170 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1934 



" scrap of paper " it was responsible for developments leading to 

 the Great War in 1914. 



Civilization proper is generally considered to have begun v?ith the 

 development of a system of writing, perhaps 10,000 years ago. For 

 this, cellulose can claim no credit, since early writings were on clay 

 and stone long before the advent of papyrus. However, when in 

 more recent years cellulose, as paper, became the silent bearer of the 

 written and later the printed word, it became the messenger of the 

 guiding forces of civilization. It is in this role that cellulose has 

 reached its highest significance, making possible many things which 

 had not been feasible before, through the easy and ready dissemina- 

 tion of information to great masses of people. 



At about the same time that the manufacture of paper was being 

 introduced into Europe there were also other developments depend- 

 ent upon the use of cellulose which were of such outstanding im- 

 portance as to have changed the whole trend of civilization. It 

 was in the thirteenth century that Roger Bacon ^ first described 

 black powder, to which he gave the name " philosopher's egg.^^ 

 How strikingly time has shown the aptness of this picturesque title 

 and what events of first importance have been hatched from it ! 

 When used in guns, as it was in the fourteenth century, it put a new 

 power in the hands of the common people and changed the entire 

 social system. Truly did Bacon write, referring to his anagram in 

 which he gave the secret of gunpowder, " Whoever will rewrite 

 this will have a key which opens and no man shuts; and when he 

 will shut, no man opens." And an essential part of this " key " was 

 charred cellulose. Again the ready availability of cellulose con- 

 tributed its part to an epoch-making step in the advance of civiliza- 

 tion. Even today charcoal from willow and beech is preferred for 

 the manufacture of black powder. 



It has been said that this particular period was a great period of 

 leveling; that gunpowder was a great leveling influence downward 

 for the mighty and that the printed page was a great leveling 

 influence upward for the lowly. At any rate paper has now come 

 into universal use throughout the civilized world. It may be only 

 to wrap a bundle or it may be to record a thesis which starts a 

 reformation. It may be to carry a love message or it may be to 

 announce a declaration of independence. It may be merely the kin- 

 dling which lights the fire on the hearth or it may be the scrap of 

 paper which starts a world conflagration. 



To be sure, paper had been known in China for several hundred 

 years before the Christian era, but its use was not established in 

 Europe until about the twelfth or thirteenth century. The story is 



2 Davis, Ind. and Eng. Chem., vol. 20, p. 772, 1928. 



