Chap. 27.] THE BOOKS OF JHTHA. 191 



spots, too, may be detected by the eye ; but the streaks that 

 run down the middle of the leaves where they have been 

 pasted together, though they render the paper spongy and of 

 a soaking nature, can hardly ever be detected before the ink 

 runs, while the pen is forming the letters ; so many are the 

 openings for fraud to be put in practice. The consequence is, 

 that another labour has been added to the due preparation 

 of paper. 



CHAP. 26. THE PASTE USED IN THE PREPARATION OF PAPER. 



The common paper paste is made of the finest flour of wheat 

 mixed with boiling water, and some small drops of vinegar 

 sprinkled in it : for the ordinary workman's paste, or gum, 

 if employed for this purpose, will render the paper brittle. 

 Those, however, who take the greatest pains, boil the crumb 

 of leavened bread, and then strain off the water : by the 

 adoption of this method the paper has the fewest seams caused 

 by the paste that lies between, and is softer than the nap of 

 linen even. All kinds of paste that are used for this purpose, 

 ought not to be older or newer than one day. The paper is 

 then thinned out with a mallet, after which a new layer of 

 paste is placed upon it ; then the creases which have formed 

 are again pressed out, and it then undergoes the same process 

 with the mallet as before. It is thus that we have memorials 

 preserved in the ancient handwriting of Tiberius and Caius 

 Gracchus, which I have seen in the possession of Pomponius 

 Secundus, 28 the poet, a very illustrious citizen, almost two 

 hundred years since those characters were penned. As for the 

 handwriting of Cicero, Augustus, and Virgil, we frequently 

 see them at the present day. 



CHAP. 27. (13.) THE BOOKS OF NTJMA. 



There are some facts of considerable importance which make 

 against the opinion expressed by M. Varro, relative to tho 

 invention of paper. Cassius Hemina, a writer of very great 

 antiquity, has stated in the Fourth Book of his Annals, that 

 Cneius Terentius, the scribe, while engaged in digging on his 



2S See B. vii. c. 18, and B. xiv. c. 6. Also the Life of Pliny, in the 

 Introduction to Vol. i. p. vii. 



