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 fil)ers of the stalk, dried and plaited, 

 rope was manufactured. The roofs of houses were also covered AA'ith 

 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 which 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 ta 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 attemj^t, when, unfortunately, 

 death interrupted his researches.** A bit of papyrus of his manufac- 

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

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

 plains of the obscurity of Pliny's text, in which opinion he is con- 

 firmed by Paoli.'^ 



The following seems to have been the method in manufacturing 

 paper from papyrus: 



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 

 generally 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, 



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

 to-day the shore dwellers on the White Nile, the Chiliouks. construet a species 

 of raft from a reed called aml)atch. (Schweinfurth : Tour du uionde, 1874, 

 l.p. 287-288.) 



«- Hasting, op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 044. 



c We may mention Guilandinus, Scaliger, Caylus, de Montfaucon. de .lussieu, 

 Bruce, Cyrillo, etc. 



<i Saverio Landolina Xava could only succeed in obtaining, in the eighteenth 

 century, a brittle paper. Stodhart made his researches in 1834. 



e Memoire sur la fabrication du i»a))ier chez les anciens. (Acad, des Inscr. 

 et P,. L. Mem. t. XXIX, 1851, p. 140 et seq. ) 



/ Paoli (C. ). Del papiro specialmente considerato come materia che ha 

 servito alia scrittura. Firenze, 1878, 8°. 



