PARCHMENT. 



PARCHMENT, VEGETABLE. 



Ml 



nble joint tenant* in having a unity of UUe and one 

 i mw~ , but the unity of title can only be by deeoent, and 

 U no aorvivunhip among parcener. ; U one of them die*, her 

 heir b parcener with UM un ivor or survivors. Parcener* resemble 

 tenant* m common, ia having **h a moiety or esveral intenet in the 

 knd which ha* deeeended to them. It follow* from the nature of thu 

 Inter***. UtatoiM parcener may either enfeoff another parcener of her 



undivided there beta* partition, the alienee i* tenant in common with 

 Uw other parcener*. 



j may voluntarily make partition of the laud among them ; 



or any one might formerly ooroprl her coparcener* to make such 

 division by a writ entitled de partitione facienda, which was also 

 oppuotU* to the TIT of joint tenant* and tenant* in common. The 

 CuunofChanceiY in ooune of time acquired a jurisdiction in these 

 , and a bill may be filed in chancery by a parcener, praying for 

 , which prayer will be granted on the parcener making out 

 The partition i* effected by iasuing a commission out of 

 ebaneery to rnnnmiitl-irr, who set out and divide the lands, upon 

 which the partial execute mutual conveyance*. When partition is 

 made the Mveral parcener* h.'M their lands as several and distinct 

 estate*. By statute 8 A 9 Viet, c. 104, a deed U made necessary to a 

 partition. It might previously have been effected by a writing not 

 under aeaL The general Inolosure Act, 8*9 Viet, c. 118, contains a 

 provi.ii* by which the Inclosure Commissioner* ore enabled to effect 

 partition* in a more compendious mode than that of a suit in chancery. 

 (t BUckst. ' Comm.; p. 820, Mr. Kerr ed.) 



Coparcenary may exist among male* and females. For instance, if a 

 man has two daughters, and one of them die* in his life-time, but 

 leaving a eon and daughter*, and then the father dies, the son of the 

 deoieeiil daughter will be coparcener with his aunt ; for he must trace 

 his deeoent through hi* mother, who, if ahe had survived her father, 

 would not have been his heir, but together with her sister, who did 

 urviv* the father, would have made his heir. 



By a recent Act ( 3 A 4 Will. IV., c. 27, s. 12 ) it is declared that 

 when a parcener has been in poasenion of more than her share of the 

 land, or in the receipt of more than her share of the rent, held in 

 coparcenary, for her own benefit or for the benefit of some other 

 persons than her coparceners, such possession or receipt by her shall 

 not be considered the possession or receipt of her coparceners. 



When all the sons take the land equally among them by descent, 

 a* in the oas* of gavelkiud lands in Kent, they are parceners by 

 custom. 



Coparcenary U not very common at present, lands being generally 

 so settled as to prevent iu occurrence. The chief rules as to copar- 

 cenary are stated in Comyn'i ' Digest,' ' Parcener ; ' and in Littleton, 

 b. iii., ' Of Parceners." 



PARCHMENT is the akin of on animal prepared for writing upon. 

 The name i* a corruption of the Latin Peryamma, from Pergamus, 

 the alleged place of iu invention. Parchment i* said to have been 

 invented by Eumene* II., king of Pergamus (who reigned B.C. 197- 

 169), in consequence of the prohibition of the export of papyrus from 

 Egypt by Ptolemy Epiphanes; but parchment of at least 1000 years 

 earlier date U in the collection* of the British Museum. [PAPYRUS.] 

 The probability is, that some improvement wo* mode in the manu- 

 facture at Pergamus. The word Pergauiena was not used until several 

 centuries after the death of Eumenes. Tatto, a monk of the 4th 

 century, U, according to Mabillon, the first writer in whose works it 

 U met with. Previou* to hi* time the usual term wo* membrana, 

 which i* the word we find in the Oreek Testament, 2 Timothy, iv 13. 



The ancient parchment must have been exceedingly fine, if we are 

 to believe the story of Cicero's having oen the ' Iliad"' written on this 

 material enclosed in a nut shell ; but for this we have only Pliny * 

 authority. (' Hut. Nat,' vii., c. 21.) The parchment of the 7tb to the 

 loth century wa* white and good ; and at the earliest of these periods it 

 appear* to have nearly superseded papyrus, which was brittle and more 

 perishable. A very few books of the 7th century have leaves of parch- 

 ment and papyrus mixed, that the former costly material might 

 strengthen and support the friable paper. About the 1 1th century it 

 grew worse. Thi* may possibly have ariwn from the circumstance, 

 that writers of thi* time prepared their own parchment, and that 

 they were probably not ao skilful as manufacturer*; and a dirty 

 coloured parchment i* evidence of a want of antiquity. A curious 

 passage from a sermon of Hildebert, archbishop of Tours, who wa* born 

 in 1 064, U a voucher for thi* fact The sermon is on the Book of Life,' 

 which he recommends his hearer* to obtain. " Do you know what a writer 

 doe* 1 He first cleanse* hi* parchment from the grease, and takes off the 

 principal part of UM dirt ; then he entirely rubs off the hair and fibres 

 with pumice stone ; If be did not do so, the letter* written upon it 

 would not be good, nor would they last long. He then rules lines, 

 that the writing may be straight All these things you ought to do, 

 if you KUb to pojees* the bo k which I have been displaying to you." 

 (Sermon xv., Paris, 17u8, fol.) At thi* time parchment was a" very 

 ooetiy material; we find it mentioned that Out, count of Never*, 

 hav.ng Mut a valuable present of plate to the Chartreux of Paris, the 

 unostanut ous monks returned it with a request that he would send 

 them parchment instead. It had long been curtomory to erase ancient 

 writing from parchment by rubbing it with pumicc-etone. When the 



custom began we do not know ; but it had became common in the 

 I'th and loth centuries [I'ALIMPSKST.] But the invention ot linen 

 paper came in aid to the uses of parchment ; and when ita manu- 

 facture became cheap, it uperseded the more ooetiy article for all 

 purpoee* except those in which luxury was aimed at or uncommon 

 durability required. 



Parchment i* ordinarily made of the skin of sheep or lambs. For 

 drum* it i* often made of goat or wolf skins ; the parchment with 

 which church-book* are covered i* made of pigs' skins. Vellum is a 

 finer, smoother, and whiter sort of parchment, mode of the skin* of 

 very young oalvee. 



Whatever may be the kind of skin used, the procees of manufacturing 

 is the lame. When the skin U divested of it* hair or wool, it is placed 

 for some time in a lime-pit, and then stretched on a square wooden 

 frame drawn tight by pegs. When in the frame, it is first scraped on 

 the flesh side with a blunt iron, then wetted with a moist rag, 

 covered with pounded chalk, and rubbed well with pumice-stone; 

 after a short pause, these operation* ore repeated, but without 

 chalk ; the skin is then turned and scraped on the hair side once only ; 

 the flesh side is scraped once more, and again rubbed over with chalk, 

 which must be brushed off with a piece of lamb-akin retaining the 

 wool All this is done by the skinner, who allows the skin to dry in 

 the frame, and theu cuts it out and sends it to the parchment-maker, 

 who repeat* the operations with a sharper tool, using a sack stuffed 

 with flocks to lay the skin upon instead of stretching it in a frame. 

 One of the largest pieces of parchment ever prepared forms port of a 

 drum mode by Mr. H. Distin for the Crystal Palace, and first used in 

 June, 1860 ; it is 7 feet in diameter. 



There is a kind of parchment made from refuse fish. The skin and 

 offal being removed, all the rest is mixed with a dilute solution of soda 

 ashes or carbonate of potash, and then with a dilute solution of 

 muriatic acid. The mass is then pulped, washed over sieves to remove 

 the bones, &c., drained or pressed, and saturated with a dilute solution 

 of bichloride of mercury. When washed thoroughly, the pulp is 

 formed into sheets in the same way as paper; and these sheets 

 are finally rolled and pressed to equalise the surface. The sheets 

 may either be used as parchment or may be tanned into a kind of 

 leather. 



PARCHMENT, VEGETABLE, is a substance lately brought into 

 notice, as an important addition to the materials for manufactures. It 

 is in fact, paper, but paper so altered as to possess many of the 

 qualities of parchment. Messrs. Mongolfier, of Paris, have a mode of 

 so preparing paper as to convert it into a kind of parchment, applicable, 

 among other purposes, as a substitute for goldbeaters'-skin ; but Mr. 

 Game's vegetable parchment is a different substance. As described 

 before the Royal Institution, in 18A7, it appears to be paper altered in 

 it* texturol qualities by the action of sulphuric acid. [PAPYRIN.] Very 

 little more is required than dipping a sheet of paper into the acid ; but 

 then the strength of the acid must be exactly determined. The peculiar 

 effects of acids and alkalies on paper were known long before a* in 

 Kuhlmann's pyroxylised texture. Pelouze's gun paper, and Mercer's 

 process for fibrous textiles ; but Mr. Game's success depends mainly on 

 the adoption of one particular strength of sulphuric acid, mixed with 

 half its bulk of water. A sheet of paper being dipped in this liquid, 

 it is almost instantly changed in character. It becomes tough, hard, 

 and fibrous, without any alteration of weight. It gives a writing surface 

 far better thim that of animal parchment. It receives oil* and varnishes 

 freely. It bears rubbing better than any kind of paper, and almost as 

 well as sheepskin. It will serve as a substitute for vellum in book- 

 binding ; as a material for policies, certificates, &o. ; as a strong paper 

 for school-books : and as covering for jars and bottles of various kinds. 

 Ordinary paper, even after being printed on, can be converted into this 

 vegetable parchment. The substance is so strong, that a ring seven- 

 eighths of an inch in width, and weighing only 28 grains, is said to 

 bear a suspended weight of 92 Ibs. 



Soon after Mr. Qaine's process became known, and commercially 

 introduced by Messrs. De la HUB. Mr. W. Crookes mode experiments 

 to determine it* possible or practicable relation to photography. He 

 pussed sli i>s of paper-photographs through acid of the required strength, 

 and found that the colours and tints, even in the delicate half-tones, 

 remained intact ; that the uniform contraction of the paper added 

 materially to the sharpness of the picture ; that thu paper became 

 much stronger than before; that it would bear rough 'hondl ing iinuu- 

 diately, without tearing ; that the non-albunienised photographs 

 acquired a peculiar glossy appearance, giving a rich finish without 

 glare ; and that the picture might be washed with soap and water, and 

 rubbed with a cloth, without injury. 



Professor Musohamp, of Wurtemberg, has devised a mode of making 

 paper waterproof, without, however, giving it those qualities wUdn 

 belong to vegetable parchment. He dissolves 24 ozs. of alum and 4 OZH. 

 of white soap in 2 Ibs. of water ; also, 2 ozs. of gum arabic, and 6 ozs. 

 of glue, in 2 Ibs. of water ; the two solutions are mixed, and the sheets 

 of paper dipped into the mixture while warm. The sheets are hung 

 up till dry, and sometime* also passed between roller*. The paper 

 thus prepared is intended for packages exposed to the weather. 



PARCLOSE. or PEUCLOSE, an enclosure ; in Gothic architecture 

 the screen or railing which encloses anything, or separates it from 

 the main body of the church. Thus the screen or railing which 



