PAPER-REED. 129 



paper-reed of Egypt. Herodotus, in speaking of the intro 

 duction of letters into Greece by the Phoenicians, says that 

 the lonians used skins to write upon when the biblos was 

 scarce, and called their books clipthera, or skins, because they 

 were made of that material. Hence Attains, King of Per- 

 gamus, who lived long after, only invented a method of 

 smoothing and preparing skins for the purposes of writing. 

 He thus became the inventor of parchment only so far as regards 

 the quality, and was not, as some have thought, the first to 

 suggest writing upon skins. This invention of Attains was 

 one of necessity, following upon the refusal of a certain 

 Egyptian monarch to permit his subjects to export paper, as 

 some suppose, from a fit of commercial jealousy. 



The word in the original translated &quot;paper-reed&quot; occurs in 

 Isa. xix. 7, and is supposed by Celsius to refer to any grassy reed ; 

 and the word translated &quot;bulrush&quot; in Ex. ii. 3, Job viii. 11, and 

 Isa. xviii. 2 and xxxv. 7, is thought to be the real and ancient 

 name of the paper-reed. If so, then Moses s ark of bulrushes 

 was constructed from the papyrus. This seems the more 

 probable, since Isaiah xviii. 2 refers the vessels of bulrushes to 

 Ethiopia, where the papyrus was a native reed. From an 

 examination of the various passages just referred to, and in 

 which the Hebrew word yome occurs, we may suppose that 

 the paper-reed is meant. It is the most important reed, is 

 better suited to the construction of vessels, and is more easily 

 managed in making little articles not requiring much skill in 

 formation. The general sentiment of the context in Isaiah to 

 which we have referred, as alone properly containing the word 



