654 MATERIALS TO WRITE UPON BEFORE INVENTION OF PRINTING. 



The use of the plant was not confined to making paper. The 

 root served for fuel. From the filjers of the stalk, dried and plaited, 

 rope was manufactured. The roofs of houses were also covered with 

 them. In case of famine the lower part of the stem was used for 

 food, although its nutritive value is very slight. The stems, cut 

 and joined together, served to make light rafts." 



The coarsest part of the papyrus was employed to make sails for 

 boats or a material Avhich the poor used for clothing. 



The most ancient Egyptian texts on papyrus extant date back to 

 3580-3536 before our era.^ Theophrastus speaks of it in his treatise 

 on plants. Pliny copied this in part, but not altogether faithfully. 

 The work of Pliny, however, possesses merit in a different direction. 

 It is to him we owe the description of the manufacture of paper. 

 Numerous writers have taken up Pliny's text, translating it, inter- 

 preting it, and even trying to manufacture paper.*^ Stodhart alone 

 seemed to have been succeeding in his attempt, when, unfortunately, 

 deatli interrupted his researches.'* A bit of papyrus of his manufac- 

 ture is preserved in the library of the French Institute. Dureau de 

 la Malle published a long memoir on this manufacture.'' He com- 

 plains of the obscurity of Pliny's text, in which o^jinion he is con- 

 firmed by Paoli.^ 



The following seems to have been the method in manufacturing- 

 paper from pajDyrus : 



The stalk, shortened at the top and base, was split by a sharp point 

 through its entire length into very fine strips. This operation was 

 generall}^ begun in the center, and the first two central strips were 

 reserved for the manufacture of paper of a superior quality. The 

 succeeding layers were reserved for the manufacture of paper of an 

 inferior quality. The two outside strips, composed almost exclusively 

 of bark, had to be rejected. There is no question, as some writers 

 have suggested, of the use of the bark; it was much too thin, com- 

 posed, like most of the monocotyledons, of cells of compact tissue, 

 filled with chlorophyl and perhaps with some traces of silica. 



oWere they rafts or boats? We can not determine from the texts. Even 

 to-flay the shore dwellers on the White Nile, the ("Jiilloiilvs. constnict a species 

 of raft from a reed called ambatch. ( Schweinfnrth : Tour dii monde, 1874, 

 pp. 287-28S.) 



& Hasting', op. cit.. Vol. IV, p. 944. 



c We may mention Guilandinus, Scaliger, ( 'aylus. dv Montfaucon, de .Jussicu, 

 Bruce, Cyrillo, etc. 



<* Saver io Landolina Nava could only succeed in ol)tainin.i:. in the eighteenth 

 century, a brittle pajuM-. Stodhart made his reseai-clics in 18:U. 



" Memo ire snr la fabrication du papier chez les anciens. (Acad, des Inscr. 

 et B. L. Mem. t. XXIX. 1851. p. 140 et seq.) 



Z' Paoli (C). Del papiro specialmentc considerato come materia che ha 

 servito alia scrittura. Firenze, 1878, 8°. 



