128 PAPER-REED. 



this reed, namely, for the manufacture of a material suitable 

 to be written upon. The ancient name of this plant with the 

 Egyptians w r as biblos, which gave rise to the name of the 

 oldest book, the Bible, as the common name &quot;papyrus&quot; did to 

 the modern &quot;paper.&quot; According to Pliny, the method of 

 forming sheets of paper from the reed was as follows. A part 

 of the stem was cut off as long as the page of the intended 

 book. This section was then peeled or unfolded; for the rind 

 of the reed is wrapped together as a little piece of paper would 

 be if rolled between the ringers, and the forming of a page of 

 papyrus was like the unrolling of such a piece of rolled paper. 

 The papyrus, having been unrolled as near to the heart of the 

 reed as possible, was cleaned and glued to other strips, till the 

 desired size was obtained, additional strips having been pasted 

 or glued across the face of the newly-formed page. The whole 

 was then put beneath a smooth surface on which weights 

 were placed, and left to flatten. Though some have attempted 

 to form paper after this method in later times with but indif 

 ferent success, it must be remembered that an inexperienced 

 and imperfect trial of one or two sheets cannot be compared 

 with the constant and skilful practice of the ancients. 



The delicate material often brought from China and India, 

 called rice-paper, upon which such beautiful paintings can 

 be executed, is not, as many suppose, formed of a rice paste, 

 but is cut from the pith of a rush which grows abundantly 

 upon the banks of the Ganges, and from a plant of the aralia 

 family called Aralia papyri/era^ or paper ivy, and is prepared 

 very much in the same manner as paper was made from the 



