WRITING WHY-NECK. 



125 



another and very ancient material for writing upon. 

 The obvious convenience of this substance must 

 have caused its adoption as soon as any means were 

 devised for preserving it from spoiling; and the 

 large size of skins, added to their pliability, must 

 have caused them to be preferred to leaves of trees. 

 It is most probable that the rolls of books men- 

 tioned by Ezekiel, Isaiah, and other prophets, were 

 rolls of skins ; and the very ancient copies of the 

 Bible preserved by the Jews of Cochin, in India, 

 are said to be of leather. These skins would na- 

 turally be made as white as it was practicable, in 

 order to receive and show the ink, and thus by de- 

 grees would parchment be invented. The inven- 

 tion of parchment is usually attributed to Eumenes, 

 King of Pergamus, who reigned in the third cen- 

 tury before the Christian Era. He was the founder 

 of an extensive library, in which the new manufac- 

 ture was largely introduced. The use of this arti- 

 cle, aided by that of paper from papyrus, which was 

 first brought from Egypt about the same time, had 

 a most beneficial influence in diffusing literature. 

 Its whiteness, strength, and size, gave it a prefer- 

 ence over every other material ; and to its durabi- 

 lity we chiefly owe the remains of ancient science 

 which have reached our times. Even at the pre- 

 sent day, with all our improvements in paper-mak- 

 ing, the use of parchment for documents of import- 

 ance prevails over that of paper. Its English name 

 is most probably a corruption of the ancient one, 

 Pergamena, which was derived from that of the 

 place where it was first manufactured or most used. 



The Egyptian paper, from the papyrus-plant, was 

 for a long time as much in use as parchment. The 

 papyrus-plant is described under Papyrus ; but the 

 paper made from it was not what we understand 

 by the term, a mass of torn fragments of vegetable 

 matter, evenly spread out, and joined together by 

 size and their own adhesiveness ; it was a species 

 of inner bark, or thin pellicle, separated from the 

 plant by a sharp tool, and pasted together in layers 

 until it attained the desired size and thickness, 

 when it was pressed and polished. This sort of 

 paper continued to be used contemporaneously with 

 parchment until about the twelfth century, when 

 the introduction of modern paper caused it to be 

 disused, and the art of making it was lost. It was 

 very extensively employed by the Romans, and by 

 the Greeks in Rome. All the rolls burned at Her- 

 culaneum, and preserved by the fire which appeared 

 to destroy them, were written on papyrus. No 

 other writing is known to exist of nearly that age, 

 although we have some undoubted specimens of 

 ancient Egyptian papyrus. We may observe, how- 

 ever, that many old manuscripts said to be on pa- 

 pyrus are in reality written on cotton-paper. 



In the ninth or tenth century, the use of paper, 

 properly so called, was introduced into Europe. 

 This article had already been manufactured in China, 

 from a remote period (A. D. 95), of the internal 

 substance of the bamboo, sometimes of the mulberry- 

 tree, and occasionally of cotton. About the mid- 

 dle of the seventh century the manufacture was 

 brought to Samarcand, or perhaps this city was only 

 the depot of China paper, as it was of some other 

 objects of Chinese skill brought into the west by 

 the Arabs. It seems to be ascertained that a manu- 

 factory of cotton-paper was established at Mecca in 

 the year 716, from whence it was brought by the 

 Greeks to Constantinople. The invention of cot- 

 ton-paper, as far as common use required, superseded 

 that of all other writing materials. It was of good 



colour, made very thick, and glazed with a tooth or 

 hard stone, until it became smooth and lustrous, 

 when it resembled parchment, or vellum. The 

 Greeks are supposed to have introduced it into 

 Western Europe, first, through Venice into Italy, 

 and afterwards into Germany, where it was known 

 by the name of Greek parchment. Its importation 

 into Spain by the Arabs was most probably some- 

 what later. Documents of the eighth century on 

 cotton-paper exist in Italy, and many in Germany, 

 as early as the ninth and tenth ; in France and Spain 

 it appears to have come into general use about the 

 beginning of the eleventh century ; these dates are 

 deduced from those of manuscripts now existing ; 

 but it must be remembered that such documents do 

 not afford a certain proof of the period of the intro- 

 duction of paper; it is not likely that the very first 

 documents written have reached us ; many have 

 doubtless perished, and some may exist unknown 

 to us ; on the other hand, documents purporting to 

 be of a certain date, may be mere copies made at a 

 more recent period. The earliest date upon cotton- 

 paper known in England is nearly of the middle of 

 the eleventh century. Cotton-paper appears to 

 have supplied all Europe until the end of the thir- 

 teenth century, when linen-paper, such as we now 

 use, is ascertained to have been invented. This 

 invention has been placed considerably earlier by 

 some good authorities, but it would appear that they 

 have confounded linen with cotton-paper. In truth 

 the earlier specimens of linen-paper differ so little 

 from that of cotton, that it requires a considerable 

 acquaintance with the peculiar characters of the 

 two kinds to distinguish them. It is most likely 

 that before linen-paper came into use as a separate 

 article, linen rags would be occasionally mingled 

 with cotton by the manufacturer, and as such a 

 mixture would tend to improve the fabric, the pro- 

 portion of linen would be increased, until at length 

 it would be used alone. The oldest documents as- 

 certained by competent judges to be on paper made 

 wholly of linen, date very early in the fourteenth 

 century, and before the close of that century they 

 are found in England, France, Spain, Italy, and 

 Germany. But the manufacture spread slowly, 

 although the paper itself was soon in use in all parts 

 of Europe. The first manufactures appear to have 

 been in Spain and Italy; into the former country 

 the Arabs had long before introduced the making 

 of cotton-paper, and that of linen would naturally 

 be substituted there as early as in any place, par- 

 ticularly as cotton was rare, and flax an article of 

 frequent cultivation. In the year 1366, we find an 

 exclusive patent granted by the Republic of Venice 

 to the town of Treviso, for the manufacture of 

 linen-paper. England was so slow in adopting the 

 art, that although paper was used here as early as 

 the fourteenth century, the first paper-mill was not 

 built until the end of the sixteenth, when it was 

 introduced by a German at Dartford in Kent. See 

 Paper, History of. 



WROTHAM; a town of great antiquity, in the 

 county of Kent, twenty-four miles south-east by 

 east from London. It is supposed to have been 

 originally a town of the ancient Britons, and sub- 

 sequently a Roman station, from various relics dis- 

 covered here. It is situated at the foot of the 

 chalk-hills, and consists of two streets, through 

 which passes the military way from Oldborough to 

 Stane Street. Population in 1841, 2949. 



WRY-NECK (yunx torquilla) ; a small European 

 bird, related to and having some of the habits of 



