roman names which are mentioned by contemporary writers. The kind employed by the Romans for ordinary use was designated Charta. More expensive qualities were known as "Augusta," "Livinia," "Hieratica," etc., the latter being reserved for religious books. Some kinds were sold by weight and employed by the tradesmen for wrapping purposes, while the bark of the plant was manufactured into cord and rope.

The methods of the manufacture of papyrus as a writing material Pliny undertakes to describe at great length, and while he asserts many things from probable knowledge and the information at hand in his time, yet he is not always correct. He says that the reed stalks were cut into lengths and separated "by splitting the successive folds of the stalk with a fine metal point."

Mr. Knight, who investigated this matter with care, is authority for the statement, that the papyrus stalk as seen under the microscope shows that it does not possess successive folds, but is a triangular stalk with a single envelope with a pith on the inside, which could only be divided into slices with a knife, either in stripes of a width permitted by the sides of the prism, or else shaved round and round, like the operation of cork making, and producing a long spiral shaving.

In the description which Pliny gives of the various homes of this plant in Egypt, he calls particular attention to its abundance in marshy places where the Nile overflows and stagnates: "It grows like a great bulrush from fibrous, reedy roots, and runs up in several triangular stalks to a considerable height." They possessed large tufted heads, but only the stem was fit for making into paper. After the pellicles or thin coats were removed from the stalk, they were laid upon tables two or more over each other and glued together with the muddy and glutinous water of the Nile or with fine paste made of wheat flour; after being pressed and dried they were made smooth with a ruler and then rubbed over with a glass hemisphere. The size of the paper seldom exceeded two feet.

Papyrus was also known to the Hebrews.

The Prophet Isaiah (B. C. 752) refers to this plant when he says:

"The paper reeds by the brooks, and everything sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away and be no more."

Which prediction seems to have been long ago fulfilled as the plant is now exceedingly rare.

The manufacture of Egyptian paper from papyrus it is said was quite an industry in the ancient city of Memphis more than six hundred years before the Christian era.

The Mexicans employed for writing a paper which somewhat resembled the Egyptian papyrus. It was prepared from the aloe, called by the natives Maguey which grows wild over the tablelands of Mexico. It could be easily colored and seemed to bind to ink very closely. It could be rolled up in scrolls just like the more ancient rolls of papyrus.

The following account of an interesting discovery of a fragment of one of the "Orations of Hyperides," by Mr. Harris, the well-known Oriental scholar, is derived from the London Athenaeum:

"In the winter of 1847 Mr. Harris was sitting in his boat, under the shade of the well-known sycamore, on the western bank of the Nile, at Thebes, ready to start for Nubia, when an Arab brought him a fragment of a papyrus roll, which he ventured to open sufficiently to ascertain that it was written in the Greek language, and which he bought before proceeding further on his journey. Upon his return to Alexandria, where circumstances were more favorable to the difficult operation of unrolling a fragile papyrus, he discovered that be possessed a fragment of the oration of Hyperides against Demosthenes, in the matter of Harpalus, and also a very small fragment of another oration, the whole written in extremely legible characters, and of a form or fashion which those learned in Greek MSS. consider to be of the time of the Ptolemies. With these interesting fragments of orations of an orator so celebrated is Hyperides, of whose works nothing, is extant but a few quotations in other Greek writers, he embarked for England. Upon his arrival there he submitted the precious relics to the inspection of the Council and members of the Royal Society of Literature, who were unanimous in their judgment as to the importance and genuineness of the MSS.; and Mr. Harris immediately set to work, and with his own hand made a lithographic facsimile of each piece. Of this performance a few copies were printed and distributed among the savants of Europe,—and Mr. Harris returned to Alexandria, whence he has made more than one journey to Thebes in the hope of discovering some other portion of the volume, of which he already had a part. In the same year (1847) another English gentleman, Mr. Joseph Arden, of London, bought at Thebes a papyrus, which he likewise brought to England. Induced by the success of Mr. Harris, Mr. Arden submitted his roll to the skilful and experienced hands of Mr. Hogarth; and upon the completion of the operation of unrolling, the MSS. was discovered to be the terminating portion of the very same volume of which Mr. Harris had bought a fragment of the former part in the very same year, and probably of the very same Arabs. No doubt now existed that the volume, when entire, consisted of a collection of, or a selection from, the orations of the celebrated Athenian orator, Hyperides.

"The portion of the volume which has fallen into the possession of Mr. Arden contains 'fifteen continuous columns of the "Oration for Lycophron," to which work three of Mr. Harris's fragments appertained; and likewise the "Oration for Euxenippus," which is quite complete and in beautiful preservation. Whether, as Mr. Babington observes in his preface to the work, any more scraps of the "Oration for Lycophron" or of the "Oration against Demosthenes" remain to be discovered, either in Thebes or elsewhere, may be doubtful, but is certainly worth the inquiry of learned travellers.' The condition, however, of the fragments obtained by Mr. Harris but too significantly indicate the hopelessness of success. The scroll had evidently been more frequently rolled and unrolled in that particular part, namely, the speech of Hyperides in a matter of such peculiar interest as that involving the honor of the most celebrated orator of antiquity; it had been more read and had been more thumbed by ancient fingers than any other speech in the whole volume; and hence the terrible gap between Mr. Harris's and Mr. Arden's portions Those who are acquainted with the brittle, friable nature of a roll of papyrus in the dry climate of Thebes, after being buried two thousand years or more and then coming first into the hands of a ruthless Arab, who, perhaps, had rudely snatched it out of the sarcophagus of the mummied scribe, will well understand how dilapidations occur. It frequently happens that a single roll, or possibly an entire box, of such fragile treasures is found in the tomb of some ancient philologist or man of learning, and that the possession is immediately disputed by the company of Arabs who may have embarked on the venture. To settle the dispute, when there is not a scroll for each member of the company, an equitable division is made by dividing the papyrus and distributing the portions. Thus, in this volume of Hyperides, it seems that it has fallen into two pieces at the place where it had most usually been opened, and where, alas! it would have been most desirable to have kept it whole; and that the smaller fragments have been lost amid the dust and rubbish of the excavation, while the two extremities have been made distinct properties, which have been sold, as we have seen, to separate collectors. So, at all events, such matters are managed at Thebes.

"Mr. Harris mentions fragments of the 'Iliad,' which he had purchased of some of the Arab disturbers of the dead in the sacred cemeteries of Middle Egypt, most probably Saccara."

The oldest known specimens of the Greek papyri and which were found in Egypt, have a range of one thousand years; that is, from the third century B. C. to the seventh century A. D.

The first discovery of Greek papyri was made at Herculaneum in 1752. Papyrus, however, in the most ancient, periods was not the only pliable material used to write on which could be rolled on cylinders. Linen or cloth, which had been first treated with substances which filled the interstices and characteristic of our oil-cloth, the inner bark of certain trees, or in fact any material which would receive ink and roll around a cylinder was in vogue. This form of manuscript was later termed by the Romans rolles, to roll round, or more commonly volvere, to roll over.

It is not certain, however, that this character of manuscript immediately superseded the tablet form of records inscribed on wood or metal. Noel Humphreys is one of several to suggest:

"The reference to the 'pen of a ready writer,' mentioned in the Psalms of David (B. C. 1086- 1016) could scarcely be the sharp point, or stilus, by means of which characters were engraved upon wood or metal, but rather the calamus or juncas, used for writing with a dark fluid upon bark or linen. The word volume indeed occurs in Psalms xxxix., and these volumina or volumes must have been either rolls of leaves, or bark, or Egyptian papyrus."

Some writers like Casley, Purcelli, Haygen, Calmet, and others, who also more or less discuss this subject, do not view it entirely the same.



CHAPTER XXIX.

ANCIENT INK BACKGROUNDS (PARCHMENT AND VELLUM).

THE PERGAMUS LIBRARY COMPOSED PRINCIPALLY OF PARCHMENT VOLUMES—CAUSES WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE SUBSTITUTION OF PARCHMENT FOR PAPYRUS —ANECDOTE ABOUT EUMENES AND PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS— INVENTION OF METHOD WHICH MADE SKINS AVAILABLE FOR FLUID INK WRITING—INTRODUCTION OF DRESSED SKINS THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS THE MODERN FORM OF BOOKS—WHEN PARCHMENT AND VELLUM SUPERSEDED OTHER SUBSTANCES AS A GENERAL MATERIAL FOR WRITING UPON—MANUFACTURE OF BARK PAPER PREVIOUS TO THE INTRODUCTION OF THE LINEN PAPER OF THE EAST—SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT CHINESE PAPER—ALLUSIONS OF CLASSICAL WRITERS TO INSCRIPTIONS ON SKINS AND DISCOVERY OF SPECIMENS—EMPLOYMENT OF PARCHMENT BY THE HEBREWS—OLD SCRIPTURAL MSS. DISCOVERED ON PARCHMENT—NAMES OF THE MOST VALUABLE NEW TESTAMENT CODICES—STORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE SINAITIC CODEX AS TOLD BY MADAN—ASSERTION OF SIMONIDES THAT HE FORGED IT—PAMLIMPSESTS THE LINK BETWEEN CLASSICAL TIMES AND THE MIDDLE AGES—OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THEM AND SOME DISCOVERIES OF THE MORE FAMOUS ONES—USE OF PAPYRUS, PARCHMENT AND VELLUM TOGETHER IN MSS. BOOKS—OBSERVATIONS BY THOMPSON—CHARACTER OF THE ROLLS AND RECORDS BELONGING TO EARLY PARLIAMENTARY TIMES IN ENGLAND—COMPARATIVE METHODS OF THEIR PREPARATION—MODES OF DEPOSITING AND CARRYING ANCIENT ENGLISH RECORDS —METHOD OF FINDING PARTICULAR DOCUMENTS— THE INDIVIDUALS WHO HANDLED THE BOOKS OF THOSE EPOCHS—CITATIONS FROM KNIGHT'S "LIFE OF CAXTON"—REMARKS BY WARTON—EXPENSE ACCOUNT OF SIR JOHN HOWARD—METHODS OF THE TRANSCRIBERS AND LIMNERS OF THOSE TIMES—MODERN METHODS OF PREPARING PARCHMENT AND VELLUM—CITATION FROM THE PENNY CYCLOPaeDIA—PASSAGE FROM A SERMON OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF TOURS—ANECDOTE ABOUT THE COUNT OF NEVERS.

THE great abundance of papyrus in Egypt, the chief source of its supply, the genius and magnificence of the rulers of that country, and the army of learned men who resorted thither, caused it to become the principal home of those immense libraries of antiquity already mentioned as having perished by fire and tumults included in periods between B. C. 48 and A. D. 640.

The Pergamus library which was deposited by Cleopatra, B. C. 32, in the city of Alexandria, is said to have been composed almost wholly of parchment written volumes. The reason or cause of such employment, of parchment in preference to papyrus is attributed to jealousies existing between Eumenes, King of Pergamus, and Ptolemy Philadelphus, the ruler of Egypt, contemporaries of each other.

This Ptolemy, B. C. 202, issued an edict prohibiting the exportation of papyrus from Egypt, and hoped thereby to rid himself of foreign rivals in the formation of libraries; also that he might never be subject to the inconvenience of wanting paper for the multitude of scribes whom he kept constantly employed, both to write original manuscripts as well as to multiply them by duplication.

Before this period the exportation of papyrus had been a very considerable article of Egyptian commerce, but thereafter it became much curtailed, and about A. D. 950 had ceased altogether.

Eumenes, it appears, was not to be deterred from his favorite study and pastime, so lie contrived a peculiar mode of dressing skins, which seems to have answered very fully the requirements of fluid-ink writing methods and thus avoiding the necessity of employing paints, the only material which would "bind" to undressed parchment (skins).

That the refined and luxurious Romans, after the introduction of parchment, vellum, and paper, insisted on an improvement in quality and appearance is certain. This appears from various passages in their best authors. Ovid, writing to Rome from his place of exile, complains bitterly that his letter must be sent plain, simple, and without the customary embellishments.

We can safely date the first step towards the modern form of books to the introduction of dressed skins (parchment and vellum), as surfaces to receive ink writing. These materials could be formed into leaves, instead of metal, wood, ivory, or wax tablets, a use to which papyrus could not be put on account of its brittleness. Thus originated the libri quadrali, or square books, which eventually superseded the ancient volumina (rolls).

Parchment and vellum gradually superseded all other substances in Europe as a general material for writing upon, after the third or fourth century. The employment of papyrus, however, in ecclesiastical centers continued even as late as the eleventh century.

A kind of bark paper was manufactured in Europe previous to the introduction of linen ("cotton," "Bombycina") paper from the East. The ancient Chinese made various kinds of paper and had a method of producing pieces sometimes forty feet in length. The Chinese record, called "Sou kien tchi pou," states that a kind of paper was made from hemp, and another authority (Du Halde) observes, "that old pieces of woven hemp were first made into paper in that country about A. D. 95, by a great mandarin of the palace." Linen rags were afterwards employed by the Chinese.

The introduction of "linen" paper into Europe did not materially affect or interfere with the use of parchment or vellum until after the invention of printing in the fifteenth century.

The class of substances to which parchment and vellum belong has already received some consideration but is a subject well worth some further discussion.

Allusions are found in some of the classical writers to inscriptions written on the skins of goats and sheep; it has, indeed, been asserted by some scholars that the Books of Moses were written on such skins. Dr. Buchanan many years ago discovered, in the record chest of some Hebrews at Malabar, a manuscript copy of the greater part of the Pentateuch, written in Hebrew on goat's skins. The goat skins were thirty-seven in number, dyed red, and were sewn together, so as to form a roll forty-eight feet in length by twenty-two inches in width. At what date this was written cannot be now determined, but it is supposed to be extremely ancient.

The Hebrews began, early after the invention of parchment, to write their scriptures on this material, of which the rolls of the law used in their synagogues are still composed.

Scriptural, like many other classes of MSS. originating previous to the eighth century and ink written either on parchment or vellum, or both, are in capital letters without spaces between words and exceedingly rare. The more important and valuable of them which apply to the New Testament are respectively known as the Sinaitic, the Vatican and the Alexandrian, many of whose various translations and readings are incorporated by Tischendorf in his Leipzig edition of the English New Testament. The stories relating to the discovery and obtaining of these relics of the first centuries of our era are startling ones. The reputation and standing, however, of the discoverers, and the investigations subsequently made by known scholars of their time, serves to invest them with a certain degree of truthfulness. The most interesting is the story about the Sinaitic codex, the oldest of any extant and which is best told by Madan:

"The story of the discovery of this famous manuscript of the Bible in Greek, the oldest existing of all the New Testament codexes, and in several points the most interesting, reads like a romance. Constantine Tischendorf, the well- known editor of the Greek Testament, started on his first mission litteraire in April, 1844, and in the next month found himself at the Convent of St. Catherine, at the foot of Mount Sinai. There, in the middle of the hall, as he crossed it, he saw a basket full of old parchment leaves on their way to the burning, and was told that two baskets had already gone! Looking at the leaves more closely, he perceived that they were parts of the Old Testament in Greek, written in an extremely old handwriting. He was allowed to take away forty-three leaves; but the interest of the monks was aroused, and they both stopped the burning, and also refused to part with any more of the precious fragments. Tischendorf departed, deposited the forty- three leaves in the Leipsig Library, and edited them under the title of the Codex Friderico-Au- gustanus, in compliment to the King of Saxony, in 1846. But he wisely kept the secret of their provenance, and no one followed in his track until he himself went on a second quest to the monastery in 1853. In that year he could find no traces whatever of the remains of the MSS. except a few fragments of Genesis, and returned unsuccessful and disheartened. At last, he once more took a journey to the monastery, under the patronage of the Russian Emperor, who was popular throughout the East as the protector of the Oriental Churches. Nothing could he find, however; and he had ordered his Bedouins to get ready for departure, when, happening to have taken a walk with the steward of the house, and to be invited into his room, in the course of conversation the steward said: 'I, too, have read a Septuagint,' and produced out of a wrapper of red cloth, 'a bulky kind of volume,' which turned out to be the whole of the New Testament, with the Greek text of the Epistle of Barnabas, much of which was hitherto unknown, and the greater part of the Old Testament, all parts of the very MSS. which had so long been sought! In a careless tone Tischendorf asked if he might have it in his room for further inspection, and that night (February 4-5, 1859) it 'seemed impiety to sleep.' By the next morning the Epistle of Barnabas was copied out, and a course of action was settled. Might he carry the volume to Cairo to transcribe? Yes, if the Prior's leave was obtained; but, unluckily the Prior had already started to Cairo on his way to Constantinople. By the activity of Tischendorf he was caught up at Cairo, gave the requisite permission, and a Bedonin was sent to the convent, and returned with the book in nine days. On the 24th of February, Tischendorf began to transcribe it; and when it was done, conceived the happy idea of asking for the volume as a gift to the Emperor of Russia. Probably this was the only possible plea which would have gained the main object in view, and even as it was there was great delay; but at last, on the 28th of September, the gift was formally made, and the MSS. soon after deposited in St. Petersburg, where it now lies. The date of this MSS. is supposed to be not later than A. D. 400, and has been the subject of minute inquiry in consequence of the curious statement of Simonides in 1862, that he had himself written it on Mount Athos in 1839-40."

Constantine Simonides was a Greek who was born in 1824 and is believed to have been the most versatile forger of the nineteenth century. From 1843 until 1856 he was in evidence all over Europe offering for sale fraudulent MSS. purporting to be of ancient origin.

In 1861 Madan says:

"He boldly asserted that he himself had written the whole of the Codex Sinaiticus which Tischendorf had bought in 1856 from the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The statement was, of course, received with the utmost incredulity; but Simionides asserted, not only that he had written it, but that, in view of the probable skepticism of the scholars, he had placed certain private signs on particular leaves of the codex. When pressed to specify these marks he gave a list of the leaves on which were to be found his initials or other monogram. The test was a fair one, and the MSS., which was at St. Petersburg, was carefully inspected. Every leaf designated by Simonides was found to be imperfect at the part where the mark was to have been found. Deliberate mutilation by an enemy, said his friends. But many thought that the wily Greek had acquired through private friends a note of some imperfect leaves in the MSS., and had made unscrupulous use of the information."

A curious kind of document, which links the classical times with the middle ages, in respect to the we of parchment, is afforded by the "palimpsests," or manuscripts from which old writing had been erased in order to make way for new. A well-prepared leaf of parchment was so costly an article in the middle ages, that the transcribers who were employed by the monastic establishments in writing often availed themselves of some old manuscript, from which they scraped off the writing; such a doubly-used piece of parchment was called a "palimpsest." This practice seems to have been followed long before, but not to so great an extent as about the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, at which time there were persons regularly employed as "parchment-restorers." The transcribers had a regular kind of knife, with which they scratched out the old writing, and they rubbed the surface with powdered pumice stone, to prepare it for receiving the new ink. So common was this practice that when one of the emperors of Germany established the office of imperial notary, it was one of the articles or conditions attached to the holding of the office that the notary should not use "scraped vellum" in drawing deeds. Sometimes the original writing, by a careful treatment of the parchment, has been so far restored as to be visible, and it is found to be parallel, diagonal, and sometimes at right angles to the writing afterwards introduced. In many cases the ancient writing restored beneath is found to be infinitely more valuable than the monkish legends written afterwards.

Cicero's De Republica was discovered by Angelo Mai in the Vatican library written under a commentary of St. Augustine on the Psalms; and the Institutions of Gains, in the library of the chapter of Verona, were deciphered in like manner under the works of St. Jerome.

Papyrus, parchment, and vellum were sometimes used together in the MSS. books. Thompson, author of "Greek and Latin Palaeography," observes:

"Examples, made up in book form, sometimes with a few vellum leaves incorporated to give stability, are found in different libraries of Europe. They are: The Homilies of St. Avitus, of the 6th century, at Paris; Sermons and Epistles of St. Augustine, of the 6th or 7th century, at Paris and Genoa; works of Hilary, of the 6th century, at Vienna; fragments of the Digests, of the 6th century, at Pommersfeld; the Antiquities of Josephus, of the 7th century, at Milan; an Isidore, of the 7th century, at St. Gall. At Munich, also, is the register of the Church of Ravenna, written on this material in the 10th century."

The rolls and records connected with the early parliamentary and legal proceedings in England furnish interesting examples of the use of parchment in writing. The "Records," so often alluded to in such matters, are statements or details, written upon rolls of parchment, of the proceedings in those higher courts of law which are distinguished as "Courts of Record." It has been stated that "our stores of public records are justly reckoned to excel in age, beauty, correctness, and authority whatever the choicest archives abroad can boast of the like sort."

The records are generally made of several skins or sheets of parchment or vellum, each sheet being about three feet long and often nine to fourteen inches in width. They are either all fastened together at one end, so as to form a kind of book, or are stitched end to end, so as to constitute an extended roll. These two methods appear each to have had its particular advantages, according to the way in which, and the time at which, the manuscript was filled up. Some of the records of the former of these two kinds contain so many skins of parchment that they form a huge roll equal in size to a large bass drum, and requiring the strength of two men to lift them. Some of these on the continuous plan are also said to be of immense size; one, of modern date, is nine hundred feet in length and employs a man three hours to unroll it. The invaluable old record, known by the name of "Doomsday Book," is shaped like a book, and is much more convenient to open than most of the others. Various other legal documents, to an immense amount, are "filed," or fastened together by a string passing through them.

It seems a very strange contradiction, but it is positively asserted as a fact, that the parchment employed for these records was of very fine quality down to the time of Elizabeth, but that it gradually deteriorated afterwards, insomuch that the latest are the worst. Some of these records and rolls are written in Latin, some in Norman French, and some in English.

The modes of depositing and carrying the ancient records were curious, and there seems to have been no very definite arrangement in this respect. Great numbers were kept in pouches or bags made of leather, canvas, cordovan, or buckram; they were tied like modern reticules. When such pouches have escaped damp they have preserved the parchment records for centuries perfectly clean and uninjured. Another kind of receptacle for records was a small turned box, called a "skippet," and another was the "hanaper," or hamper, a basket made of twigs or wicker-work. Chests, coffers, and cases of various shapes and sizes formed other receptacles for the records. The mode of finding the particular document required was not by a system of paging and an index, as in a modern book, because the arrangement of the written sheets did not admit of this, but there were letters, signs, and inscriptions, or labels for this purpose; they constitute an odd assemblage, comprising ships, scales, balances, castles, plants, animals, etc.; in most instances the signs or symbols bear some analogy, or supposed analogy, with the subject of the record, such as an oak on a record relating to the forest laws, a head in a cowl on one relating to a monastery, scales on one relating to coining, etc.

At a time when books were prepared by hand instead of by printing, and when each copy became very valuable, books were treated with a degree of respect which can be hardly understood at the present day. The clergy and the monks were almost exclusively the readers of those days, and they held the other classes of society in such contempt, in all that regarded literature and learning, that Bishop de Burg, who wrote about five centuries ago, expresses an opinion that "Laymen, to whom it matters not whether they look at a book turned wrong side upwards or spread before them in natural order, are altogether unworthy of any communion with books."

It is stated by Mr. Knight, in his "Life of Caxton:"

"We have abundant evidence, whatever be the scarcity of books as compared with the growth of scholarship, that the ecclesiastics laboured most diligently to multiply books for their own establishments. In every great abbey there was a room called the Scriptorium, where boys and novices were constantly employed in multiplying the service- books of the choir, and the less valuable books for the library; whilst the monks themselves laboured in their cells upon bibles and missals. Equal pains were taken in providing books for those who received a liberal education in collegiate establishments."

Warton says:

"At the foundation of Winchester College, one or more transcribers were hired and employed by the founder to make books for the library. They transcribed and took their food within the college, as appears by computation of expenses on their account now remaining. But there are many indications that even kings and nobles had not the advantage of scholars by profession, and, possessing few books of their own, had sometimes to borrow of their more favoured subjects."

We learn from another source that the great not only procured books by purchase, but employed transcribers to make them for their libraries. The manuscript expense account of Sir John Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, shows in 1467, Thomas Lympnor, that is Thomas the Limner of Bury, was paid the sum of fifty shillings and two pence for a book which he had transcribed and ornamented, including the vellum and binding. The limner's bill is made up of a number of items, "for whole vignettes, and half-vignettes, and capital letters, and flourishing and plain writing."

These transcribers and limners worked principally upon parchment and vellum, for the use of paper was by no means extensive until the invention of the art of printing. Some of the old manuscripts contain drawings representing a copier or transcriber at work, where the monk is represented as provided with a singular and tolerably complete set of apparatus to aid him in his work. The desk for containing the sheet or skin on which he is writing, the clasp to keep this sheet flat, the inkstand, the pen, and the knife, the manuscript from which the copy is being made, the desk for containing that manuscript, and the weight for keeping it in its place,—all are shown, with a clearness which, despite of bad perspective, renders them quite intelligible.

Of the two substances, parchment and vellum, before the invention of paper, another word or two may be said. Parchment is made from the skin of sheep or lambs; vellum, from that of very young calves (sometimes unborn ones), but the process of preparing is pretty much the same in both cases. When the hair or wool has been removed, the skin is steeped in lime water, and then stretched on a square frame in a light manner. While so stretched, it is scraped on the flesh side with a blunt iron, wetted with a moist rag, covered with pounded chalk, and rubbed well with pumice stone. After a time, these operations are repeated, but without the use of chalk; the skin is then turned, and scraped on the hair side once only; the flesh side is then scraped once more, and again rubbed over with chalk, which is brushed off with a piece of lambskin retaining the wool. All this is done by the skinner, who allows the skin to dry on a frame, and then cuts it out and sends it to the parchment maker, who repeats the operation with a sharper tool, using a sack stuffed with flocks (wool or hair) to lay the skin upon, instead of stretching it on a frame.

Respecting the quality, value, and preparation of parchment in past ages, it is stated in the "Penny Cyclopaedia" that parchment from the seventh to the tenth century was "white and good, and at the earliest of these periods it appears to have nearly superseded papyrus, which was brittle and more perishable. A very few books of the seventh century have leaves of parchment and papyrus mixed, that the former costly material might strengthen and support the friable paper. About the eleventh century it grew worse, and a dirty colored parchment is evidence of a want of antiquity. This may possibly arise from the circumstances that writers of this time prepared their own parchment, and they were probably not so skilled as manufacturers. A curious passage from a sermon of Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours, who was born in 1054, is a voucher for this fact. The sermon is on the "Book of Life," which he recommends his hearers to obtain:

'Do you know what a writer does? He first cleanses his parchment from the grease, and takes off the principal part of the dirt; then he entirely rubs off the hair and fibres with pumice stone; if he did not do so, the letters written upon it would not be good, nor would they last long. He then rules lines that the writing may be straight. All these things you ought to do, if you wish to possess the book which I have been displaying to you.'

At this time parchment was a very costly material. We find it mentioned that Gui, Count of Nevers, having sent a valuable present of plate to the Chartreux of Paris, the unostentatious monks returned it with a request that he would send them parchment instead."



CHAPTER XXX.

MODERN INK BACKGROUNDS (TRUE PAPER).

WHEN IT WAS THAT TRUE PAPER WAS INVENTED—CITATIONS FROM MUNSELL ABOUT CHINESE AND OTHER ANCIENT PAPER—A SHORT CHRONOLOGY FROM THE SAME AUTHOR—LINEN PAPER IN USE IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY—BOMBYCINE PAPER—DEVELOPMENTS OF THE MICROSCOPE—METHODS EMPLOYED IN ASCERTAINING ORIGIN OF LINEN PAPER BY MEERMAN—SOME OBSERVATIONS RELATIVE TO THE EVOLUTION OF PAPER —RAPID IMPROVEMENT IN QUALITY AFTER INVENTION OF PRINTING—CURIOUS CUSTOMS IN THE USE OF THE WATER MARK—NO DISTINCTIONS IN QUALITY OF PAPER USED FOR MSS. OR OTHER BOOKS—ANECDOTES AND OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE WATER MARK—ITS VALUE IN DETECTING FRAUDS—INTERESTING ANECDOTE OF ITS USE IN FABRICATING A FRAUD—FULLER'S CHARACTERIZATION OF THE PAPERS OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES—WHEN THE FIRST PAPER MILL WAS ESTABLISHED IN EUROPE FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF LINEN PAPER—DATE OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FIRST PAPER MILL IN AMERICA—WHO FIRST SUGGESTED WOOD AS A MATERIAL FOR MAKING PAPER—SOME NAMES OF AUTHORS ON THE SUBJECT OF PAPER—STORY OF RAG PAPER INSTRUCTIVE AS WELL AS INTERESTING.

WHEN it was that the great change occurred and true paper made of fibrous matter or rags reduced to a pulp in water was invented has been a subject of considerable thought and investigation. Munsell, in his "Chronology of Paper and Paper-Making," credits it to the Chinese, and estimates its date to be included in the first century of the Christian era. He observes:

"The Chinese paper is commonly supposed to be made of silk; but this is a mistake. Silk by itself cannot be reduced to a pulp suitable for making paper. Refuse silk is said to be occasionally used with other ingredients, but the greater part of the Chinese paper is made from the inner bark of the bamboo and mulberry tree, called by them the paper tree, hempen rags, etc. The latter are prepared for paper by being cut and well washed in tanks. They are then bleached and dried; in twelve days they are converted into a pulp, which is then made into balls of about four pounds weight. These are afterwards saturated with water, and made into paper on a frame of fine reeds; and are dried by being pressed under large stones. A second drying operation is performed by plastering the sheets on the walls of a room. The sheets are then coated with gum size, and polished with stones. They also make paper from cotton and linen rags, and a coarse yellow sort from rice straw, which is used for wrapping. They are enabled to make sheets of a large size, the mould on which the pulp is made into paper being sometimes ten or twelve feet long and very wide, and managed by means of Pulleys.

"The Japanese prepare paper from the mulberry as follows: in the month of December the twigs are cut into lengths not exceeding thirty inches and put together in bundles. These fagots are then placed upright in a large vessel containing alkaline ley, and boiled till the bark shrinks so as to allow about a half an inch of the wood to appear free at the top. After they are thus boiled they are exposed to a cool atmosphere, and laid away for future use. When a sufficient quantity has been thus collected, it is soaked in water three or four days, when a blackish skin which covered it is scraped off. At the same time also the stronger bark which is of a full year's growth is separated from the thinner, which covered the younger branches, and which yields the best and whitest paper. After it has been sufficiently cleansed out and separated, it must be boiled in clear ley, and if stirred frequently it soon becomes of a suitable nature.

"It is then washed, a process requiring much attention and great skill and judgment; for if it be not washed long enough, although strong and of good body, will be coarse and of little value; if washed too long it will afford a white paper, but will be spongy and unfit for writing upon. Having been washed until it becomes a soft and woolly pulp, it is spread upon a table and beat fine with a mallet. It is then put into a tub with an infusion of rice and breni root, when the whole is stirred until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed in a mass of proper consistence. The moulds on which sheets are formed are made of reeds cut into narrow strips instead of wire, and the process of dipping is like that of other countries. After being allowed to remain a short time in heaps under a slight pressure, the sheets are exposed to the sun, by which they are properly dried.

"The Arabians in the seventh century appear to have either discovered or to have learned from the Chinese or Hindoos, quite likely from the latter, the art of making paper from cotton; for it is known that a manufactory of such paper was established at Samarcand about the year 706 A. D, The Arabians seem to have carried the art to Spain, and to have there made paper from linen and hemp as well as from cotton.

"The art of manufacturing paper from cotton is supposed to have found its way into Europe in the eleventh century. The first paper of that kind was made of raw cotton; but its manufacture was by the Arabians extended to old worn-out cotton, and even to the smallest pieces it is said. But as there are cotton plants of various kinds, it was natural that they should produce papers of different qualities; and it was impossible to unite their woolly particles so firmly as to form a strong substantial paper, for want of sufficient skill and proper machinery, using as they did mortars and rude horse-mills. The Greeks, it is said, made use of cotton paper before the Latins. It came into Germany through Venice and was called Greek parchment.

"The Moors, who were the paper-makers of Spain, having been expelled by the Spaniards, the latter, acquainted with water mills, improved the manufacture so as to produce a paper from cotton nearly equal to that made of linen rags."

A chronology of paper relating to the earliest specimens of them can also be found in Munsell's work on that subject; several are here cited:

"A. D. 704. The Arabians are supposed to have acquired the knowledge of making paper of cotton, by their conquests in Tartary.

"A. D. 706. Casiri, a Spanish author, attributes the invention of cotton paper to Joseph Amru, in this year, at Mecca; but it is well known that the Chinese and Persians were acquainted with its manufacture before this period.

"A. D. 900. The bulls of the popes in the eighth and ninth centuries were written upon cotton paper.

"A. D. 900. Montfaucon, who on account of his diligence and the extent of his researches is great authority, wrote a dissertation to prove that charta bombycine, cotton paper, was discovered in the empire of the east toward the end of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century.

"A. D. 1007. The plenarium, or inventory, of the treasure of the church of Sandersheim, is written upon paper of cotton, bearing this date.

"A. D. 1049. The oldest manuscript in England written upon cotton paper, is in the Bodleian collection of the British Museum, having this date.

"A. D. 1050. The most ancient manuscript on cotton paper, that has been discovered in the Royal Library at Paris having a date, bears record of this year.

"A. D. 1085. The Christian successors of Moorish paper-makers at Toledo in Spain, worked the paper-mills to better advantage than their predecessors. Instead of manufacturing paper of raw cotton, which is easily recognized by its yellowness and brittleness, they made it of rags, in moulds through which the water ran off; for this reason it was called parchment cloth.

"A. D. 1100. The Aphorisms of Hippocrates, in Arabia, the manuscript of which bears this date, has been pronounced the oldest specimen of linen paper that has come to light.

"A. D. 1100. Arabic manuscripts were at this time written on satin paper, and embellished with a quantity of ornamental work, painted in such gay and resplendent colors that the reader might behold his face reflected as if from a mirror.

"A. D. 1100. There was a diploma of Roger, king of Sicily, dated 1145, in which be says that he had renewed on parchment a charter that had been written on cotton paper in 1100.

"A. D. 1102. The king of Sicily appears to have accorded a diploma to an ancient family of paper-makers who had established a manufactory in that island, where cotton was indigenous, and this has been thought to point to the origin of cotton paper, quite erroneously.

"A. D. 1120. Peter the Venerable, abbot of Clum, who flourished about this time, declared that paper from linen rags was in use in his day.

"A. D. 1150. Edrisi, who wrote at this time, tells us that the paper made at Xativa, an ancient city of Valencia, was excellent, and was exported to countries east and west.

"A. D. 1151. An Arabian author certifies that very fine white cotton paper was manufactured in Spain, and Cacim aben Hegi assures us that the best was made at Xativa. The Spaniards being acquainted with water-mills, improved upon the Moorish method of grinding the raw cotton and rags; and by stamping the latter in the mill, they produced a better pulp than from raw cotton, by which various sorts of paper were manufactured, nearly equal to those made from linen rags.

"A. D. 1153. Petrus Mauritius (the Abbi de Cluni), who died in this year, has the following passage on paper in his Treatise against the Jews; 'The books we read every day are made of sheep, goat, or calf skin; or of rags (ex rasauris veterum pannorum),' supposed to allude to modern paper.

"A. D. 1178. A treaty of peace between the kings of Aragon and Castile is the oldest specimen of linen paper used in Spain with a date. It is supposed that the Moors, on their settlement in Spain, where cotton was scarce, made paper of hemp and flax. The inventor of linen-rag paper, whoever he was, is entitled to the gratitude of posterity.

"A. D. 1200. Casiri positively affirms that there are manuscripts in the Escurial palace near Madrid, upon both cotton and hemp paper, written prior to this time."

Abdollatiph, an Arabian physician, who visited Egypt in 1200, says that the linen mummy-cloths were habitually used to make wrapping paper for the shopkeepers.

A document with the seals preserved dated A. D. 1239 and signed by Adolphus, count of Schaumburg is written on linen paper. It is preserved in the university of Rinteln, Germany, and establishes the fact that linen paper was already in use in Germany.

Specimens of flax paper and still extant are quite numerous, a very few of them having dates included in the eighth and ninth centuries.

The charta Damascena, so-called from the fact of its manufacture in the city of Damascus, was in use in the eighth century. Many Arabian MSS. on such a paper exist dating from the ninth century.

The charta bombycina (bombyx, a silk and cotton paper) was much employed during mediaeval periods.

The microscope, however, has demonstrated conclusively many things formerly in doubt and relating particularly to the matter of the character of fibre used in paper-making. One of the most important is the now established fact that there is no difference between the fibres of the old cotton and linen papers, as made from rags so named.

To ascertain the precise period and the particular nation of Europe, when and among whom the use of our common paper fabricated from linen rags first originated, was a very earnest object of research with the learned Meerman, author of a now exceedingly rare work on this subject and published in 1767. His mode of inquiry was unique. He proposed a reward of twenty-five golden ducats, to whoever should discover what on due examination should appear to be the most ancient manuscript or public document inscribed on paper manufactured from linen rags. This proposal was distributed through all parts of Europe. His little volume contains the replies which Meerman received. The scholars who remitted the result of their investigations were unable to distinguish between what they estimated as cotton or linen rags. They did, however, establish the fact that paper made of linen rags existed before 1308, and some of them even sought to give the honor of the invention to Germany. They also asserted that the most ancient English specimen of such a paper belonged to the year 1342.

The transformation of paper made from every conceivable fibrous material into what is commonly known as "linen" or true paper was of slow growth until after the invention of printing. Following that great event it is surprising, how, in so short a period, the manufacturers of paper improved its quality and the degree of excellence which it later attained. They imitated the old vellum so closely that it was even called vellum and is so known to this day. This class of paper was employed both for writing and printing purposes and has never been excelled, surpassing any like productions of modern times.

A curious custom came into vogue during the early infancy of the "linen" paper industry, which is of so much interest and possesses so curious a history as to be well worth mentioning. It is the water mark as it is commonly but erroneously termed in connection with paper manufacture.

Its origin dates back to the thirteenth century, though the monuments indicating its use before the time of printing are but few in number.

The real employment of the water mark may be said to have commenced at the time when it was a custom of the first printers to omit their names from their works. Also, it is to be considered that at this period comparatively few people could either read or write and therefore pictures, designs or other marks were employed to enable them to distinguish the paper of one manufacturer from another. These marks as they became common naturally gave their names to the different sorts of paper.

The earliest known water mark on linen paper represented a picture of a tower and was of the date of 1293. The next known water mark which can be designated is a ram's head and is found in a book of accounts belonging to an official of Bordeaux which was then subject to England. It is dated 1330.

In the fifteenth century there were no distinctions in the quality of paper used for manuscripts or for books. In the Mentz Bible of 1462 are to be found no less than three sorts of paper. Of this Bible, the water mark in some sheets is a bull's head simply, and in others a bull's head from whose forehead rises a long line, at the end of which is a cross. In other sheets the water mark is a bunch of grapes.

In 1498 the water mark of paper consisted of an eight pointed star within a double circle. The design of an open hand with a star at the top which was in use as early as 1530, probably gave the name to what is still called hand paper.

It appears that even so high a personage as Henry VIII of England in 1540 utilized the water mark in order to show his contempt for and animosity to Pope Paul III, with whom he had then quarreled, gave orders for the preparation of paper, the water mark of which was a hog with a miter: this he used for his private correspondence.

A little later, about the middle of the sixteenth century, the favorite paper mark was the jug or pot, from which would appear to have originated the term pot paper. Still another belonging to this period was the device of a glove.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the device was a fool's cap and which has continued by name as the particular size which we now designate fool's cap.

The water mark has continued to increase in popularity and to-day may be found in almost any kind of paper, either in the shape of designs, figures, numbers or names.

The circumstance of the water mark has at various times been the means of detecting frauds, forgeries and impositions in our courts of law and elsewhere. The following is introduced as a whimsical example of such detections and is said to have occurred in the fifteenth century, and is related by Beloe, London, 1807:

"The monks of a certain monastery at Messina exhibited to a visitor with great triumph, a letter which they claimed had been written in ink by the Virgin Mary with her own hand, not on the ancient papyrus, but on paper made of rags. The visitor to whom it was shown observed with affected solemnity, that the letter involved also a miracle because the paper on which it was written could not have been in existence until over a thousand years after her death."

An interesting example of the use of water marks on paper for fraudulent purposes is to be found in a pamphlet entitled "Ireland's Confessions." This person, a son of Samuel Ireland, who was a distinguished draughtsman and engraver, about the end of the eighteenth century fabricated a pretended Shakespeare MSS., which as a literary forgery was the most remarkable of its time. Previous to his confessions it had been accepted by the Shakespearean scholars as unquestionably the work of the immortal bard. The following is a citation from his Confessions:

"Being thus urged forward to the production of more manuscripts, it became necessary that I should posses; a sufficient quantity of old paper to enable me to proceed; in consequence of which I applied to a book-seller named Verey, in Great May's buildings, St. Martin's Lane, who, for the sum of five shillings, suffered me to take from all the folio and quarto volumes in his shop the fly leaves which they contained. By this means I was amply stored with that commodity—nor did I fear any mention of the circumstance by Mr. Verey, whose quiet, unsuspecting disposition, I was well convinced, would never lead him to make the transaction public; in addition to which, he was not likely even to know anything concerning the supposed Shakespearean discovery by myself, and even if he had, I do not imagine that my purchase of the old paper in question would have excited in him the smallest degree of suspicion. As I was fully aware, from the variety of water-marks, which are in existence at the present day, that they must have constantly been altered since the period of Elizabeth and being for some time wholly unacquainted with the water-marks of that age, I very carefully produced my first specimens of the writing on such sheets of old paper as had no marks whatever. Having heard it frequently stated that the appearance of such marks on the papers would have greatly tended to establish their validity, I listened attentively to every remark which was made upon the subject, and from thence I at length gleaned the intelligence that a jug was the prevalent water-mark of the reign of Elizabeth; in consequence of which I inspected all the sheets of old paper then in my possession, and having selected such as had the jug upon them, I produced the succeeding manuscripts upon these, being careful, however, to mingle with them a certain number of blank leaves, that the production on a sudden of so many water-marks might not excite suspicion in the breasts of those persons who were most conversant with the manuscripts."

Fuller, writing in 1662, characterizes the paper of his day:

"Paper participates in some sort of the character of the country which makes it; the Venetian being neat, subtle, and court-like; the French light, slight, and slender; and the Dutch thick, corpulent, and gross, sticking up the ink with the sponginess thereof. And he complains of the 'vast sums of money expended in our land for paper out of Italy, France, and Germany, which might be lessened were it made in our nation.' "

Ulman Strother in 1390 started his paper mill at Nuremberg in Bavaria which was the first paper mill known to have been established in Germany, and is said to have been the only one in Europe then manufacturing paper from linen rags.

Among the privy expenses of Henry VII of the year 1498 appears the following entry: "A reward given to the paper mill, 16s. 8d." This is probably the paper mill mentioned by Wynkin de Worde, the father of English typography. It was located at Hertford, and the water mark he employed was a star within a double circle.

The manufacture of paper in England previous to the revolution of 1688 was an industry of very small proportions, most of the paper being imported from Holland.

The first paper mill established in America was by William Rittenhouse who emigrated from Holland and settled in Germantown, Pa., in 1690. At Roxborough, near Philadelphia, on a stream afterwards called Paper Mill run, which empties into the Wissahicken river, was located the site which in company with William Bradford, a printer, he chose for his mill. The paper was made from linen rags, mostly the product of flax raised in the vicinity and made first into wearing apparel.

It was Reaumer, who in 1719 first suggested the possibility of paper being made from wood. He obtained his information on this subject from examination of wasps' nests.

Matthias Koops in 1800 published a work on "Paper" made from straw, wood and other substances. His second edition appeared in 1801 and was composed of old paper re-made into new. Another work on the subject of "Paper from Straw, &c.," by Piette, appeared in 1835, which said work contains more than a hundred pages, each one of which was made from a different kind of material.

Many other valuable works are obtainable which treat of rag paper manufacture and the stories they tell are instructive as well as interesting.



CHAPTER XXXI.

MODERN INK BACKGROUNDS (WOOD PAPER AND "SAFETY" PAPER).

SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT PAPER-MAKING MATERIALS—PROBABILITIES AS TO THE FUTURE OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS—ESTIMATION OF SUCH MATTERS BY THE LATE POPE—INVENTION OF WOOD-PULP PAPER —ITS LASTING QUALITIES—THE THREE KINDS OF SUCH PAPER DEFINED—DISCUSSION OF THE SUBJECT OF FUNGI IN PAPER BY GLYDE—SOME TESTS TO ASCERTAIN THE MATERIAL OF WHICH PAPER IS COMPOSED— TESTS AS TO SIZING AND THE DETERMINATION OF THE DIRECTION OF THE GRAIN—ABSORBING POWERS OF BLOTTING PAPER—TESTS FOR GROUND WOOD—NEW MODE OF ANALYSTS—WHEN THE FIRST "SAFETY" PAPER WAS INVENTED—THE MANY KINDS OF "SAFETY" PAPER AND PROCESSES IN THEIR MANUFACTURE— CHRONOLOGICAL REVIEW COVERING THIS SUBJECT— SURVEY OF THE VARIOUS PROCESSES IN THE TREATMENT AND USE OF "SAFETY" PAPER—ONLY THREE CHEMICAL "SAFETY" PAPERS NOW ON THE MARKET— WHY IT IS POSSIBLE TO RAISE SOME MONETARY INSTRUMENTS.

PAPER manufacturers have tried all the pulp-making substances. This statement to the unlearned must seem curious, because in the very early times they were content with a single material and that did not even require to be first made into the form of pulp. When the supply of papyrus failed, it was rags which they substituted. By the simplest processes they produced a paper with which our best cannot compare. In some countries great care is exercised in selecting the quality of paper for official use, in others none at all.

What will be the state of our archives a few hundred years hence, if they be not continually recopied?

Some of the printed paper rots even more quickly than written.

The late Pope at one time invited many of the savants, chemists and librarians of Europe, to meet at Einsiedlen Abbey in Switzerland. He requested that the subject of their discussions should be both ink and paper. He volunteered the information, already known to the initiated, that the records of this generation in his custody and under his control were fast disappearing and unless the writing materials were much improved he estimated that they would entirely disappear. It is stated that at this meeting the Pope's representative submitted a number of documents from the Vatican archives which are scarcely decipherable though dated in the nineteenth century. In a few of those of dates later than 1873 the paper was so tender that unless handled with exceptional care, it would break in pieces like scorched paper.

These conditions are in line with many of those which prevail with few exceptions in every country, town or hamlet.

A contributory cause as we know is a class of poor and cheap inks now in almost universal use. The other is the so-called "modern" or wood-pulp paper in general vogue.

Reaumur, as already stated, back in 1719 suggested from information gathered in examinations of wasps' nests, that a paper might be manufactured from wood. This idea does not appear to have been acted upon until many years later, although in the interim inventors were exhausting their ingenuity in the selection of fibrous materials from which paper might be manufactured.

The successful introduction of wood as a substitute for or with rags in paper manufacture until about 1870 was of slow growth; since which time vast quantities have been employed. In this country alone millions of tons of raw material are being imported to say nothing of home products.

Its value in the cause of progress of some arts which contribute greatly to our comfort and civilization cannot be overestimated, but nevertheless the wood paper is bound to disintegrate and decay, and the time not very far distant either. Hence, its use for records of any kind is always to be condemned.

There are three classes of wood pulp; mechanical wood, soda process, and the sulphite. The first or mechanical wood is a German invention of 1844, where the logs after being cut up into proper blocks, were then ground against a moving millstone against which they were pressed and with the aid of flowing water reduced to a pulpy form. This pulp was transported into suitable tanks and then pumped to the "beaters."

The soda process wood and sulphite wood pulp are both made by chemical processes. The first was invented by Meliner in 1865. The preparation of pulp by this process consists briefly in first cutting up the logs into suitable sections and throwing them into a chipping machine. The chips are then introduced into tanks containing a strong solution of caustic soda and boiled under pressure.

The sulphite process is substantially the same except that the chips are thrown into what are called digesters and fed with the chemicals which form an acid sulphite. The real inventor of this latter process is not known.

The chemicals employed in both of these processes compel a separation of the resinous matters from the cell tissues or cellulose. These products are then treated in the manufacturing of paper with few variations, the same as the ordinary rag pulp.

These now perfected processes are the results of long and continuing experimentations made by many inventors.

The following paper was read before the London Society of Arts by Mr. Alfred Glyde, in May, 1850, and is equally applicable to some of the wood paper of the present day:

"Owing to the imperfections formerly existing in the microscope, little was known of the real nature of the plants called fungi until within the last few years, but since the improvements in that instrument the subject of the development, growth, and offices of the fungi has received much attention. They compose, with the algae and lichens, the class of thallogens (Lindley), the algae existing in water, the other two in air only. A fungus is a cellular flowerless plant, fructifying solely by spores, by which it is propagated, and the methods of attachment of which are singularly various and beautiful. The fungi differs from the lichens and algae in deriving their nourishment from the substances on which they grow, instead of from the media in which they live. They contain a larger quantity of nitrogen in their constitution than vegetables generally do, and the substance called 'fungine' has a near resemblance to animal matter. Their spores are inconceivably numerous and minute, and are diffused very widely, developing themselves wherever they find organic matter in a fit state. The principal conditions required for their growth are moisture, heat, and the presence of oxygen and electricity. No decomposition or development of fungi takes place in dry organic matter, a fact illustrated by the high state of preservation in which timber has been found after the lapse of centuries, as well as by the condition of mummy-cases, bandages, etc., kept dry in the hot climate of Egypt. Decay will not take place in a temperature below that of the freezing point of water, nor without oxygen, by excluding which, is contained in the air, meat and vegetables may be kept fresh and sweet for many years.

"The action which takes place when moist vegetable substances are exposed to oxygen is that of slow combustion ('eremacausis'), the oxygen uniting with the wood and liberating a volume of carbonic acid equal to itself, and another portion combining with the hydrogen of the wood to form water. Decomposition takes place on contact with a body already undergoing the same change, in the same manner that yeast causes fermentation. Animal matter enters into combination with oxygen in precisely the same way as vegetable matter, but as, in addition to carbon and hydrogen, it contains nitrogen, the products of the eremacausis are more numerous, being carbon and nitrate of ammonia, carburetted and sulphuretted hydrogen, and water, and these ammoniacal salts greatly favor the growth of fungi. Now paper consists essentially of woody fibre, having animal matter as size on its surface. The first microscopic symptom of decay in paper is irregularity of surface, with a slight change of color, indicating the commencement of the process just noticed, during which, in addition to carbonic acid, certain organic acids are formed, as crenic and ulmic acids, which, if the paper has been stained by a coloring matter, will form spots of red on the surface. The same process of decay goes on in parchment as in paper, only with more rapidity, from the presence of nitrogen in its composition. When this decay has begun to take place, fungi are produced, the most common species being Penicilium glaucum. They insinuate themselves between the fibre, causing a freer admission of air, and consequently hasten the decay. The substances most successfully used as preventives of decay are the salts of mercury, copper, and zinc. Bichloride of mercury (corrosive sublimate) is the material employed in the kyanization of timber, the probable mode of action being its combination with the albumen of the wood, to form an insoluble compound not susceptible of spontaneous decomposition, and therefore incapable of exciting fermentation. The antiseptic power of corrosive sublimate may be easily tested by mixing a little of it with flour paste, the decay of which, and the appearance of fungi, are quite prevented by it. Next to corrosive sublimate in antiseptic value stand the salts of copper and zinc. For use in the preservation of paper the sulphate of zinc is better than the chloride, which is to a certain extent delinquescent."

There are numerous paper tests which include the matter of sizing, direction of the grain, absorbing powers, character of ingredients, etc. A few of them are cited.

SIZING.—The everyday tests as to hardness of sizing answer every ordinary purpose: Moisten with the tongue, and if the paper is slack-sized you can detect it often by the instant drawing or absorption of the moisture. Watch the spot moistened, and the longer it remains wet the better the paper is sized. Look through the spot dampened—the poorer the sizing the more transparent is the paper where it is wet. If thoroughly sized no difference will be apparent between the spot dampened and the balance of the sheet. When there is a question as to whether a paper is tub or engine sized, it can be usually decided by wetting the forefinger and thumb and pressing the sheet between them. If tub-sized, the glue which is applied to the surface will perceptibly cling to the fingers.

TO TEST THE INK RESISTING QUALITY OF PAPER.— Draw a heavy ink line across the sheet. If the paper is poorly sized, a feathery edge will appear, caused by spreading of the ink. Slack-sized paper will be penetrated by the ink, which will plainly appear on the reverse side of the sheet.

TO DETERMINE THE DIRECTION OF THE GRAIN.— An easy but sure test to determine the direction of the grain in a sheet of paper, which will be found useful and worth remembering, is as follows:

For instance, the size of sheet is 17x22 inches. Cut out a circular piece as nearly round as the eye can judge; before entirely detaching from the sheet, mark on the circle the 17-inch way and the 22-inch way; then float the cut out piece on water for a few seconds; then place on the palm of the hand, taking care not to let the edges stick to the hand, and the paper will curl until it forms a cone; the grain of the paper runs the opposite way from which the paper curls.

ABSORBING POWERS OF BLOTTING PAPER.—Comparative tests as to absorbing powers of blotting can be made between sheets of same weight per ream by allowing the pointed corner of a sheet to touch the surface of a drop of ink. Repeat with each sheet to be tested, and compare the height in each to which the ink has been absorbed. A well-made blotting paper should have little or no free fibre dust to fill with ink and smear the paper.

TEST FOR GROUND WOOD.—Make a streak across the paper with a solution of aniline sulphate or with concentrated nitric acid; the first will turn ground wood yellow, the second will turn it brown. I give aniline sulphate the preference, as nitric acid acts upon unbleached sulphite, if present in the paper, the same as it acts upon ground wood, viz., turning it brown.

Phloroglucin gives a rose-red stain on paper containing (sulphite) wood pulp, after the specimen has been previously treated with a weak solution of hydrochloric acid.

About the end of the eighteenth century it became necessary to make special papers denominated "safety paper." Their manufacture has continued until the present day although much limited, largely because of the employment of mechanical devices which seek to safety monetary instruments. Such safety papers are of several kinds.

1. Paper made with distinguishing marks to indicate proprietorship, as with the Bank of England water mark, to imitate which is a felony. Or the paper of the United States currency, which has silk fibers united with the pulp, the imitation of which is a felony.

2. Paper made with layers or materials which are disturbed by erasure or chemical discharge of written or printed contents, so as to prevent fraudulent tampering.

3. Paper made of peculiar materials or color, to prevent copying by photographic means.

A number of processes may be cited:

One kind is made of a pulp tinged with a stain easily affected by chlorine, acids, or alkalis, and is made into sheets as usual.

Water marks made by wires twined among the meshes of the wire cloth on which the paper is made.

Threads embodied in the web of the paper. Colored threads systematically arranged were formerly used in England for post-office envelopes and exchequer bills.

Silken fibers mixed with the pulp or dusted upon it in process of formation, as used in the United States currency.

Tigere, 1817, treated the pulp of the paper, previous to sizing, with a solution of prussiate of potash.

Sir Win. Congreve, 1819, prepared a colored layer of pulp in combination with white layers, also by printing upon one sheet and covering it with an outer layer, either plain or water-marked.

Glynn and Appel, 1821, mixed a copper salt in the pulp and afterward added an alkali or alkaline salt to produce a copious precipitate. The pulp was then washed and made into paper and thereafter dipped in a saponaceous compound.

Stevenson, 1837, incorporated into paper a metallic base such as manganese, and a neutral compound like prussiate of potash, to protect writing from being tampered with.

Varnham, 1845, invented a paper consisting of a white sheet or surface on one or both sides of a colored sheet.

Stones, 1851. An iodide or bromide in connection with ferrocyanide of potassium and starch combined with the pulp.

Johnson, 1853, employed the rough and irregular surface produced by the fracture of cast iron or other brittle metal to form a water mark for paper by taking an impression therefrom on soft metal, gutta- percha, etc., and afterward transferring it to the wire cloth on which the paper is made.

Scoutteten, 1853, treated paper with caoutchoue dissolved in bisulphide of carbon, in order to render it impermeable and to prevent erasures or chemical action.

Ross, 1854, invented water-lining or printing the denomination of the note in colors while the pulp was yet soft.

Evans, 1854, commingled a lace or open-work fabric in the pulp.

Courboulay, 1856, mixed the pulp and applied to the paper salts of iodine or bromine.

Loubatieres, 1857, manufactured paper in layers, any or all of which might be colored, or have impressions or conspicuous marks for preventing forgery.

Herapath, 1858, saturated paper during or after its manufacture with a solution of a ferrocyanide, a ferriccyanide, or sulphocyanide of potassium, sodium, or ammonium.

Seys and Brewer, 1858, applied aqueous solutions of ferrocyanide of potassium or other salts, which formed an indelible compound with the ferruginous base of writing ink.

Sparre, 1859, utilized opaque matter, such as prussian blue, white or red lead, insoluble in water and stenciled on one layer of the paper web, forming a regular pattern; this was then covered by a second layer of paper.

Moss, 1859, invented a coloring matter prepared from burned china or other clay, oxide of chromium or sulphur, and combined it with the pulp.

Barclay, 1859, incorporated with the paper:

1. Soluble ferrocyanides, ferricyanides, and sulphocyanides of various metals, by forming dibasic salts with potassium, sodium, or ammonium, in conjunction with vegetable, animal, or metallic coloring matters.

2. Salts of manganese, lead, or nickel not containing ferrocyanogen.

3. Ferrocyanides, etc., of potassium, sodium, and ammonium, in conjunction with insoluble salts of manganese, lead, or nickel.

Hooper, 1860. Employed oxides of iron, either alone or dissolved in an acid, and mixed with the pulp.

Nissen, 1860. Treated paper with a preparation of iron, together with ammonia, prussiate of potash and chlorine, while in the pulp or being sized.

Middleton, 1860. Joined together one portion of a bank note printed upon one sheet of thin paper and the other part on another; the two were then cemented together by india-rubber, gutta-percha, or other compound. The interior printing could be seen through its covering sheet, so that the whole device on the note appeared on its face.

Olier, 1861. Employed several layers of paper of various materials and colors; the middle one was colored with a deleble dye, whose color was changed by the application of chemicals to the outer layer.

Olier, 1863. Prepared a paper of three layers of different thicknesses, the central one having an easily removable color, and the external layers were charged with silicate of magnesia or other salt.

Forster and Draper, 1864. Treating paper during or after manufacture with artificial ultramarine and Prussian blue or other metallic compound.

Hayward, 1864. Incorporated threads of fibrous materials of different colors or characters into and among the pulp.

Loewenberg, 1866. Introduced prussiate of potash and oxalic acid or such other alkaline salts or acids into the pulp, in order to indicate fraud in the removal of cancellation stamps or written marks.

Casilear, 1868. Printed numbers on a fugitive ground, tint or color in order to prevent alteration of figures or numbers.

Jameson, 1870. Printed on paper, designs with ferrocyanide of potassium and then soaked the paper when dry in a solution of oxalic acid in alcohol.

Duthie, 1872. Made a ground work of writing ink of different colors by any known means of pen ruling.

Syms, 1876. Produced graduated colored stains, which were made to partially penetrate and spread in the pulp web.

Van Nuys, 1878. Colored the Paper with a pigment and then printed designs with a soluble sulphide.

Casilear, 1878. United two distinctive colored papers, one a fugitive and the other a permanent color.

Hendrichs, 1879. Dipped ordinary paper in an aqueous solution of sulphate of copper and carbonate of ammonia and then added alkaline solutions of cochineal or equivalent coloring matter.

Nowlan, 1884. Backed the ordinary chemical paper with a thin sheet of waterproof paper.

Menzies, 1884. Introduced iodide and iodate of potassium or their equivalents into paper.

Clapp, 1884. Saturated paper with gallo-tanic acid, but the ink used on this paper contained ferri-sesquichloride or other similar preparation of iron.

Hill, 1885. Introduced into paper, ferrocyanide of manganese and hydrated peroxide of iron.

Schreiber, 1885. Colored paper material with indigo and with a subsequent treatment of chromates soluble only in alcohol.

Schreiber, 1885. Treated finished paper with ferric- oxide salts and with ferrocyanides insoluble in water but soluble in acids.

Schlumberger, 1890. Impregnated white paper with a resinated ferrous salt, a resin compound of plumbic ferrocyanide, and a resin compound of ferrocyanide of manganese in combination with a salt of molybdenum and a resin compound of zinc sulphide.

Schlumberger, 1893. Dyed first the splash fibers and mixed them with the paper pulp. Second. He also treated portions of the surface with an alkali, so as to form lines or characters thereon, then immersed the same in a weak acid, in order to produce water-mark lines.

Carvalho, 1894. 1. Charged the paper with bismuth iodide and sodium iodide. 2. Charged the paper with a bismuth salt and iodide of soda in combination with primulin, congo red or other pigment. 3. Charged the paper with a benzidine dye and an alkaline iodide.

1895. Applied a compound, sensitive to ink erasing chemicals, AFTER the writing has been placed on the paper.

Hoskins and Weis, 1895, a safety paper having added thereto a soluble ferrocyanide and a per-salt of iron insoluble in water but decomposable by a weak acid in the presence of a soluble ferrocyanide, as and for the purpose described. (2) A safety paper having added thereto a ferrocyanide soluble in water, a per-salt of iron insoluble in water but easily decomposed by weak acids in the presence of a ferrocyanide soluble in water, and a salt of manganese easily decomposed by alkalis or bleaching agents, substantially as described.

A review of the various processes for treatment of paper in pulp or when finished, demonstrates that time, money and study has been devoted to the production of a REAL safety paper. Some compositions and processes have in a measure been successful. It is found, however, that the ingenuity of those evil-minded persons, to the detection of whose efforts to alter the writing in documents this class of invention has more particularly been directed, finds a ready way of removing in some cases the evidence which the chemical reagent furnishes. This being true most of them have become obsolete, having entirely failed to accomplish the purposes for which they were invented.

There are but three so-called safety papers now on the market, if we exclude those possessing printed designs in fugitive colors.

It is a strange anomaly, nevertheless it is true, that 90 per cent or more of the "raised" checks, notes, or other monetary instruments which were in their original condition written on ordinary or so-called safety paper, never could have been successfully "put through" but for the gross and at times criminal negligence of their writers by the failure to adopt precautions of the very simplest kinds, and thereby avoided placing temptation in the way of many who under other circumstances would never have thought of becoming forgers.

There is no safety paper, safety ink, or mechanical appliance which will prevent the insertion of words or figures before other words or figures if a blank space be left where the forger can place them.



CHAPTER XXXII.

CURIOSA (INK AND OTHER WRITING MATERIALS).

ARTIFICIAL INK AND PAPER OWE THEIR INVENTION TO THE WASP—PHoeNICIA, "LAND OF THE PURPLE-DYE" —LINES, ADDRESSED TO THE PHoeNICIAN—OLDEST EXISTING PIECE OF LITERARY COMPOSITION—WHERE PAPYRUS STILL GROWS—DU CANGE'S LINES ON THE STYLUS—MATERIALS USED TO PROMULGATE ANCIENT LAWS OF GREECE—ANCIENT METHOD OF WRITING WILLS—MATERIALS EMPLOYED IN ANCIENT HEBREW ROLLS—ANTIQUITY OF EXISTING HEBREW WRITING —OLDEST SPECIMEN OF GREEK WAX WRITING— WOODEN TALLIES AS EMPLOYED IN ENGLAND—WHEN WRITING IN GOLD CEASED—DATE OF THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF GREEK PAPYRUS IN EGYPT—PERIODS TO WHICH BELONG VARIOUS STYLES OF WRITING—ANECDOTE AND POEM ABOUT THE FIRST GOLD PEN—INTERESTING NOTES ABOUT PENS AND INK-HORNS—EMPLOYMENT OF THE PEN AS A BADGE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY—SOME LINES BY COCKER—THE OLDEST EXISTING WRITTEN DOCUMENTS OF RUSSIA—WHEN SEALING WAX WAS FIRST EMPLOYED—PLINY'S DESCRIPTION OF THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF PAPYRUS PAPER—MODE OF PRESERVING THE ANCIENT PAPYRUS ROLLS—SUGGESTIONS RESPECTING USES OF INK— COMPARATIVE TABLE ABOUT COAL TAR AND ITS BY- PRODUCTS—COMPOSITIONS OF SECRET INKS AND HOW TO RENDER THEM VISIBLE—CHARACTER OF INK EMPLOYED FOR MANY YEARS BY THE WASHINGTON PATENT OFFICE—FACTS ELICITED BY HERAPATH IN THE UNROLLMENT OF A MUMMY—LINES FROM SHAKESPEARE AND PERSEUS—SEVENTEENTH CENTURY OBSERVATIONS ABOUT SECRET INKS—CAUSE OF THE DESTRUCTION OF MANY ANCIENT MSS.—METHODS TO BE EMPLOYED IN THE RESTORATION OF SOME OLD INKS— VARIATIONS IN THE MEANING OF WORDS—THE POUNCE BOX PRECEDED BLOTTING PAPER—SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT BLOTTING PAPER—ANECDOTE RELATING TO DR. GALE—WHEN WAFERS WERE INTRODUCED— PERSIAN ANECDOTE ABOUT THE DIVES—EPISODES RESPECTING THE STYLUS—DESCRIPTION BY BELOE OF ANCIENT PERSIC AND ARABIC MSS.—CITATION FROM OLD BOSTON NEWSPAPER AND POEM—METHOD OF COLLECTING RAGS IN 1807 AND SOME LINES ADDRESSED TO THE LADIES—METHOD TO PHOTOGRAPH COLORED INKS—POEM BY ISABELLE HOWE FISKE.