650 MATERIALS TO WRITE UPON BEFORE INVENTION OF PRINTING. 



Shavings of Avood, taken olt' by the phine, were also utilized. 

 Theophrastus cites nn example of it," and Paneirot says that the 

 Lombards joined these shavings by means of glue and thus manufac- 

 tured a sort of paper.'' The idea of writing on wood is not lost in 

 c>ur days. Entire books are Avritten on leaves of wood resembling 

 thin veneer. Visiting cards of Avood are sometimes seen. In Cliina 

 paper and envelopes are used where the jjaper is exceedingly thin 

 and is covered with a pellicle of wood. The school primers of the 

 p]ast — Algeria, Turkey, and other Moslem regions — are made of 

 snuill boards (pi. iv), recalling in form the Egyptian tablai, upon 

 which the letters or sentences from the Koran are written. The 

 inscriptions, which are so curious, but which have not yet been de- 

 ciphered, discovered on Easter Island, are engraved upon wood. 

 AVood is even at the present day employed in China for engraving 

 characters in relief, which are subsequently printed. Our xylo- 

 graphic plates of the fifteenth centurv were also of wood. 



Finally, wood is still employed to make blackboards, in use in 

 schools. 



In the remotest times the ancients used the outer bark of trees for 

 writing, but the numerous inequalities and the frequently jxreat 

 fragility of the bark caused it to be abandoned, with the exception 

 of that of the cherry, the linden, and the birch. The}' sought to 

 utilize the inner bark, or liber, of the tree, and employed by prefer- 

 ence that of the pine, the fir, and the linden.'' The Greeks and the 

 Ronums wrote extensive works upon the prepared bark of trees. 



The leaves of trees have also l^een used. The Syracusans voted by 

 writing on olive leaves, whence the word petalism, a synonym of 

 ostracism.'' The leaves of several other trees, among them the mal- 

 loAv, contributed to the same purpose. A sort of tissue was made 

 from the leaA'es of a certain palm. 



In Persia, a great part of Asia, India, Indo-China, China, Borneo, 

 Sumatra, even in Oceania, ]3repared leaves of trees, particularly 

 of certain palms, were and are still made use of. In Malaysia they 

 use the leaves of cabbage palms, dried, polished, or covered Avith a 

 brilliant or gilt varnish; it is after these successiA'e preparations 

 that they trace the charactei's with a pencil or engraA^e them Avith a 

 A'ery fine point. Certain books, formed thus, resemble a good deal 

 the slats of our Venetian blinds, oi)ening and closing in the same 

 manner. In the ^laldiA'es they use the leaf of the nuikarekau, 

 Avhich has a breadth of 1 foot and a length of 3 feet.'' 



« Geraud, op. cit., p. 21. 

 J' Ibid. 



'' (J<'M"!Uid. op. cit., iii». Ui, 17. 

 '' Ibid., p. 15. 



